6 daily habits that can make you look older than your age (2024)

Remember your teenage days when a little bit of foundation and eye make-up would make you look all grown up? Well, that was just a temporary moment. But growing old is something that can’t be stopped or reversed. It’s inevitable, but ageing before your actual time can be in your hands. You might not realise it, but there are daily habits that can make you look older than your age. Right from drinking alcohol to staying dehydrated, there are many bad habits that affect your skin. Just make healthy lifestyle choices, and see how they affect your looks.

HealthShots got in touch with dermatologist Dr Jushya Bhatia Sarin to know about the daily habits that can make you look older.

1. Not moisturising your skin

Mornings might be busy for you. By night time, you might be all tired to reach out for your moisturiser. This is one of the many bad habits that can make you older than your age. Dr Sarin says that well-moisturised skin looks supple and maintains a healthy skin barrier.

2. Not removing your make-up before bedtime

If you have time to apply make-up in the morning and doing a bit of touch-up hours later, you should also take out time to remove make-up. Not removing your make-up and going to bed can compact your skin pores and lead to acne.

3. Over exfoliation

Do you exfoliate every day? It’s not such a good idea as too much exfoliation using harsh scrubs can lead to micro tears in your skin. The expert says this can lead to pigmentation over a period of time.

4. Too much sugar intake

Do you like to have sugar in your morning tea and evening tea or sugar in snacks or in desserts or drinks? That’s a lot of sugar consumption in a day and you need to control it. Sugar molecules cause glycation of collagen, and this process leads to quicker collagen degradation.

5. Staying dehydrated

Dehydration can lead to many health problems, and it will show your face too. You should know signs of dehydrated skin. If you don’t stay hydrated, the moisture from your skin will also disappear (signs of dehydrated skin and ways to fix it).

6. Drinking alcohol

Drinking alcohol is bad for your skin, and if it’s your daily habit, it’s definitely time to say goodbye to it. Alcohol takes fluids out of your skin, so it will feel dry after drinking. Once dryness becomes your skin’s friend, it won’t take much time for wrinkles to pop up.

Healthy habits for your skin you can try instead

1. Moisturise according to your skin type

Every woman’s skin type varies, which calls for different moisturisers (how to moisturise skin the Ayurveda way). Dr Sarin suggests women with oily skin to use a gel-based moisturiser. Those with dry skin can go for a cream-based moisturiser. As for women with normal skin, lotions work just fine.

2. Exfoliate one or two times a week

This is sufficient to remove the dead skins cells without over stripping or irritating your skin.

3. Wear sunscreen under your make-up

Go for a sunscreen with SPF 50 and PA+++ (very good protective abilities against UVA rays) before applying any make-up product.