You wake up feeling dirty. You take a look at your skin, especially your face, and it is dirty. Puzzling, isn’t it?
Why the dirt feeling and looks, especially because you took your bath before bed the previous night? Not to worry, experts in skin care give reasons why this happens, and, more importantly, how to get around it.
Dead skin flakes
According to dermatologists, every minute, humans shed about 30,000 dead skin flakes. Dr. Tanya Kormeilli said, “We’re constantly shedding dead skin cells, oozing skin oils, and secreting sweat onto our sheets.
“Relaxing on your bed wearing dirty clothes (like when you’re reading a book or scrolling on your phone), can transfer bacteria onto your bedding, which can survive for weeks or even months.
“All these culminate in waking up dirty,” the physician said.
Night sweat
Another dermatologist, Dr. Hairat Jimoh-balogun, notes that, “Humans tend to perspire at night. So, when you wake up in the morning, there’s all this sweat and bacteria from the sheets that’s just kind of sitting there on your skin,” hence the dirt feeling you have on waking up.
She warns that the human skin can accumulate environmental debris while we sleep, hence the dirt look we wake up with in the morning.
“Dead skin cells and allergens may collect on your pillowcase and be transferred to the facial skin throughout the night,” Jimoh-Balogun says; adding, “Circulated air (from you air conditioner or forced heated air) can also kick up dust, mold and other environmental irritants that may collect on facial skin overnight.”
Again, skin care experts point to the eye gunk we each wake up with every morning, making us to feel really dirty and look unkempt, however hard we try to feel otherwise.
The eyes
According to eye specialist, Dr. Kola Adejare, the eye gunk is that crusty stuff in the corners of your eyes when you wake up in the morning. It is medically known as rheum, and it’s all part of a good night’s sleep.
Eye specialist, Dr. Kola Adejare, says, sleep crust is a mix of mucus, exfoliated skin cells, oils, and tears produced or shed by the eye during sleep.
According to the Opthalmologist, it’s a natural part of healthy eye function.
“During the day, all of that stuff is washed away by blinking natural tears, which keep it from sticking around. But when you’re asleep, gravity and the fact that you’re not blinking, makes it collect in the corners of the eyes,” he says.
He adds that virtually everyone wakes up with sleep crust; and that a healthy, functioning eye will produce the mucus, salts, and oils that cause it to form, though it can show up in different amounts in different people.
“Some people may have so little material that they may not even notice it’s there; but during allergy season, or when your eyes are dry, you may get a little more. It should be white or light cream color—which is normal,” Adejare said.
The way out
For those of us in the tropics, expert recommend that we take a quick shower in the morning, “to wash off all the gunk and sweat that you’ve been sleeping in all night.”
Plus, a lot of people are intimate at night. “So, there are so many reasons to shower in the morning,” Adejare said.
