Myth #9: Daily exfoliation will make your skin young and clear.

Exfoliation is a core part of a healthy skin regimen that solves many skin problems and concerns. Your skin’s appearance and overall health can be dramatically improved by regularly removing dead skin cells and revealing new healthy ones.

Exfoliation provides smoother texture, brighter looking and glowing skin. It is the number one method in fighting signs of aging, acne and dry and dull complexion. If you do not exfoliate or do it only once in a while, you are missing out on all these great benefits.

There is a great selection of exfoliating products available today. Enzyme peels, acids, scrubs, rotating brushes, and retinol significantly affect the skin.

Should these products be used every day? Or is exfoliating on a daily basis too much for the skin?

Truth: Exfoliating products are curative treatments and when used daily skin becomes overworked and over-exfoliated. Exfoliating too much is harmful to the skin and will result in:

• a stripped moisture (lipid) barrier layer resulting in dehydration, flaking, redness and inflammation-dryness (moisture will seep out of the cells)-aging due to chronic and prolonged inflammation
• aging due to chronic and prolonged inflammation and as a result less smooth and firm skin
• stimulation of melanin activity possibly leading to an increase of hyper-pigmentation
• products to sting and irritate the skin (due to a stripped barrier function).

Be gentle to your skin, do not use powerful and aggressive exfoliating products daily. You simply cannot scrub away wrinkles and pimples.

Skin type, age and skin conditions determine which exfoliation product to choose and how often to use it. I made this chart with general guidelines to hep you with you exfoliation routine.