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Is cold water better for your face?
For daily washing, lukewarm is the practical answer. Cold water doesn't "close pores" (pores don't open and close). Hot water strips the barrier faster than lukewarm. Cold has short-term cosmetic effects but no long-term skin benefit over lukewarm.
The "cold water closes pores" claim is based on an older understanding of skin that doesn't match the current consensus. Pore appearance is shaped by sebum volume, follicular debris, and elasticity — not by temporary temperature changes at the surface.
What cold water does do: briefly constrict blood vessels (so skin looks less red for a few minutes), reduce morning puffiness, and feel good on inflamed skin. Those are real, but short-lived.
Hot water is the more consequential variable. Repeated hot-water washing is a documented contributor to barrier disruption, which shows up as dryness, sensitivity, and reactivity over weeks.
The Stella take
Temperature is a small lever. If you're trying to troubleshoot a consistent skin pattern, it's not usually where the signal is — unless you're a hot-shower-face-wash person, in which case moving to lukewarm is one of the cheaper experiments you can run.
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Appearance-level observations, not therapeutic advice. Not a medical device.