You don't have to drink eight glasses of water a day, and six other beauty tips debunked

The news that drinking eight glasses of water does not, in fact, make you look younger, has been widely shared after an exasperated health researcher begged people to stop repeating the advice.

Our obsession with health and wellbeing seems to have reached its peak in recent years. A veritable army of attractive young bloggers with pearly white teeth and next to no formal qualifications are scrambling to dish out advice on how many blueberries you should put on your high-quality oatmeal.

In light of that, here are a few of the more ridiculous beauty myths that frequently do the rounds:

1) 'Plucking a grey hair will make several more appear'

Unless you have some bizarre superpower, it is physically impossible to increase the number of follicles you have. Ripping a hair out (ouch) by its root could actually lead to regrowth that refuses to lie flat. So if you’re worrying about greys, go to your hairdresser and they’ll sort it out.

2) 'Drinking water will stop your skin from drying out'

In a way this ties in with the original debunk. Of course water is good for you, but drinking more of it will not make your skin any less dry.

3) 'You can shrink your pores'

Ditto with the follicle thing, it is physically impossible to "shrink" the size of your pores, but you can make them appear smaller. So sorry, Regina, but you’re stuck with them.

4) 'Shaving makes hair grow back thicker '

This has been debunked several times, but many still seem to believe it. Shaved hair feels course because it’s thicker at the root than at the tip.

5) 'You should brush your hair 100 times a day'

Another stubborn one that refuses to die. Brushing your hair distributes natural oils from the scalp and stimulates blood flow, but hair can break if you frequently attack it with a hairbrush. And who has time for 100 strokes anyway?

6) 'The average woman will eat seven pounds of lipstick in her life'

Depending on whether or not you even wear lipstick, six pounds works out at roughly 680 tubes of the stuff. If you wore lipstick every day for a year, you would consume about 8.76 grams, or 1.35 pounds.