Your body does some gosh darn amazing things each and every day. It’s a (mostly) finely tuned system that keeps you going and protects you from harm (we hope).
One of the amazing things it does is making new skin cells. And it makes a LOT of skin cells.
Your skin is the largest organ in your body and it’s responsible for protecting you from what’s going on outside your bod… like the sun, pollution, extreme temperatures, toxins… you name it.
Go skin!
Your skin is like your own protective barrier that you take everywhere with you. And it’s made up of billions of skin cells. These skin cells are on the front line for you.
They start at the deepest layer of your skin and slowly make their way up to the surface where they fight an epic battle to protect you and (it feels kind of sad to say this strangely!) then they die. Thanks little guys!!!!
Your dead skin cells naturally get sloughed away as you touch things, but we can help things along a bit with exfoliation.
And there’s a few really good reasons why you’d want to do this.
Before you go getting too fond of these skin cells who have gone to battle for you, we do need to let you know that if you hang onto them they could be causing you problems.
As you get older, this becomes even more important
Skin cell turnover is really important for strong, healthy, glowing skin. Your body will naturally turn over skin cells, but this does slow down as you get older.
As a teenager, your cells probably turned over every 3 or 4 weeks. As an adult it slowed to every 30 to 40 days, but as you get past 50 it can get a bit sluggish at renewing itself, and it can take 45 to even 90 days.
Why you need to exfoliate
Oily and combination skin
If you have oily or combination skin, chances are that your skin produces a bit more oil than you’d like (either all over or in certain spots) and larger pores.
And if you have dead skin cells lurking around they can clog your pores.
When you get a clogged pore and excess oil, it’s a perfect environment for the bacteria that causes acne to thrive.
The result? Dreaded breakouts.
Normal and dry skin
Dry and normal skin types have a different problem to contend with.
If you have dry or normal skin and you have excess dead skin cells on your skin’s surface, they could be stopping your skincare products from working effectively.
There’s not much point moisturising dead skin cells, right? They’ll just be stopping the good stuff you’re putting on your skin from getting where it needs to go.
Don’t over-do it
So we're agreed - it's best to exfoliate so that we can get rid of all those excess dead skin cells. BUT.... (whatever your skin type)....
PLEASE DON’T OVER-EXFOLIATE. Depending on the type of exfoliator you’re using, 1 to 2 times per week is plenty and should leave your skin happy and healthy.
If you exfoliate too often or with a product that’s too harsh you could cause problems by weakening your skin and opening it up to dryness or sensitivity. So please take it easy and don’t try to scrub away skin problems :)
Our (award winning!) recommendation
Our favourite exfoliator is the Spoonful of Sugar Exfoliating Scrub. It’s a blend of dark brown sugar (for its natural AHAs), superfine bamboo and nourishing oils that has just the right amount of “oomph” to make your skin sublimely happy.
The Spoonful of Sugar Exfoliating Scrub was lucky enough to win the title of “Best Exfoliator for Dry Skin” in the 2017 Byrdie / Curated Beauty Awards. YAY :)
And we’ve just added a new sample size Spoonful of Sugar Exfoliating Scrub to our online store, so you can try it out with your next order.
