Mother Doesn't Know Best: Bad Beauty Advice

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!