The potential damage to skin health from wearing makeup during exercise

Wearing foundation while exercising can affect your skin health by changing the size of your pores and subsequently altering the release of sebum, which is responsible for keeping you healthy.

Lee Seok Ho The researchers at Texas A&M University in San Antonio recruited 43 college students, 20 men and 23 women. Participants first washed their faces with facial cleanser. The researchers then measured skin variables in different areas of the face, including pore size and sebum production.

A single layer of foundation was then applied to all participants’ faces, either on the forehead or cheeks, depending on the participant’s preference.

They then did a 20-minute moderate workout by running on a treadmill at 3 miles per hour (mph) for 5 minutes, 4 miles per hour for 10 minutes, and 5 miles per hour for 5 minutes.

After the training, the researchers repeated various skin measurements and found that areas with foundation had less sebum production than areas without makeup.

“This is a shining example of the negative effects of makeup during exercise,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “In this study, makeup use clogged pores and resulted in negative sebum scores.” The optimal amount of sebum is unknown, and too much can cause acne, while too little can cause skin irritation. To do.

Participants’ pore size also increased significantly in areas without foundation, but did not change significantly in areas with makeup. This suggests that this foundation may be inhibiting the natural enlargement of pores during exercise, preventing the release of sebum and sweat, which moisturize and cool the skin. The researchers did not assess whether these changes were related to skin problems.

Wearing foundation during exercise may not have a significant effect on most people who train for relatively short periods of time, but “we don’t know the effect on endurance-type athletes,” Lee said. say. The research team now wants to investigate the effects during longer exercise routines.

Shari Lipner Researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York say the study’s split-face design is a good approach, but complicates comparisons because our skin characteristics vary across different parts of the face. Additionally, she says, the skin around the nose, mouth and eyes has a different thickness compared to the skin on the forehead and cheeks, so ideally these areas should have been studied as well.