Ice & Skin?—Don’t do it!

I heard that rubbing ice on my face would help kill bacteria. I have problem skin and don’t know what to do. Is ice good for my face?

I was reading in your book that I should always be washing my face with tepid water, never cold. On a talk show I heard a celebrity say his secret to looking young was to put his face down in a sink full of ice every morning.

Warning: Do not try this at home! The extreme cold of ice will cause the fragile capillaries of your face to constrict—forcefully so—and over time this will damage or “break” the vessels and cause permanent redness. If that story about the celebrity is true, I bet if you were up close to his face, you’d see that his skin is red, red, RED!

I have a client whose daughter had problem skin and was going to an aesthetician who had been using ice on her face to kill the bacteria. This may seem good in the short-term, but in the long run it will no doubt cause considerable capillary damage. Maybe a teenager’s capillaries would be stronger than an older person’s, but nevertheless, this is a bad practice that I highly discourage. There are even facials that center around the use of ice on skin. Please—Don’t use ice on your skin! 

For more articles on what to do and what not to do, see:

• PLEASE—No Hot Water!
• 20 Ways To Keep Your Skin From Aging
• Too Busy for Skin Care? Sometimes doing The Basics is all you need

DON’T DO THIS!!!