Here’s what happens to your skin if you’re in an air-con room 24 hours a day

Last Updated on 2016-05-19 , 1:54 pm

Now that Singapore’s humidity and hotness is reaching its peak, stepping into an aircon room after walking around in the sun is like hitting nirvana. No doubt everyone would want to hide in the comfort of our air-conditioned rooms. However, being the privileged pricks we are, there are always first-world problems to our air-conditioned lifestyles. When we hide out in our air-conditioned rooms, our skin becomes drier.

For those who are suffering from rashes due to heat, air-con can be a relief, but for those with really sensitive skin, air-con might not be as beneficial to you as it removes water from the room. It makes the room less humid and dries up the epidermis layer of the skin. This is especially bad while we’re sleeping, as water loss from our body does not get replaced. The lack of replacement water from skin tissues below the epidermal area thus results in flaky, dry skin.

In the long run, your skin loses elasticity. Because water is a major component in elasticity, air-conditioned rooms causes the skin to shrivel up. As a result, our skin is more prone to developing those disgusting wrinkles and creases. And what does more wrinkles and creases mean? Yes the skin ages faster, and we end up looking much older than we are.

The blast of cold air is often very welcoming, but actually, the drastic drop in temperature when we exit the hot environment of Singapore and enter a cool, air conditioned place might do more harm than good. It dries not only the skin, but also the mucus membrane and the eyes, possibly leading to eye infections, respiratory infections and muscular spasms if serious.

To prevent your skin from ageing due to long term exposure of the aircon, make sure you moisturise your skin thoroughly every day. For those stuck in an office, have a bottle of lotion on your desk.

Furthermore, to ensure elasticity of your skin, always remember to drink 8 cups of water per day, which actually is equivalent to 2 litres of water! Keeping hydrated replaces the water you have lost from air conditions.

Lastly, a good idea is to have a humidifier in an air condition room – it makes the air in the room less harsh on your skin. Or the best and most radical – switch that air condition off! It saves more money anyway.

Top Image: Mukhina Viktoriia / Shutterstock.com