Revitalize Your Skin with Exfoliation

Skin that appears dry and dull frequently loses the fresh appearance of healthy, younger looking skin. Exfoliation can help you achieve a more vibrant glow to your skin, allowing the natural beauty of your skin to shine through.

Exfoliation is the removal of dead skin cells that have accumulated on the surface of your skin, through either a physical or chemical process. As the weather turns colder, your skin can become more vulnerable to drying out, leaving more dead skin cells on the surface that need to be loosened and removed to reveal soft, fresh looking skin underneath.

Physical Exfoliation

The process of physical exfoliation typically uses facial, and body scrubs, that implement gentle abrasives to remove the dead skin cells from the surface of the skin. These mild abrasives can include the use of jojoba beads, salt and sugar scrubs, raspberry seeds, or even oatmeal. For those individuals who have more sensitive skin, papaya and pineapple enzymes are recommended. Soft scrubbing gloves or terry wash cloths may be used along with your favorite exfoliation product for treatment of the facial area, while pumice stones, and loofah may be used for elbows, knees, heels of the feet, and other tough areas of skin.

A dermatologist can perform a more aggressive form of exfoliation known as microdermabrasion. This procedure involves a device that uses aluminum dioxide micro crystals which are sprayed against the skin’s surface, helping to remove the dead skin cells from the epidermis. When the procedure is finished, the aluminum dioxide crystals are suctioned, or removed from the skin’s surface.

Chemical Exfoliation

This facial skin care treatment, generally done by your dermatologist, uses chemical solutions that can slough off the dead skin cells from the skin’s surface, allowing them to be peeled off, allowing you to look and feel terrific.

The two kinds of chemical peels are alpha hydroxyl acid, and beta hydroxyl acid.

The alpha hydroxy acid peels use naturally occurring substances, for example, citric acid, malic acid, glycollic acid, and lactic acid. Citric acid food sources include oranges, lemons, limes, and pineapples.

The beta hydroxy acid peel uses only one source, however, salicylic acid. This acid peel is oil soluble, compared to the alpha hydroxyl acid peel that is water-soluble. The beta hydroxyl acid peel is able to penetrate deeper into the skin cell and the pore, removing the dead skin cells inside. This peel is recommended especially for those individuals who have oily skin, and experience more blackheads, and white heads.

Dry skin areas may become severely cracked leaving raw skin exposed, and more prone to infection. If you suspect you have a serious skin condition, or your skin condition worsens seek the advice of a medical professional.

How often you exfoliate depends on an individual’s skin type. For example if you have normal skin you may want to exfoliate twice a week. On the other hand, if you’re skin is delicate and sensitive, you may want to avoid irritation and exfoliate only once a week.

Whichever process you choose for exfoliation, all these methods can help you obtain fresh, healthy looking skin, to look and feel your best.