If your socials have been flooded with viral beauty hacks recently and you’ve been thiiiiiiiinking about dipping a toe in, make sure you read this first! Mon Barton breaks down the viral beauty hacks to try – and the three you should immediately bin.
If your social media feeds look anything like mine, you’re only ever three swipes away from someone suggesting a ‘game-changing beauty hack’ like rubbing a banana on your face.
We live in the golden age of DIY beauty, where TikTok algorithms serve up beauty tips (have you SEEN how good teens are at make-up now?) with all the authority of a board-certified dermatologist and none of the qualifications.
While some of these viral shortcuts are genuinely great, others belong squarely in the bin – or at least back in the fruit bowl. To save your skin barrier (and your dignity), I’ve sifted through the nonsense to try to separate the genius tricks from the downright disasters.
To Try:
- Prime your foundation brush: If your foundation goes on patchy, clings to dry skin or has those tell-tale streaky brush marks, try this. Prime your brush with a drop of lightweight moisturiser by working it into the bristles before applying your base. A pre-moistened brush stops the bristles from sucking up half your expensive foundation and guides the bristles to a more uniform shape, giving you a seamless blend – just give it a proper wash weekly (yep, at least weekly) so it doesn’t turn into a bacteria farm.
- The ‘Vacuuming’ shaving technique: I’ve been telling everyone who will listen about this one since I stumbled across it on TikTok. If, like me, you’ve spent decades pulling your razor upwards from ankle to knee, lifting it, tapping it off and repeating, you’re doing it wrong. The viral trick is to keep the razor in contact with your skin continuously – pull up to cut, then glide gently back down – no lifting. Imagine you’re vacuuming. Sliding back down automatically clears trapped hair from the blades while giving you a WAY closer, faster shave without the constant stop-starting. Your legs will be so much smoother, trust.
- Reverse powdering: With summer and festie season knocking on the door, this is for my oily, sweaty girls. Popularised by iconic MUA Wayne Goss on YouTube, you’re going to switch up your routine and dust a fine layer of translucent powder, followed by a spritz of setting spray, over your moisturiser/primer and before your liquid foundation. Goes against all your instincts, right? But I’ve tried it, and it means you use way less product and your foundation lasts all day without creasing.
To Bin:
- DIY sheet mask spray: Squeezing leftover serum from a sheet mask pouch into a travel bottle might seem genius and feel thrifty, but it’s not the one. Add water, and you’re essentially creating a cosy incubator for mould and bacteria, posing serious contamination risks. Spraying that over your mug is a fast track to a breakout. Once that serum is out of its sterile packet and hits the air, it needs to be used. What you CAN do, is add it to a dollop of moisturiser when finishing your skincare session. Mix it and use it on the spot.
Using lemons and bananas as skincare: TikTok loves claiming banana peels are ‘natural Botox’ and scrubbing your face with a lemon is a great exfoliator, but experts don’t agree.
Banana peel may give your skin a temporary smoothness, but the compounds in it can’t penetrate your skin to do any real work. Also, yuck? Meanwhile, raw lemon juice has an aggressive pH of 2–3 that strips your skin barrier. Mix that acidity with the brutal NZ UV index, and you’re looking at chemical burns or phytophotodermatitis. Leave the bananas in your smoothie and the lemons in your G&T.
- Skin Flooding: Slathering multiple toners, heavy serums, mists, and essences on in quick succession does look satisfying on social media, but for most complexions, it’s total overkill. Trapping that much heavy product can clog pores and create congestion, not to mention NONE of us need to be spending that much money on that many products. Often the ‘glass skin’ you see on those beauty creators is just excess product sitting on the surface. As Skinfluencer James Welch points out, you only really need a mist toner, a serum and a moisturiser to do a great ‘damp skin’ routine.
