There’s a lot of talk about exfoliation. You hear it touted in commercials, magazine articles and ads, and just a stroll down the beauty aisle at a drugstore can make your head spin with the hundreds of facial, body, salt, and sugar scrubs-the microbeads, brushes, loofahs, fruit peels, and even DIY microdermabrasion kits and tools, can be quite intimidating and confusing.
What’s all the fuss about? Well, confusion and marketing aside, there is a reason for all the fanfare-exfoliation is a healthy and essential practice for your skin. It is simply the removal of dead skin cells (and the impurities therein) by the use of some kind of friction. Exfoliation is essential to proper skin care, and a step to optimal general health. The skin is an organ of elimination, and when excessive dead skin is present, it can inhibit the body’s natural detoxifying abilities. Exfoliation also provides a clean slate-a fresh layer of new, living skin cells–allowing for maximum penetration of your daily skin care products and special treatments like facials.
Exfoliation should be part of your daily skin care routine. It really makes a discernable difference in appearance, and feel. After years of experience, I can usually tell if someone exfoliates based on appearance only. Upon touching skin, I can always tell. Regularly exfoliated skin is many times more youthful, soft, and resilient than non exfoliated skin. It is my experience that most people do not exfoliate enough, and many people never do. Some people have so much built up dead skin that it comes off in large clumps and rolls while they are receiving a massage. It can also build up and form harder, bumpy areas. Soap and water does not provide enough friction to remove all dead skin cells and trapped debris. So, unless you are exfoliating properly, you are not getting completely and truly clean.
Luckily, it is easy, and you don’t need to spend any money, or navigate that scrub aisle at Walgreens, to get results. There is a simple, natural, and free technique that I believe provides the ultimate in exfoliation.
Ultimate Exfoliation Technique
What you will need:
Bar soap and running water.
Directions:
In the sink or shower, wash the area to be exfoliated with the bar soap well, and rinse completely. Now, with your fingers together, and hand in a firm ‘salute’ position, use your fingertips to apply very firm downward pressure to the skin. Now, with this same downward pressure, quite slowly, in an unbroken long stroke, push along the area. Continue this technique on all areas: the face, arms, sides of torso, legs, etc. Depending on skin and muscle density of the area you are working on, adjust your finger pressure as needed. That’s it. You should notice quite a bit of dead skin coming off under your fingers. Rinse the skin off and continue with any normal routines, using soap, shower gel, or whatever products you would normally use.
Some Notes:
It is important to use plain bar soap with this technique. The idea is to remove any natural oils, and products, to get a good surface for friction. Shower gels leave the skin too soft, and it doesn’t work. Shower gel is great, just save it for after the technique.
I want to emphasize that the technique is not one of ‘brushing’ or ‘massaging’. It takes some good pressure, and some focus. Use about the same amount of pressure you would use to make a dent in a firm orange. Once you see what it takes to get the skin to start rolling off, you will get the hang of it, and it will be simpler as you use the technique regularly. It might be a good idea to begin on an area that tends to shed easily, like the sides of the torso, the backs of the upper arms, or the areas between the ankles and the heel.
Another rule of thumb is to use the longest possible strokes. For example, to exfoliate your forearm, start at your wrist, and stroke toward your elbow, instead of using smaller strokes laterally across your arm.
Also, this technique requires a fairly unencumbered space for maximum effectiveness. Areas with moderate to heavy hair, acne, scarring, or the like, may benefit from scrubs, loofahs, or other exfoliation products.
The technique is meant to be a part of your daily or near daily routine, and does not contraindicate other scrub products. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to exfoliate your entire body in about a minute or so.
