Raise your hand if you're too darn (insert your preferred excuse here) lazy, tired, low maintenance, etc. to remove your makeup before going to bed.

Ahhh, join the club. The good news? You're not alone. In a new study, nearly a third of women polled say they regularly hit the hay without having put forth the energy to wash their faces.

Now, here's the bad news. See the woman in the photos at right? That's Anna Pursglove, 40, a writer for the Daily Mail Online. As a run-ragged working mom, Anna found herself among the two thirds who don't typically make the time to remove their makeup -- but here's the rub; she wanted to see whether doing so really makes a difference in your skin.

Guess what? It does. After going an entire month without thoroughly cleansing her face before packing it in for the night, her pores were noticeably larger, skin visibly redder and incredibly dry -- and this isn't just what she noticed in the mirrors (or, crikey, the photos). To make this "experiment" as scientific as she could, at the onset, she paid a visit to a 3D Cosmetic Imaging Studio where she had her face analyzed with a special 3D camera which, as she writes, "shows - in mortifying detail - my pigmentation, broken veins, enlarged pores and wrinkles."

At month's end, she went back to have her complexion evaluated by the doctors who'd done the initial analysis -- brace yourselves here ... "The experts estimated that my skin was biologically approximately a decade older than before I began my no-cleansing experiment."

Shocking, right? Pursglove reveals that the doctors said, "You won't have done any meaningful damage in four weeks, but long-term avoidance of cleansing while continuing to wear make-up could be detrimental to your skin in the long-run. The biggest issue is the accumulation of environmental pollutants, which drive the generation of free radicals [which] contribute to the breakdown of collagen and elastin, the structures that underpin youthful skin."

Pursglove"s cautionary tale (and, yes, those shudder-inducing before and after photos) are sure to spur many of us into putting forth the extra effort required to remove our makeup at day's end. And, here to help get you on the straight and narrow, is a guide to the best eye makeup removers and a recipe for an all natural makeup remover.

Happy cleansing!