Hot shower is one of life’s simple pleasures, but it’s dangerous for your skin.
Nothing feels better than having a hot bath after a cold night or a stressful day, but how much heat can your skin tolerate?
As fantastic as it feels at the moment, a hot shower could be doing more harm than good when it comes to your skin’s health. Some people live for those extended hot showers early in the morning or at the end of the day as part of our daily routines to get through the day. Yet, as soothing as they can be, they can also do significant damage to your skin’s natural functions over time.
Even if you don’t suffer from dry skin or any condition aggravated by hot water, a hot shower still isn’t doing your skin any favors. Any skin condition characterized by a defective skin barrier can be worsened by a hot shower. We’ll enlighten you on the reasons you should stop taking a hot bath in today’s article.
Here’s why you should avoid hot showers.
1. Damages skin cells
The skin consists of 3 separate layers. Hot showers affect the very most outer layer of your skin, the epidermis. Taking hot showers often damages your keratin cells, which are the cells that make up this layer of the skin. These cells exist to keep the moisture inside your skin, but exposure to heat can often damage the epidermis, and worsen the condition of your skin.
2. Aggravates skin conditions
Warm water is a yes, but hot water is no. If your showers are too hot, this can often aggravate acne and cause it to spread. Dry skin is caused by an impaired skin barrier and deficiency in the necessary healthy fats in the top layer of the skin.
These fats are essential to normal skin function. That dry skin can become a more serious issue with regular and extended exposure to hot water, which further strips away the protective lipid layer responsible for keeping moisture in and bacteria and irritants out.
3. Dries the skin
Hot water strips oils from the skin faster than warm water. The layer of the skin responsible for keeping the moisture inside your skin is damaged. Long, hot showers can combat the skin’s natural functions as a protective barrier and deplete natural oils from the surface while also stripping hair of its own protective oils and weaken your complexion altogether.
The heat from hot water combined with soap will soften your skin and slowly strip away its natural, oily protective barriers. Some of this can good like removing dirt, sweat, or body odor. However, we want to keep in the skin’s natural moisture where possible and prevent dry or irritated, itchy skin.
