While you may think you’re doing all you need to do when cleansing your skin with a soap, you might be forgetting an important part. Exfoliation is an important part of keeping your skin healthy. When cleansing, you’re getting rid of the dirt and oil on your skin, but exfoliating is going to be the key part of keeping your skin fresh and smooth. Make sure to only exfoliate about 2-3 times a week to make sure you’re not harming your skin. Moreover, when exfoliating, there is no need to scrub super hard to leave your skin red and irritated. When using a scrub or exfoliating glove, the granules or fibers with light pressure is all you need. Check out the top 10 benefits of exfoliating your skin:
Remove Dead skin cells
Exfoliation is the act of scrubbing your skin whether it be with a glove, loofa, brush, or granules to get rid of the dead skin cells on your body. Our bodies shed skin and turnover every 40-56 days, and while they do shed on their own, the dead skin may not fall off our bodies on their own. With a little extra mechanical help, we can scrub these right off to welcome our new skin to the surface.
Glowing Skin
When exfoliating with a glove or with a scrub, you are getting rid of the dead skin cells that have built up on your skin after shedding but have not fallen off completely. A key thing to remember when exfoliating is to not get carried away and scrub too hard, this can damage your skin and its barrier, so make sure you are gentle with the scrubbing. Soft pressure is enough with the already textured glove or granules.
Brighter Complexion
When you have a build-up of dead skin, your skin complexion can get thrown off with your new skin, and dead skin being in patches around your body. After exfoliation, you can notice results of even skin tone after continuous use. Don’t forget exfoliation as part of your skincare routine!
Increased Absorption
Since exfoliation gets rid of the dead skin cells on your skin, you are clearing the area for your new skin to be on top. Once the dead skin cells are gone, your new skin is able to absorb the products you use much better. A great moisturizer you can use after exfoliation is coconut oil! Since your skin may be slightly irritated, the coconut oil will help calm the skin.
Unclog pores
A build-up of dead skin is easy access for your pores to get clogged. Since the dead skin cells are blocking everything, your pores don’t get a chance to “breathe” and excrete substances such as oils. These clogged pores in turn become blackheads, whiteheads, and acne. With regular exfoliation, you can kiss these trouble-spots goodbye!
Reduce Fine lines
Not exfoliating can age our skin. This is due to the fact that dead skin can cause our skin tone to look dull, uneven, and emphasize wrinkles and fine lines. Exfoliation is a great way to get rid of this effect. While manual exfoliators can do the trick, it may take a little longer as opposed to chemical exfoliators. There are serums and facials that can give you quicker results to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
Improved Blood circulation
Not only is exfoliation improving the appearance of your skin, but it can also improve your blood circulation. An example of this, explained by the Cleveland Clinic, is dry brushing (which we’ve written about here)! Moving in wide and circular motions stimulate your skin, allowing for better circulation.
Smoother skin
Sloughing off all the unnecessary dead skin from your face and body can help improve your skin texture. The unevenness of your skin is caused by the extra dead skin, so exfoliating can welcome your new skin to the surface, allowing for glowing, smooth skin to push impurities out.
Lymphatic system
Similarly to dry brushing, Apollo Health states that through touch and motion, the lymphatic system is activated. Therefore, with the act of mechanical exfoliation your lymphatic system can begin doing its job. This is important because the lymphatic system regulates tissue, and works with your immune system to keep you healthy (we wrote an article about it here too).
Ingrown hairs
Clogged pores due to lack of exfoliation is one of the main culprits of ingrown hairs. When you exfoliate and get rid of the unnecessary top layer of dead skin, you are allowing your hairs to grow out easily, instead of having to coil back in since they can properly grow.
