How to Exfoliate the Skin
Exfoliating is crucial to the healthy, smooth, and beautiful skin. Exfoliating is the process of buffing away dead skin cells to reveal a new, healthier, and brighter layer of skin. It’s especially important to exfoliate if you are getting laser hair removal, as it will remove dead hairs from the skin and speed along the hair loss process. However, overdoing it, as with anything, can cause issues–and so can avoid it all together. Not sure where to begin? Keep reading!
We’ve already blogged about how to make a DIY sugar scrub and some good store-bought exfoliators. Whether you’re buying or DIY-ing, it’s important to have an exfoliant on hand to use to buff away dead skin and hair. You may need separate exfoliators for your face and body if you have sensitive skin, as the body needs harsher treatments than the face. Going too hard on the face can cause redness, irritation, and can basically negate the benefit of exfoliation by causing more dry skin. So make sure you choose your exfoliants wisely.
How to exfoliate itself is pretty self-explanatory–simply rub the product around your face and body in gentle circular motions to polish your skin. Wet your face and body before you apply the scrub, otherwise, it won’t glide on the skin properly. Only scrub for a minute, which is long enough to get rid of the dead cells, but not too long that it will damage the skin. If your skin is particularly dry and flaky, you can use a brush or exfoliating glove to aid the process along.
Exfoliating feels great and it makes your skin look new again–but beware of overdoing it. Over-exfoliating can cause a ton of skin issues, including a burning sensation, redness, tightness, stinging, broken blood vessels, flakiness, dry patches, and more. So when should you exfoliate? Some say two to three times a week, while others recommend once a week. It really depends on your skin type–if you have dry skin, try two to three times, but if your skin is normal/oily, once a week should suffice.
As with anything in life, moderation is key when exfoliating. Overdoing it could cause more skin issues than you started out with, so beware. It is tempting to go too far especially when the benefits of proper exfoliation are so beneficial to the skin’s appearance, but you will be doing more damage in the end if you over exfoliate. If you are undergoing laser hair removal, we recommend you wait about a week to ten days after a treatment to begin exfoliating because that is the point where the hair starts falling out. Ultimately, your exfoliation schedule depends on your skin’s needs, so make sure you are attuned to what skin type you have and what is best for it.