A lot of people probably don’t know this, but the REAL key to glowing skin is regular Exfoliation! Without going too deep, exfoliation is simply the process of getting rid of dead skin cells *steps away to search google*.

Charles Weschler and colleagues explain that humans shed their entire outer layer of skin every 2-4 weeks at the rate of 0.001 – 0.003 ounces of skin flakes every hour

Google

Basically your body sheds its own dead skin every 2-4 weeks, and there’s literally dead skin flaking off you every hour of everyday. You exfoliating your skin, just aids the process! You should want to get rid of all those dead, dry & dull skincells that are just sitting topically on your skin. There are numerous benefits of regular exfoliation, but that’s not what this post is about. I will share benefits in a later post….

Anytime anyone asks me how they can get rid of scars on their body, I always recommend they start exfoliating regularly. Because think about it, if the layers of your skin are shedding away that means the skin covering the scar will also be shedding away revealing new skin at every layer. Obviously, it will take quite some time and you may need to use some products too, but eventually you should see visible results. I’ve talked about exfoliation here on BeautyInLagos, but this time I wanted to break it all the way down for you guys! I’ll share with you HOW I exfoliate and how frequently. I didn’t know this, but typing up this post I’ve realised I actually exfoliate my body in 4 sections: Hands, Face, Feet & rest of the Body.

Hands

With my hands I basically exfoliate every other day. I wash my hands as soon as I walk through the door, and I’ve got a little pot of exfoliating sugar right by my bathroom sink, so I wash my hands then exfoliate, rinse and moisturise and I do this almost daily. Always remember to moisturise right after you exfoliate, and always use SPF. My preferred hand cream, which I always have in my bag, has got SPF (pictured above)

Face

When it comes to my face I try to exfoliate and mask at least twice a week, I say ‘try’ because that would be ideal, but we live in the real world and ‘ideal’ can be a hard reach sometimes; but bare minimum, I exfoliate & mask once a week. The past couple of months I have been exfoliating & masking using products by Orma Skincare. I quite like their ‘Glow Scrub’, it’s a salt scrub that’s got turmeric & honey, it’s not harsh on my skin at all but it does sting a teeny bit. I rinse it off and then apply their Spot Eradicator Mask on my forehead, and their Glow Clay Mask all over the rest of my face (this glow mask stings as well).

This routine has been working for my skin, and I currently have no new/recent spots on my face *touch wood*. Just two UGLY scars which will fade away. A Contributor reviewed this brand recently, you can read that here.

I also use Retinol every night as part of my routine. Naturally, my face is a bit more tanned than the rest of my body, so my struggle has always been to get the skin on my face as close as possible to the rest of my body, regular exfoliation gives me visible results.

Feet

I really don’t do much when it comes to exfoliating my feet apart from getting monthly pedicures. Also when I exfoliate my body, which you will read about below, I also include my feet as well. A good pedicure really gets rid of all that dead skin on your feet. I’ve already shared my recommendations of places to get a decent pedicure in Lagos, you can check them out here. Ladies, here’s a New Year’s resolution for you: Get a Pedicure monthly.

That is, if you don’t already.

Body

So for the rest of my body, I exfoliate 3 times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. Exfoliating 3 times a week has literally become a habit for me. No matter where I am, if it’s a Monday, Wednesday or Friday, I know I will be exfoliating in the shower. My routine is very basic, exfoliating mitts and black soap that’s it. I also usually bring it up to my face, using the mitts GENTLY, I buff around my face in circular motions. A lot of people are against using black soap on their face as it can be very drying, but I haven’t had any adverse reactions and quite like the results I get. On Fridays, I may use actual sugar scrub all over my body before I go in with the mitts & black soap. One thing I do want to try out more this year is ‘dry brushing’; using a soft bristle brush to exfoliate BEFORE you take a bath/shower. A lot of people swear by it, so I’m going to try it out for myself and I’ll definitely share my thoughts.

So yeah, that’s my exfoliating process. If you want to have soft, supple, glowing skin, regular exfoliation is the best place to start. However, exfoliating is literally just a step, a major step, but there’s more to attaining soft supple glowing skin! Don’t worry, I’ll be sharing more tips so make sure you check back regularly.

Please please please make sure you moisturise and use SPF religiously, not just on your face but your body as well; pay particular attention to the parts typically exposed to sunlight: hands, legs, neck, décolletage, etc.

Make it a point to exfoliate regularly this year, and I GUARANTEE you will see results.

The products you use also play a big part and I hope to share some of my body-care staples in a post soon.