12 Ways Smoking Ruins Your Good Looks

Constant smoke in your lungs affects your bloodstream. The nicotine in cigarettes narrows the blood vessels in the outermost layer of skin, taking away from the natural glow in your skin. The dullness only gets worse over time.

Your skin needs the oxygen and nutrients in your bloodstream for a healthy, even skin tone. However, because the toxins in your bloodstream can block needed elements from reaching the surface, your skin can develop uneven patches, making you appear much older.

Smoking speeds up the normal aging process. Yuck! Who wants that? Tobacco contains more than 4,000 chemicals, which decrease the strength and elasticity in your skin. As a result, skin begins to sag and wrinkle prematurely.

Since constant smoking destroys your skin’s natural elasticity, it starts to look saggy and loose. Loose skin usually appears in the neck, arms, stomach, and legs. The only way to reverse these effects is through expensive cosmetic surgery.

Age spots are the darker blotches that appear on your face and skin as you age. Since smoking forces your body to age faster, these unflattering dark spots appear much earlier and become permanent with time.

Research has shown that smokers are at a higher risk of developing psoriasis, a dry, flaky skin condition. Psoriasis is an immune-related condition and because smoking decreases immune health, it leads to a higher risk.

Aside from regular wrinkles, chronic smokers usually have more prominent crow’s feet. They form around your eyes due to the constant squinting from the smoke. Also, the blood flow around the eyes decreases, creating deeper, permanent wrinkles.

Nicotine decreases the skin’s elasticity, which means that the individual skin cells lose their tightness. This causes the pores to open up and become bigger. Open pores are more likely to become clogged, leading to acne or an infection.

Chronic smoking causes more prominent bags under the eyes. Apart from sagging skin and restricted blood flow, it actually negatively affects your sleep cycle. When you sleep you can’t smoke, obviously, so your body goes through a period of nicotine withdrawal. This withdrawal forces you to toss and turn at night, leading to a poor sleep.

Who doesn’t want sparkling white teeth? Well, if you smoke, you can kiss that dream goodbye. The nicotine in cigarettes stains your teeth yellow. Only a costly professional procedure can clean your teeth.

Not only does nicotine stain your teeth, but also your fingers and nails. But it doesn’t stop there. Smoking decreases blood circulation to the extremities, your fingers, so they are more susceptible to infections, like a nail fungus.

If wrinkles and yellow teeth aren’t enough, smoking also damages hurts your hair. The toxic chemicals damage the DNA in hair follicles, leading to thin, lifeless hair. It gets worse. Smokers’ hair tends to go grey faster than non-smokers.