You have no doubt heard that exfoliating—the process of sloughing off dead skin cells—is a very important component of a healthy skin care routine. Do you know why? Here are the most important reasons to include a little scrub-love into your life.
1. Makes your skin smoother.
The brief definition of exfoliation is that the process removes the dead skin cells off the surface of the skin. If you look at the photo above, you will see that the first photo shows a cross section the skin both before and after exfoliation.
As you can see, the surface of the skin appears much more smooth in the after photo. The process of exfoliation effectively removes the build up of dead skin cells, and the “glue” that holds them together. Once those protein bounds are broken down, the healthy skin cells are able to regenerate and thrive.
2. Faster turnover rate for your healthy skin cells.
The act of exfoliation increases the rate at which your skins cells go through the renewal process.
At age 35, a person’s skin cells turnover at the rate of once every 28 days (approximately). What the means is from the birth of a brand new, healthy cell, to the death of that same cell is one month. When the cell is a newborn, it is full of all the exceptional nutrients that make your skin healthy. As that cell moves up through the layers of the epidermis, each layer takes something from that cell which makes it flatter.
As the cell ages, it gets more compressed, until it is just a dead flake holding on by some dried up sebum. When we increase the rate of how quickly the cells turnover, we allow the healthy cells to stay healthy longer, giving us better skin all the way around.
3. Improves your skin’s ability to retain moisture.
A healthy cell lives longer when it is properly hydrated. By removing the dead skin, and sebum from the surface, we are creating a condition where the skin is able to attract moisture more easily, and hang on to it longer.
4. Enables products to deliver their ingredients into the skin more effectively.
The removal of the barrier that creates the build up of dead cells, allows the active/performance ingredients to penetrate more easily into the skin. Performance ingredients and their technologies are not designed to sit on the surface. They are designed to seep in, and work. If you are buying expensive serums, and moisturizers, and you are not exfoliating, you are just throwing your money away.
5. Improves the ability of your skin to breathe.
Exfoliation makes it possible for the skin to take in more oxygen. The ability of your skin to breathe properly is critical. All organs and cells need oxygen. They need it to live, and they need it to fight any bacteria, or pathogens that might be present. Basic chemistry reminds us that bacteria cannot live in the presence of oxygen, so making it possible for our skin to breathe helps to fight the dematologic nasties.
6. Stimulates activity on the surface of the skin, which increases blood flow.
Exfoliation causes stimulation. This stimulus tells the brain to send more blood to the area receiving the input. Our blood supply carries oxygen, and nutrition to the affected cells, which promotes repair, and renewal.
7. Unclogs your pores.
Finally, coming full circle, exfoliating helps to remove the blockages that we sometimes get in our pores. We might call them blackheads or bumps, but these impacted cells do not give the appearance of, or create a smooth surface. Exfoliation keeps the pore opening open, so that the debris inside can be easily removed. Naturally, this brings us back to smooth skin.
Exfoliated skin is smooth skin. Smooth skin is happy skin. Happy skin is healthy skin. Healthy skin rocks!
Which tips from this post are you going to start doing today?
