How Frequently Should You Exfoliate Your Greasy Skin
When you exfoliate your skin you are simply speeding up the natural process of shedding the external layer of dead skin cells. This process unblocks pores, keeps skin clean and helps reduce acne breakouts. In normal skin, the skin naturally sheds dead skin cells with no aid from exfoliating.
Acne prone skin has a problem when it comes to exfoliating naturally. Acne prone and oily skin produces more dead skin cells than normal skin and the dead skin cells have trouble shedding from the skin. They cause clogged pores which can result in blackheads or pimples. This is the reason why exfoliation is more important for acne prone and oily skin. Exfoliating can keep the follicles free of blockages and decrease formation of blemishes.
Physical exfoliants are the most common scrubs that contain synthetic beads that physically lift the dry and damaged skin cells from your face. There are natural exfoliating scrubs that use ingredients such as apricot seeds or almonds instead of synthetic beads but in this case the synthetic option is preferred. This is because the natural products have sharp corners and can irritate the skin. If you’ve got acne, you should be cautious with any type of physical exfoliant. They cause friction which can irritate the skin. You may be better off using a chemical exfoliant if you’ve got sensitive skin.
Chemical exfoliants consist of mild acids that are used to dissolve dry skin cells. They can be found in many products including masks, gels and night creams. There is a large difference in the strength of chemical exfoliants so you need to make sure you aren’t using any strong products too frequently. All chemical exfoliants dry your skin so it’s important to use a moisturizer after exfoliation.
There are some other physical exfoliating products that can be used, but these are not normally used on the face. Such products include exfoliating gloves and exfoliating brushes. Exfoliating gloves are essentially gloves with an exfoliating texture on the palm side. They are used to exfoliate your body in the shower or bath. It’s best to look for exfoliating gloves that aren’t too rough. I do not personally use these myself but enough people love using them. They leave your skin feeling soft and clean. Again it’s essential to moisturize after exfoliating your body.
How often you exfoliate is also important. That’s the primary reason that I decided to write this post. There are some products out there that are called things like a “daily exfoliating scrub” and some recommend that you use them two times a day. I used to exfoliate every day as I thought it was a substitute to using cleansers. I soon noticed that this was too harsh on my skin and it caused my skin to become oilier and more spotty. Now I only exfoliate weekly as that’s what works best for me. How often you exfoliate is actually is based on on the sensitivity of your skin, but I do not recommend using an exfoliating cleanser every day like I did.
There are also different variations on the strengths of exfoliating cleansers. Some are mild and these can be used more often. Generally, how often you exfoliate, is determined by the product you use and the sensitivity of your skin. If you sense that your skin is getting irritated when you exfoliate, you should try a more mild scrub or reduce the frequency of exfoliations.
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