Why exfoliation is the key to healthy skin

You wouldn’t wash your car with a chemical cleaner that damaged the paint job, so why would you put your skin through a similar ordeal?

You may wonder why harmful ingredients still make it into skincare products. The answer: because they are cheap and help to make it look pretty. They make it smell nice and feel silky.

When our skin goes haywire, we generally have no idea how to sort it out and grab the first item that promises a solution. This usually worsens the problem. But what should you do?

Reading this article is your first step. Here’s why exfoliating is an important step to skin health and how you can polish your skin to perfection.

Exfoliating is especially important for skin that is prone to breakouts. It will help to clear the pores that are blocked by dead skin cells and sebum.

Picture: iStock

If you have inflammatory acne and enlarged pores, start gradually with exfoliation and only polish one night a week for the first week. Work your way up until you are exfoliating every day. This has to be very gentle though, so that the acne liaisons do not burst and infect surrounding areas.

Here are our recommendations:

• Rooibos Facial Scrub: R60.49, African Extracts

• Hydro Boost Exfoliator Smoothing Gel: R99.95, Neutrogena

• Gentle Refiner Exfoliating Cream: R410, Clarins,

• Scrub & Mask Reoxygenating Exfoliating Mask: R805, Filorga

Tip: Using a daily cleanser with a sonic cleansing brush is another great way to gently declog pores. Just remember to change the brush regularly, so that it doesn’t breed bacteria.

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