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Mother Doesn't Know Best: Bad Beauty Advice

30 April, 2022 - 03:19pm by - Head Pixie | 7 Comments

compiled by BR Kellie

Moisturise your decolletage. Don't line your inner eye. Pulling your hair back to tightly can cause hairloss. Over the years the Beauty Review Crew have had a fair amount of advice doled out by their mothers and, on the whole, it's been good advice that we've taken heed of. However, for every good piece of beauty advice our mother's have given us, they've also demonstrated some serious 'what not to do' moments. So which advice did the Beauty Editor's of Beauty Review choose to avoid? The following is anonymous to protect the guilty (and because we don't want our mum's growling at us)...

First of all, I'm never getting a perm. Ever. Yes, they've come a long way. Yes, they can look great. But there's no way I'll ever do it, not after watching my mother obsessively tease and lift her perm until her hair was skyscraper high during the 80s with the help of her lift comb. The lift comb is a symbol of what I do not want to look like and to this day if I see one I shudder.

Is there anything more revolting that the scent of Opium? I can hear the Opium lovers already getting riled up, but hear me out. While there's technically nothing wrong with the perfume, when your mother believes bathing in it before dropping you off to school with the car's windows wound up tight and you're just inhaling it for the whole torturous ten minute trip... there's nothing more revolting. To this day whenever I get a whiff of it I feel ill. At least I learned one thing out of the whole dreaddful experience: when it comes to perfume, less is more.

I was born pasty. That's my skin tone. I don't even suit fake tan. I'm meant to be what I am and I'm good with that. My mother? Not so much. Growing up I was told that I didn't look healthy and that I needed to go out in the sun. Being a good girl I did just that... armed with a bottle of baby oil. The result? A goodly amount of burn and a whole bunch of sun damage in my later years. Thanks Mum. Not.

I think back to my family and I, huddled around the bathroom mirror, squeezing our blackheads and whiteheads, exclaiming over the gunk we'd remove, and I wish I knew then what I know now. Squeezing your pimples is a no-no. It can cause infection, it can cause bacteria to spread under the surface causing further pimples. It can lead to scarring. And yet my mother was a fan. She'd even pay us to let her squeeze a particularly gnarly zit, and we kids, thinking of all the lollies we could buy with the money, would let her. While the pimple scars may have faded, the emotional ones are still very real.

No joke. If there's something going wrong in your life, my mother will tell you to dab nail polish on it. This has resulted in doll's faces being rubbed off, on my lounge having a bleach spot after I tried to get a stain off using nail polish, not to mention me trying to use it to remove the scuffs from my favourite shoes, which resulted in the gold detailing coming off. No, nail polish does not fix everything. Use with caution.

So, what beauty advice did your mother dole out that you chose to ignore? And if you're a mum or mum-figure to some kidlets, what advice of yours have they refused to take? Get chatting below!

Comments

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14th May, 2022

Hmmmm my mum told me "you need your beauty and your cutie sleep" that's good advice. I ignored and like stay up late and now I'm not a morning person like she is and so the struggle to get up for the kids is hard I like sleeping in and just trying to fall asleep is hard

9th May, 2022

"You're too young to shave" - it took the wardrobe mistress at a stage production telling mum I needed to shave for me to finally be allowed - so embarassing!

3rd May, 2022

To connect with the sun exposure. The worst advice was that if I got sunburnt mum would tell me to have a hot bath or shower to help push the burn out. So basically adding more heat/burn damage to my already wrecked skin! I mentioned this to her a few years back and she denied this advice, thankfully my little brother backed me up on her ridiculous advice.

2nd May, 2022

To my sister in pastiness - I feel your pain! in my family it was coconut oil, enough for a proper roasting. I stopped after I got sunstroke.

Mum used to tell me to use oatmeal face masks - result? oatmeal all over the carpet. Likewise with tumeric but worse - tumeric stains like nothing else!

2nd May, 2022

With me it was the 'you're peely-wally; away out and get the sun at you' one (my mum's Scottish). And I dutifully went out and roasted my naturally 'peely-wally' skin till it burned. Poor mum. It was the 70s and 80s, but she still feels terrible about it to this day.

2nd May, 2022

Washing my face with soap.....um no thanks mum well at least not back then omg my face would feel super dry. I would happily use a bar of dove now though.

2nd May, 2022

Mum was not one to give advice except for telling me off , l got most of my information from magazines or chatting to friends!

MareeB
2nd May, 2022

My Dad always said never to use soap on our faces because his mother never did and she never had a line on her face. Probably good advice, but I also have cousins on that side of the family who are 70 and look 40, so I think it's more than soap!

MareeB
2nd May, 2022

"Peely-Wally" lol nicer than "geez you look anemic" lol

MareeB
3rd May, 2022

I did that once and when I got out of the bath I fainted - the only time I've ever fainted in my life.