Exfoliating your skin is important to slough away the dead skin cells, allowing your skin to look its best. There are three main benefits to exfoliating: it clears out your pores and those pesky white heads, it smooths and refines your skin texture giving it a soft and supple look, and it enhances blood flow giving you a healthy complexion.

Ideally, we should exfoliate once a week at the very least, but how do you exfoliate the proper way?

4 tips to exfoliate your face

1. Focus on the areas that need it. Especially those that by touching or looking at it, are rough, dry, and uneven. Lots of whiteheads on your chin, nose, and forehead? Focus on those areas and make sure you give them a good scrub.

2. Exfoliate in upward, circular motions, and be gentle. Let the exfoliating beads do its job and use motions gentle enough to help it along its way. Jojoba beads are great for sensitive skin because its less harsh. If you have rougher skin, doing this twice a week is ideal, but if you notice irritations, cut back to once a week.

Image: skinplicitygirls.tumblr.com
Image: skinplicitygirls.tumblr.com

3. Never forget your moisturiser. It’s extremely important after exfoliating to lock moisture back into your skin. This is the best time to also use any serums or anti-ageing creams you may have, because your skin will lap it up. You’ll notice after exfoliating that moisturiser is absorbed much easier, because your pores are unclogged and dead skin cells have been removed.

4. Monitor your skin. Be your own skin expert and you decide how frequent you need to exfoliate. In some temperatures and weather conditions we may need to exfoliate more, or less, but the best person to make that call is yourself. The safe zone is to stick to once or twice a week, but if you notice your skin taking a particular beating, it’s okay to exfoliate a little more. Over exfoliation will leave your skin red and tender. Too little exfoliating and your skin will look dull, rough, and your moisturiser won’t absorb as easily.

You can invest in washcloths and exfoliating gloves to help you through the process, but again monitor your skin and note whether this is too harsh.

– Cover Image: langelir.com