[Beauty] Mary Kay Party Facts...or Fiction?

I recently went to a Mary Kay party at a friend's house. I normally avoid these parties like the plague, but the host is a really close friend of mine and I hadn't seen her in awhile so I agreed to go. It was exactly what you'd expect - nothing out of the ordinary. I have my opinions of Mary Kay that I won't get into here, because that's not the point. The MK rep said 2 things that stuck with me after the fact, and I wanted to find out if there was any truth behind them.

#1: Mites live in the base of our eyelashes.
This awesome tidbit came up during a discussion of washing our faces and making sure to wash off all of our makeup. You guys, I was not honest at the party but since we're all friends here, I'll be honest now: I sometimes don't wash my face or take off my makeup at night. Cue the gasps!

It's just that some nights, I'm so exhausted, I can't stand the thought of spending 10 minutes over the sink. Yes, I know. That's a horrible excuse. So when I heard about the mites, I had to know. The rep said "If you don't wash your makeup off at night, mites that live in your eyelashes can actually eat eyelashes off!" Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa???

So I looked it up. I don't know about the "eating your eyelashes off" part, but we definitely have mites. (Don't go look it up unless you want to be completely grossed out. Just trust me). And not just in our eyelashes - all over our faces. They live off of dead skin cells, and those of us (like myself) with oily skin have even more than the rest of the world. Yikes! I think I'm going to be more dilligent about washing my face.

#2: You should only use the same brand of product for all of your skincare items because they are designed to work together.
This one sounded a bit fishy to me. She kept reiterating it - saying even if it's not Mary Kay, your skincare products should be from one skincare line. Over and over and over again. So I wondered - is this a ploy to sell more product, or is this really true?

I'll be honest - I couldn't find a single yes or no answer in all my research on this one. But I did get this basic overlying answer: active ingredients play a big role in the answer. Things like retinol, or alpha hydroxy, or any ingredient that's meant to actively work on your skin, can interact with one another. So, by sticking to the same line, you're ensuring that all of the products work together in a way that minimizes unwanted effects - irritation, redness, etc.

However - if you're not using more than one active ingredient - you should easily be able to mix cleansers with moisturizers with toners from different lines and have no issues at all. You can even do this with active ingredients, but this is where you start to open yourself up to potential irritation with the overlapping use of certain ingredients.

Whew. I feel smarter now. Hopefully you do too! :)