The con­se­quences of bad skin habits can range from mild ir­ri­ta­tion to an in­creased risk of skin can­cer. If you aren't see­ing the clear skin you want, take a mo­ment to re­view your skin care reg­i­men. The fol­low­ing bad skin habits are very com­mon-chances are you'll find at least one that you can change in your pur­suit of healthy skin.

Smok­ing

"Smok­ing caus­es pre­ma­ture age­ing of the skin, makes sun dam­age worse, and makes pre­can­cer­ous le­sions worse," says der­ma­tol­o­gist Clay J Cock­erell, MD, med­ical di­rec­tor of Dermpath Di­ag­nos­tics in Dal­las, Texas. "It in­creas­es wrin­kling, adds a yel­low­ish dis­col­oration to the skin, and in­creas­es skin can­cers." Smok­ing may be one of the hard­est bad skin habits to break, so if you're strug­gling to quit, work with your pri­ma­ry care provider on a smok­ing ces­sa­tion plan.

Los­ing sleep

In con­trast to smok­ing, los­ing sleep hasn't been proven to dam­age healthy skin at the bio­chem­i­cal lev­el, but it can cause you to look a lit­tle worse for wear. Lack of sleep can show up on your skin, mak­ing you look wrin­kled or tired, says Cock­erell. In­stead of at­tempt­ing to cov­er­ing up signs of sleep­less­ness, try to get the rec­om­mend­ed eight hours of sleep per night.

Pick­ing at skin

Stress, skin rash­es, med­ica­tion, and in­sect bites are com­mon rea­sons that peo­ple pick at or scratch oth­er­wise healthy skin. "When you start scratch­ing at the skin, it caus­es an itch-scratch cy­cle. The nerves get larg­er and trans­mit a sen­sa­tion even though there is noth­ing there to cause the itch," ex­plains Cock­erell. Re­peat­ed pick­ing or scratch­ing al­so can be due to men­tal ill­ness or neu­ro­log­i­cal dam­age.

Make­up

Some peo­ple can for­get to clean make­up off for a day or two with­out any prob­lem, while oth­ers will break out if they sleep in their make­up just once. A lay­er of dirt may form if you go with­out cleans­ing long enough. Clean skin is im­por­tant. Fol­low a dai­ly skin hy­giene pro­gramme with skin care prod­ucts ap­pro­pri­ate for your skin type.

Ex­fo­li­a­tion

It seems like every prod­uct ad­ver­tis­es ex­fo­liants and every woman's mag­a­zine touts the ben­e­fits, but should you re­al­ly do it? Ex­fo­li­a­tion may un­der­mine your ef­forts to get clear skin, says Cock­erell.

"New skin turns it­self over every six weeks," he says. You might find that ag­gres­sive ex­fo­li­a­tion ac­tu­al­ly leads to dry, ir­ri­tat­ed, and red skin. A bet­ter tac­tic is to keep skin clean and well-mois­turised. If you do choose to ex­fo­li­ate, keep it to once a week if you have dry skin, or twice a week if your skin is oily. Fig­ur­ing out which skin care prod­ucts work best for your needs is a tri­al-and-er­ror process, says Cock­erell. "If you've got re­al­ly dry skin, you need to use some­thing with more of an oil-based com­po­nent. If your skin tends to be more oily, use wa­ter-based prod­ucts-oil-based prod­ucts can make pim­ples worse." Tin­gling, itch­ing, dry­ness, and ir­ri­ta­tion are all signs that the prod­uct you are us­ing isn't right for you. Con­sult a der­ma­tol­o­gist for help in find­ing the right prod­ucts for your needs.

Fo­cus­ing on­ly on face

Two prob­lems can arise from ne­glect­ing the rest of your body, even as you care for your face: dry ar­eas and sun dam­age. Peo­ple of­ten mois­turise their face, but for­get about the oth­er parts of their body, which can al­so be­come dry and cracked. Like­wise, peo­ple of­ten put sun­screen on their face but then let their back, arms, and legs go un­pro­tect­ed. Skin can­cer can ap­pear any­where, stress­es Cock­erell, so in­clude your en­tire body when you mois­turise and ap­ply sun­screen.

Cell­phones

You may have heard that press­ing a phone against your cheek can cause break­outs. Cock­erell notes that some peo­ple are al­ler­gic to the ma­te­ri­als phones are made from. Bac­te­ria can al­so col­lect and grow on phone sur­faces. Wipe phones clean reg­u­lar­ly and your skin shouldn't be af­fect­ed.