What’s the worst beauty tip you’ve ever received?

[Paniconthedancefloor]

Inspired by the “what is the best beauty tip you’ve received” thread, I wonder about the opposite….

What is the most useless, unhelpful beauty tip you have ever received?

I’m torn between being advised to sit in the sun with tomato ketchup in my hair years ago to bring out the highlights (it didn’t and was v sticky), and the first time I fake tanned but didn’t know to wear mitts when applying and ended up with conker coloured palms for 2 weeks.

Ah reminds me of my friend wiping her face with neat TCP on cotton wool.

I thought that a bit savage, and asked her who told her to do that?

” You did” she said

I had said to use Witch Hazel, which is altogether a milder thing to use.

Ouch

Witch hazel! I forgot about witch hazel. Good stuff for spots. Sprained ankles too I think, or I might just be making that up?

A older lady came up to me once on a bus when I was a teenage acne sufferer. Complete stranger. She advised me to use coal soap to help clear it up. I was mortified!

Hairdresser 'Your hair would look lovely with a tight, 80's spiral perm'

Teenage me 'Hmm, my hair is very thick, very curly and long, are you sure'

Hairdresser 'Yes, absolutely. It will be lovely'

It wasn't and looked like one of those foofy dogs on crufts which has had an extreme, curly backcomb!🙄

Many years ago i tried a handy hint in a magazine. If your mascara is running out put a drop of baby oil into the tube. Except i had long eyelasshes and every time i blinked i had smudges on my eyes, top and bottom.

The bastards at more magazine! Mash a banana and rub it through your 2 foot length of hair for a lovely nourished shine. Don’t. It cost me about £90 to have corrected plus the humiliation of sitting in the hairdressers, every single employee from the Saturday girl to the owner and all the other patrons sat around me laughing and coming up with ideas to get the bloody stuff out. I’ve done some stupid things in the pursuit of beauty.

I do both of these, not because I'm chasing any beauty standard, but because I'm lazy and don't want to pay a hairdresser to mess up my very curly hair, when I can do that myself.

I sometimes moisturise... I'm just lucky to have clear skin, inherited it (thanks mum).

I think it's an individual thing, though, and also your age is a factor. I remember being told that your hair adapts to the frequency of washing and that if you start to wash it every day, you'll end up HAVING to wash it every day because the sebacious glands will try to compensate by producing more oil.

Now, I don't know if there's any truth in this - perhaps any hairdressers on here could comment? But in my own experience I have found it to be true; the more frequently I wash my hair, the more quickly it becomes greasy.

Now I'm older, if I washed it every day, it'd very soon be as dry as straw though!

I haven't read the full thread, so my two could have been mentioned.

One is an old one, to pluck your eyebrows in to oblivion....sometimes they just don't grow back, and I have a friend who is living proof of this.

The other may be bad, or not, I have never been brave enough to try it.
Hemorrhoid cream under the eyes, some swear it diminishes eye bags.

Definitely sun-in! 40 yeas ago mind...
Those weird stickers you put on spots - DD uses them - looks odd!

Yes, it stops a run long enough to get home/make it to the end of the day. Ditto hairspray!

To condition my hair with baby oil. I probably used half a bottle and it took weeks to remove it all. Not as bad as my sister who decide to shave off her eyebrows and pencil them back in - it WAS the 70s but still 😳

@Sunshineandrainbow you can wash your hair everyday - I do because it makes me feel better

Washing my hair with egg yolk, yoghurt as a face mask.

I remember loads of people doing this in the 70's. They all looked surprised. Madness.

Dear Lord the 80’s perms… I have fine, porous naturally wavy hair.. not that I knew that at 16… just that a perm took really well… anyway I would tell the hairdresser to use big rollers .. never listened.. still paid and cried on way home each time….. yes each time as I did this more than once believing a new hairdresser wouldn’t make me look like a poodle

It tightens the skin under the eyes. It's a very old trick and will work for a short time.

The 80s. Try 'Sun in ' to give you natural looking highlights. A disaster, dry orange streaks. Took months to grow out...I was a broke student so couldn't afford to get it repaired. 😫

I find an awful lot of modern stuff is designed to get you to use more stuff - double cleansing, 2 lots of shampooing. Most of the time it’s not needed.
Also the old one that you needed to use products from the same range for them to work so you’d spend a fortune on a whole skincare range from Clarins. We actually believed if you took one product away and added one from a different range that it would cancel the whole lot.
Clean beauty is best - rubbish.
And just in case anyone comes for me I have worked in this industry. I have sat in rooms inventing problems you never even knew you had, words to make you feel you needed help, and the blurb on the wonder product that would save you.
All businesses are there to sell. Yes they may help and provide some solutions but their main focus is on getting you to part with your cash.
Finally that Astral cream is responsible for some celebrities’ skin.
Oh go on another one - a lot of skincare experts just started as writers. Then they got given a job on a beauty desk and a load of potions to work their way through. Nobody can try that much stuff in their own time.
So when you pick up a glossy magazine and see a page full of products most of the wording will come from a press release from the company selling the products
Bloggers originally started off giving more impatient views but now they, along with influencers, earn from selling.

It should be dissolve an aspirin. The salicylic acid does treat spots.

One science lesson at school my friend told me you could use chinagraph pencils as eyeliner. I believed her and took one home to use. When she found out, she laughed her head off!

“Pluck your eyebrows to death to look like Pamela Anderson in Baywatch” they said.

Now it seems my mum and aunts and all their friends their age are having their brows which never grow tattooed on. 😩

Some growth factor serums in expensive skincare are formulated from cells extracted from newborn foreskins.

My mother did my perms in the 1980s to save money. I thought I looked cool. Looking back at photos it looks exactly as you would expect.

Although, for those who are squeamish about using various bodily fluids etc, I have to tell you I use beef tallow balm for a variety of things and it is great (obv not if you are a vegetarian!).