If you are among the 1/3 of women climbing into bed without removing the makeup, you’re going to want to read this. The Daily Mail’s Anna Pursglove recently finished up a daring experiment to find out how sleeping with makeup is affecting the healthiness of your skin. The results were not pretty.

Anna went on for a month, applying makeup as she would usually, but instead of washing it off at night before bed, all of it would be left on. Mascara, foundation and all. Before beginning the experiment, Anna had her skin analyzed at a 3D Imaging Studio and then, she went boldly where no woman has gone before…four weeks of sleeping with her makeup on.

The Results

The effects of the experiment were almost immediately noticeable. Even without checking back at the 3D Imaging Studio, Anna’s skin was visibly worsening quickly. At one point, her eye had even swollen shut due to mascara. Once the month was over, Anna looked completely and shockingly different. Her skin was red and blotchy, she had dry lips and the corners of her mouth cracked. It was as if she had just spent weeks walking through a desert, but instead of sand, the ground was made of poison ivy. Now, that was just what was visible to the naked eye. When Anna checked back up with the 3D Imaging Studio, she found out that everything was just as bad as it looked.

The scans found that Anna’s skin surface had worsened by 10% on the right side of her face and forehead and 20% on the left (the side that she sleeps on). There was an overall 5% drop in the overall moisture levels of her skin along with a 2% increase in redness and 5% increase in pore size. The experts approximated that Anna’s skin had aged approximately ten years in just those four months.

Luckily, the effects of the experiment were not permanent as long as daily cleansing and moisturizing was re-adopted. Don’t try this at home, ladies. Just wash the makeup off before bed no matter how busy you may be. Your skin will thank you.

Photo by Daily Mail