What is Exfoliation: What Exfoliation does to your skin?

Overview

Exfoliants disrupt the skin barrier but they have some benefits by disrupting that skin barrier so that you can see the best results from that exfoliant without disrupting your skin barrier or causing too much irritation. Exfoliating the skin is going to improve your skin texture so texture meaning little bumps that are on the skin sometimes you just kind of notice when the light hits you that your skin doesn't have an even texture or even just that dullness that's on the skin that's all due to skin texture. 

People are either exfoliating too often or they're not using the right exfoliants and that can actually very much disrupt the skin barrier so our skin barrier is like a blessing it's like it protects us from allergens it protects us from irritation it keeps bacteria from getting into our skin it keeps water from getting out of our skin and so you should be doing everything in your power to protect your skin barrier. 

Skin texture also contributes to your pores so one reason is just to improve your skin texture another reason is to improve the pigmentation , even out the tone this can help with things like melasma or any other cause of post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. So those dark spots on your skin that you get maybe after acne it can help with this as well also if you use the right exfoliant it can help with acne so it's great at getting rid of acne because acne is often caused by little skin cells that are plugging your pores and so if you exfoliate it gets rid of those little skin cells and another thing and we went back and forth on this. But is actually maybe collagen growth with long-term use can actually help with fine wrinkles collagen. It has anti-aging benefits by getting rid of those fine lines and wrinkles. So exfoliation improves texture improves skin tone and hyperpigmentation may help with acne if you use the right one and also has anti-aging benefits.

How does it work?

There's two main groups of exfoliants ,there's chemical exfoliants and then there's physical exfoliants. Physical exfoliants are scrubs  that has really sharp particles that just tear your face up and these are the type of scrubs that won't work so physical exfoliants are just way too harsh for the face.  When you over stimulate, it over aggravate it you can cause a lot more inflammation and irritation. But  the body can just tolerate better and it's also just more practical to be using a physical exfoliant on the body when you're taking a shower. 

Chemical exfoliants like glycolic acid which has been the best studied acid overall breaks up those little bonds that's in between those cells that keep your skin cells sticking together and by doing that ,the top layer of the skin it helps to turn those skin cells over bringing in new healthy cells from the bottom and they also send little signals down into the deeper layers of the skin that have effect on the dermis by increasing hyaluronic acid production and also increasing collagen production. They have a lot of different benefits and there are three main chemical exfoliants alpha hydroxy acids ,beta hydroxy acids and the polyhydroxy acids. They all kind of have different roles they have all different chemical structures but if you choose the right exfoliant for your skin issues that's where you're going to see the biggest benefit with chemical exfoliants.

How to choose right exfoliant for your skin?

Choose a exfoliant that is right for your skin type. So if you have normal or combination skin, glycolic acid is pretty much the basic one to start with. Glycolic acid is that super well-rounded acid it's going to be great for so many of the different problems it has so many functions and it's been studied probably the most extensively studies on it but it's the smallest particle alpha hydroxy acid which means it's going to penetrate deepest in the skin and cause the most irritation and inflammation of the group but if you have normal or combination skin you're going to tolerate this pretty well and you're going to see all those benefits. 

If you have dry skin, you can go for lactic acid because lactic acid also is a wonderful moisturizer so it moisturizes and exfoliates at the same time. And for sensitive skin and you can go for mandelic acid so mandelic acid is one of the largest molecule alpha hydroxy acids so it doesn't penetrate as deeply into the skin so that's why it's going to be great for sensitive skin. Polyhydroxy acids are  sort of  alpha hydroxy acids that doesn't penetrate as deep it's great for sensitive skin it's even great for rosacea prone skin for people that get really irritated by things so poly hydroxy acids are great. So if you have oily or acne prone skin the best ingredient for this is going to be salicylic acid so salicylic acid gets deep into those pores it helps in removing the oil from the skin and also helps in acne including inflammation and bacteria and also unclogs the pores so definitely the top ingredient for acne here and and one of the best ingredients you can use in your skincare routine is salycylic acid. It's going to exfoliate the skin it's also going to improve hyperpigmentation in dark spots so it's just really overall a great acid. 

When and How to Use?

When do you need to start one and this is going back to why are you using it in the first place so depending on what's going on in your life and on your skint that's going to be when you start it so you know we've kind of mapped out why these acids work the way that they do so if you're starting to develop fine lines and wrinkles you may want to introduce your acid to improve that collagen production , if you have acne or hyperpigmentation you may want to introduce salicylic acid.

How often are you supposed to exfoliate right because a lot of the packaging will tell you exfoliate twice a day especially on the bottles but the truth is you probably don't need to exfoliate twice a day because our skin cells take about 28 days to go from the bottom layer of the skin to the top layer of the skin and so you don't really need to constantly break those bonds down because it takes long for those skin cells to get up to the top layers. So truthfully you usually start at about once a week with your exfoliant and that may be all that you need now if you have more resilient skin and you have some goals that you're trying to target then twice a week.

Recommendations:

1. Minimalist peeling solution: https://amzn.to/34guvg5

2. Dr.Sheth's extra gentle peel: https://amzn.to/34guvg5

3. The Ordinary aha bha peeling solution.