We are all guilty of falling asleep, at least once, with makeup on. The morning after is a disaster for our skin. Then begins the endless fight with your skin to fix it. To make this easy, we are bringing you a comprehensive guide on what to do after you fall asleep with makeup on. But to make sense of it, we will also note down what happens when you wear makeup for long hours. Grab a cup of coffee and start noting!
What are the consequences that one may face if they sleep with makeup on?
Makeup has preservatives and ingredients that can sit well on your pores to enhance your beauty and hide your flaws. But if you wear it for a longer period of time, it can damage your skin quicker than you think. If you’ve slept with makeup on, that means your skin has not breathed the whole night. This means no hydration for your skin. So now you have parched skin with makeup on. If your makeup is not quality then it can lead to oxidative stress for your skin. Just to put two and two together for you, this obviously means your skin barrier has started suffering. What will this visibly look like for you? To mention a few concerns, it will lead to-
What are the factors that you should consider the morning after waking up with makeup on?
Given what damage makeup causes if you wear it for long hours, we’d like to throw light on what you must focus on to prevent and treat early signs of damage. Taking care of these two factors can solve a lot of your problems-
1. Skin barrier
It is that hero who protects your skin, no matter what. Think of it as an invisible sheet that will filter out the baddies for you. But it is not so strong that it can withstand a night with makeup on. Your skin can be dehydrated and can potentially turn oily. This will be perfect for pathogenic organisms to grow on your skin since no hydration means a weakened skin barrier. So your first concern should be to strengthen your skin barrier.
Learn more about the skin barrier here.
2. Preventing or treating breakout
Clogged pores are a common concern one might have after wearing makeup for long hours. This can lead to full-blown cystic acne or pustules if you do not take preventive measures. At times you may not immediately see a pimple rising the morning after sleeping with makeup on, but eventually, they can. The fact is that preventing pimples is much easier than treating them so take the right steps to look after your clogged pores.
What should your morning routine look like?
We have made a simple 7 step routine that you can follow. This is a preventive and treatment guide to ensure that your skin remains drama free.
Step 1: Double cleanse
This is a no-brainer. You need to take off everything from your skin. Makeup had blocked your skin from breathing the entire night. That means it could have potentially irritated your skin. It’s time to gently take off all the gunk. The right way to do so is by using an oil-based cleanser. So all the ingredients that are oil-soluble will dissolve. You need to follow this with a water-based or gel-based cleanser. This will eliminate the remaining dirt to give you a clean canvas for your skincare routine. We love double cleansing because it is such a thoughtful way to clean and let your skin breathe.
Learn more about double cleansing here.
Sublime recommends Aminu Little Helper Melting Balm Cleanser as a first cleanser since this is an oil-based cleanser. Follow this with Aminu Essentials AHA Face Wash that helps to brighten and fade dark spots since it has AHAs to gently exfoliate.
Step 2: Massage with a facial tool
Just to prep your skin and start with internal healing, focus on lymphatic draining and improved blood circulation. Lymphatic fluid is what makes you puffy so use a clean Gua sha, Kansa wand, or a Jade roller to drain the fluids and pump up the blood circulation. Blood circulation will help you with faster healing in case your skin is mildly irritated with makeup resting on your skin all night. Just make sure that you’re not tugging at your skin while massaging with facial tools. We love to put 2 drops of Rosehip or Hemp seed oil. They won’t clog your pores but will provide enough lubrication for your tools to glide easily on your skin.
Sublime recommends Ras Luxury Oils Glow Ritual Duo Set. The beauty elixir oil is lightweight and non-greasy while the jade roller helps you efficiently drain lymphatic fluids.
Step 3: Gently exfoliate
This step has to be gentle. Your skin has gone through enough drama and we don’t recommend anything extreme at this point. A good way to ensure that you’re gentle while exfoliating is by using PHA or enzyme exfoliation. Exfoliation will take care of destroying any pathogenic (harmful organisms) growth and also improve your cell turnover rate. If your skin has been exposed to exfoliants before, we’d say that you can pick a lower concentration of AHA or BHA in this routine.
Learn more about chemical exfoliation for beginners here.
Sublime recommends Deconstruct Beginners Exfoliating Serum that has 5% Lactic acid to exfoliate gently and 1.5% Probiotics that will strengthen the skin barrier.
Step 4: Mask
Now that your skin is clean and it is in a receptive mode after exfoliation, let’s hydrate it. Pick a nourishing and hydrating face mask. A mask that contains Hyaluronic Acid, Niacinamide, Snail mucin, Centella Asiatica, Ceramides, and Vitamin C can help you draw moisture to your skin. You can also use a sleeping mask in your PM routine to deeply hydrate your skin.
Sublime recommends FCL Hydrating Mask. It has Hyaluronic acid and AHAs which are known to be humectants. They deeply hydrate your skin without making your skin feel greasy. It’s a great pick to revive your skin.
Step 5: Treat and prevent breakouts
The thing about makeup is that it sits on your face to enhance your beauty. But if you’ve kept it on your face for the whole night, be sure that it can potentially block your pores. We’d like to pick a page from Korean skincare rules. They are big on preventive acts rather than treatment to achieve healthy glass skin. This is really important for you to note after a night full of makeup. So pick a lower concentration of Salicylic acid, BHA that is oil soluble and thus, helps you keep your pores clean.
Sublime recommends Neemli Naturals 2% Salicylic Acid Deep Clean Concentrate. True to its name, this will surely cleanse your pores and control oil production.
Step 6: Moisturise
Use a good moisturiser that has Ceramides, Peptides, Vitamin E, etc that can heal your skin barrier. Most of the problems start with the guts and skin barrier. This is a good time to really focus on the skin barrier and to imbibe ingredients that can repair your barrier that could be damaged due to makeup. The skin barrier is 50% Ceramides which means one should include it without a second thought.
Sublime recommends Swisse Vitamin B3 Anti Blemish Moisturiser. This suits all skin types. It has BHA, Niacinamide, Glycerin, and Green tea extract as its key ingredients that helps to control oil production, protect from free radicals, and moisturise your skin.
Step 7: Take care of your eyes and lips
The lips and eyes have the thinnest layer of skin. So naturally, it is easy to lose moisture in this area and also they’re prone to damage. Make sure to use a good lip sleeping mask that can deeply nourish them. You can also practice skin slugging which can help you prevent the loss of moisture. Skin slugging is a process that involves using an occlusive to prevent loss of moisture. We do not recommend scrubbing your lips the morning after sleeping with makeup on, since we do not know how your lips are feeling at this point.
Sublime recommends Unpa Bubi Bubi Lip Mask. It has a blend of 4 types of black food which are rich in Antioxidants. This will deeply hydrate your lips too.
For eyes, we recommend Dear, Klairs Fundamental Nourishing Eye Butter. It has quad-peptides that can help you improve the elasticity and reduce fine lines around our eyes.
And of course, every day your AM routine must end with SPF. If you don’t wear SPF and then all your skincare is of no use. So do not miss it!
To end this, we’d like to highlight the importance of letting your skin be for a few days. Give it some time to recover and treat it well. A few days off makeup would be a great preventive measure to not blow up your skin.
Key takeaway
No matter how tired you are, there is no excuse for sleeping with makeup. They shouldn’t even sit on your pores for a longer period since it stops your skin from breathing. We recommend double cleansing every time while taking off makeup and sunscreen to let your skin breathe. At this point, one must focus on hydrating the skin and cleaning the pores. We hope our comprehensive guide on the morning routine after sleeping with makeup on, yields you good skin!
- Divya Salvi
