The 9 Worst Things You Can Do To Your Skin, Ranked

If the most important relationship you have is with yourself, we'd argue the second-most important one is with your skin. After all, you have to live in it every day for the rest of your entire life. And yet, try as we may to be good to our skin, we end up hurting it in little — and big — ways all the time. (The good news is, it's usually always willing to give us a second or third or hundredth chance.)

We asked dermatologist Debra Jaliman, MD, Assistant Professor of Dermatology at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, to weigh in on the worst things we can subject our complexions to. She ranked the habits in order from bad to cardinal sin-level — and while some are to be expected, others may surprise you. How many of them are you guilty of?

Click ahead for the countdown of the nine behaviours to nip in the bud ASAP if you love your dermis. But first, grab a glass of water to sip as you read.