Why You Must Use A Scrub
Author: Anna Wilen Clark
Why you must have a scrub in your skincare kit
Cleansers, toners and moisturisers… ask most people what they choose to include in their regular skincare routine and these 3 essentials will come up again and again. How many people consider a scrub an important part of their skincare kit? It isn’t many, and you are about to find out why it needs to be.
No matter how expensive, effective or enriching they are, applying creams and lotions to your skin without regular exfoliation is a waste of your money and time. Regular exfoliation clears away an invisible barrier of dead skin cells that would otherwise sit between your favourite products and your living, healthy skin.
Applying a lotion to dead skin cells does not bring them back to life, and it does not help the healthy skin below. If you’re not exfoliating, your skincare products aren’t working as well as they could. When you look at it this way, choosing one more product for your bathroom shelf makes a lot of sense.
Exfoliation works wonders for your skin
Not only does exfoliation help your cleansers and moisturising lotions do their job, the simple act of brushing away the dead skin cells enlivens tired and dull skin, brings colour to your face, smoothes out your complexion and even fights the signs of ageing.
You may have heard the astounding fact that 90% of household dust (yes, 90%!) consists of dead skin cells. This is because your skin is constantly shedding dead skin as it renews itself from within. However, some of these cells stay on the surface and prevent you from having radiant, healthy skin.
When these skin cells don’t shed naturally or by exfoliation they not only clog pores, they prevent the next round of dead skin cells to accumulate. And so a visicous cycle begins to point where your skin can’t function they way in which is it designed. You are promoting an unhealthy skin eco-system.
The effects of not exfoliating are tired, dull and lacklustre skin. Acne-prone skin is more likely to experience breakouts, ageing skin loses its elasticity and wrinkles are more likely to appear. On the other hand, regularly removing the dead skin cells helps boost your body’s natural renewal processes for a healthier, younger appearance.
Won’t a rub with a washcloth do the trick?
So now you know why exfoliating your skin is essential to a healthy skin eco-system, but why not simply rub your face with a washcloth to get rid of the dead cells? Good question. In fact, there is some evidence that washcloths will also exfoliate your skin, but using a specially designed scrub will always be more effective.
Using a washcloth can be a clumsy and inefficient method of exfoliation, prone to overlooking certain areas and in danger of aggravating your skin if applied with too much pressure and the wrong material. On the other hand, a gentle exfoliating scrub needs to be lightly applied with a circular motion to reach and remove deep-down cells all over your body, without causing redness or discomfort to your skin.
The biggest point is a scrub is a more hygienic method. A washcloth will likely harbour bacteria that can lead to acne or infection if used time and time again. Using a scrub does not promote cross-contamination as it just washes off once used.
Why a scrub? Aren’t chemical exfoliants more effective?
Chemical exfoliants are big business. These commercial skincare products effectively (and roughly) slough away dead skin cells by dissolving the ‘glue’ that holds them in place. But to do so, the ingredients are harsh and unkind to your skin. These are disolvents not exfoliants. And the ingredients don’t care what they disolve – be the muck that has accumulated on your skin or our beautiful natrual skin oils.
We never recommend anything that has to damage your skin in order to clear it, when natural products can do the same job with no harsh chemical ingredients and no adverse effects on your skin.
Too-harsh exfoliation can cause redness and discomfort and strip your skin of its natural oils. The result is dryness, flakiness and red and sensitive skin – not an attractive result. An all-natural scrub will effectively and efficiently clear your skin of dead cells with no more effort and far less danger of damage than any chemical exfoliant you can buy.
What kind of scrub should you choose?
Now understand why a scrub is an essential addition to your skincare toolkit, it’s worth looking a little closer at the scrubs that are available to buy.
We are not fans of commercial skincare (they are destructive and destroy your skin), and that’s reflected in our organic, all-natural product range. Paleo Skincare is contains no harmful chemicals - and most importantly - designed to be in sync with your skin. But when it comes to a scrub, being natural alone isn’t enough. It’s now known that even luxurious sounding scrubs like apricot kernels are actually unkind to your skin. When made from sharp, jagged-edged particles, certain scrubs can actually irritate your skin while being applied.
It’s not enough that a product is natural, or even packed with skin-loving oils (in our case fats): the microparticles that scrub your skin must be rounded and even in size. Our organic coffee scrub, for example, meets all the criteria for healthy, happy skin with its gentle, soft particles and all the skin-friendly benefits that coffee provides.
Regularly rubbing a soft and gentle scrub into your skin – once a week is enough to give you a healthy, natural glow – will make an enormous difference to the effectiveness of your skincare routine. Exfoliating will help your existing products do their work and encourage beautiful, radiant skin. We don’t see this as a luxury – it is a necessity.
The Coffee Scrub by Paleo Skincare contains more than coffee. We have created a soft, gentle and effective exfoliant by adding our Pure Tallow Soap, and Great Lakes Gelatin (read more about the awesome benefits of using gelatin here). Both provide the softness that you will experience, while the coffee takes away the muck and stimulates the skin cells. For an extra kick, we have added an organic essential oil blend which contains spearmint (we Love spearmint).
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Comments (1)
scrubs
3 September 2016Yup i agree !! Using a washcloth can be a clumsy and inefficient method of exfoliation, prone to overlooking certain areas and in danger of aggravating your skin if applied with too much pressure and the wrong material. Thanks ~Oree