Are You Using the Right Type of Exfoliants to Best Safeguard Your Complexion?

This beauty now understands the value of  the best exfoliation methods.

Exfoliation is an important step toward the goal of beautiful skin.  The reason you should never neglect it is because when you don’t remove dead cells every so often, they accumulate on the surface to produce a dull complexion.  Shedding the old cells stimulates fresh skin to emerge for a younger, more radiant complexion. Still, if you don’t want to damage your skin, then you need to careful of the product but also how often that you exfoliate.


There are two types of exfoliants.  Mechanical exfoliants are the ones that have abrasive ingredients that you can feel with your fingers like ground seeds, microbeads, sugars or some other crystals such as salt. Though microbeads have a round structure compared to sharper edges that could cut into the skin with use, they also have plastic in them, which can’t be filtered out of the water once you wash it down the drain. Eventually, those microbeads end up in rivers, lakes and the ocean, which is harmful to plant and animal life.

On the other hand, you can also pick up a chemical exfoliant that relies on a low concentration of skin safe acid like alpha hydroxy or beta hydroxy fruit acids.  A chemical goes deeper into the skin than the mechanical form, which is focused on the surface.  When used wisely, a chemical exfoliant is also capable of unclogging pores and controlling sebum production unlike a mechanical one.  

However, you can also hurt your complexion if you abuse either a mechanical or chemical exfoliant with over use.  Though you may think more is better, but you can burn or rip the skin and scar your complexion.   Exfoliate once or twice a week only.  After all, you need to give your skin time to heal and rebuild itself.  

For more on exfoliation and other skin care mistakes that you may be doing, I hope you read my earlier post.