You must be already aware of the fact that your body is shedding skin daily. However, do you know how much skin does the body lose everyday? You need to understand it from a cellular level. It has been estimated that the body constantly sheds a mind boggling number of 30 – 40,000 skin cells every hour! It is easy to estimate that you are losing millions of skin cells everyday! Really, from this perspective, it does feel like the skin is disappearing from your body! Well, panic not, because the upper keratinous epidermal layer is constantly regenerated every hour as well.
A way of removing the dead skin cells from the top skin layer epidermis is treated as exfoliation. The practice differs with body and the facial skin. Some people exfoliate their skin to lighten their acne prone skin and some do it to reduce the acne and to get smooth skin.
Body exfoliation
Natural bristled brush for out of shower
Buy a long handled natural bristled brush to exfoliate your body skin out of the shower. Give circular motions on your skin to exfoliate the dead skin, jump from one area to the other through circular motions. Start exfoliating from the legs and work towards the chest, arms and back.
Loofah to exfoliate in the shower
A loofah can be your friend in the shower to flush away the dead skin cells. As the good loofahs are made from natural sponge your skin don’t tend to generate any rashes and irritation. Instead of using loofah an exfoliating glove will also works for the same action but both of them are not suggested to use on the face.
Exfoliation scrub
Buy an exfoliation scrub that holds salt, sugar or beads and shows the name of body scrub or cleansing scrub. It works similar to a loofah in removing the dead cells.
Allow your body completely to become wet with the running water for a few minutes, now use the exfoliating scrub or loofah gently. While practicing this method you are suggested to choose warm water rather than hot, which may tends the skin more dry.
Take the scrub with your fingertips and rub it on the moist skin in the circular motions, rinse it well. Continue doing this process for three to seven days as per your skin nature and type.
Facial exfoliation
Facial skin exfoliation for sensitive skin
- Take a gentle daily cleanser to use on your sensitive skin, harsh or acidic cleansers will damage your skin so opt for the cleanser with mild nature.
- Take a washcloth and dip in the warm water, wring and remove out the excess water from it.
- Retain the washcloth on your face for 1-2 minutes.
- Pour a small amount of cleanser on the wash cloth and rub it on the face in circular motions for two minutes or another.
- Start exfoliating the facial skin from the nose and moving towards the forehead and the remaining skin areas.
- Few gentle strokes are necessary in the part of exfoliation, so avoid rubbing harsh.
- Now rinse off the face with water and pat it dry.
- Follow up the skin with a mild moisturizing cream or lotion. Though it may produce redness on the skin, you will notice the changes after few hours.
Facial skin exfoliation for normal skin
- Buy a mild facial scrub that consists of sugar or jojoba beads to exfoliate your skin.
- Apply a dab of this scrub on your face and work on in the circular motions with more than gentle touch.
- Take a gentle cleansing brush and use it along with the help of a cleansing soap. As per the instructions use it daily.
- Invest on glycolic mask, it will help to exfoliate your skin with the specific acids like alpha hydroxy acid and beta hydroxy acid.
- You can apply this mask on everyday as per the directions given.
- After every exfoliation process follow up with moisturizer in order to prevent the raise of dead skin cells, dryness and redness in the future.
Facial skin exfoliation for oily skin
- For the everyday exfoliation process a facial scrub or a cleansing brush is ideal.
- Use glycolic pads to remove out the excess oil from the skin, these are gentle pads and are available at any drug stores.
- After every exfoliation process follow up with moisturizing cream or lotion.
Try natural
You have a lot of invisible dead skin cells attached to the topmost layer of your body. These need to be cleaned periodically because they clog the pores causing acnes. Parasitic microorganisms like bacteria also feed on the dead skin flakes causing skin infection. Before applying the ointments, you should be exfoliating your skin regularly.
Folks with oily skin and dry skin need to take additional care. Daily exposure to pollution makes matter worse. You must be already using a non-comedogenic ointment (something which does not clog the skin pores) with the loofah when you bathe. However, on how to exfoliate your body and facial skin, do you know of the amazing home remedies you can try? Check the different natural exfoliating suggestions below.
Honey based face scrubs
- Honey is amazing for skin. The pure nectar of flowers has wonder ingredients for nourishing the skin gently and deeply. Add a tablespoon of fine oats into honey (1 tsp), and one teaspoon yogurt. You have a fantastic nourishing face scrub at hand. Each of these three ingredients has beneficial actions. Honey is a natural moisturizer and anti-bacterial substance. Yogurt has fantastic benefits such as cleansing skin pores deeply.
The lactic acid in yogurt also lightens the blemishes on the skin. The mil roughness of oatmeal provides the gentle friction to exfoliate the skin. Since it is a natural absorbent, further deep cleansing of pores is guaranteed. However, do not make it very thick with oats because that can rob the skin of natural oils. Add more honey or yogurt if necessary.
- Another alternative with honey is to prepare a concoction of it with a little baking soda and lemon juice. This is recommended only for extremely oily skin. The citric acid of lemon juice and the alkaline baking soda neutralize each other, but still deliver a significant bleaching action.
You can use these pastes to work on the blemishes left by dead acne spots. Use 1 tbsp honey with ½ tsp lemon juice and ½ tsp baking soda for the mix. Your skin may be allergic to baking soda. First apply it by a small patch to see if there are allergic reactions. If everything is okay, apply the exfoliating mix by gentle round motions of your clean fingers.
- You can prepare yet another amazing exfoliating face mask with honey, olive oil and brown sugar. The oil content of this paste makes it ideal to use on dry skins. Finely grind brown sugar is natural humectants, moisturizing the skin, while exfoliating the dead skin flakes from the upper layer.
- Almond powder and honey can also be used similarly.
These honey based face scrubs should provide a complete answer on skin exfoliation by simple home remedies. However, are you aware of the appropriate ways on how to exfoliate your body and facial skin? You must be aware of circular motions one should make with ‘clean’ fingertips for exfoliation. The right way is to work on the face upwards from the chin to the rest regions.
Be gentle because scrubbing too hard will cause irritation. Many beauticians also recommend taking a steam bath for the skin first as this opens up your pores. Allow the pastes to stay on face for 2/3 minutes. Rinse with warm water first. Then, splash cold water to close the heightened skin pores. Finally, dry by patting with a soft clean towel. Do remember to tie your hair back so that the paste does not attach to it.
- Lemon juice face scrub: A mixture of egg white, sea salt and lemon juice is a good face scrub home remedy as well. The citric acid from lemon juice kills all bacteria. Egg yolk is super rich in protein and fat. Sea salt also supplies nourishment besides providing the rough texture you must have in a face scrub. You can leave out the egg yolk if you want. It is kind of sticky and smelly, and not everyone likes it.
- Fruit based face scrubs: The cucumber paste is the simplest and among the best of face scrubs. The amazing cooling effect of cucumber is refreshing. It nourishes the skin and relaxes your mind, much like a zen experience. Strawberry can be mashed and used with almond, sugar, or oats as a face scrub.
