Homemade scrubs are the secret to beautiful skin. They remove the dead skin cells and leave the skin soft, fresh and glowing. But before you go to make a DIY homemade face and body scrub to exfoliate your skin, you need to know why, what kind of product to use and how often you can use it. Here are some tips and tricks for natural exfoliation at home:
What is home exfoliation?
Our body has a natural mechanism to keep the skin healthy and fresh. The old skin cells continuously die and new skin cells are constantly replacing the old ones. This whole cycle lasts from 20 to 40 days, depending on your age.
Home exfoliation is an effective way to get rid of the dead skin cells and to accelerate the skin recovery. With its help, the new healthy cells quickly come to the surface of the skin and your skin becomes soft and smooth.
In order to truly refresh your skin, you need to devote more attention to certain areas of your body such as the elbows, knees, feet, hands and wherever you notice that you have dry skin. But you shouldn’t rub hard. If your skin becomes red or irritated, it means that you overdid the exfoliation.
It is important to know how often you can exfoliate your skin, because if you do it too often, you can irritate your skin and make it sensitive. This is how often you should do a home exfoliation depending on your skin type:
Normal healthy skin – You can exfoliate your skin one to two times a week.
Dry skin – You should exfoliate your skin two to three times a week with a gentle scrub, because dry skin gets flaky easily. If your skin is sensitive, you should only do it once a week.
Oily and sensitive skin – Once, maximum twice a week. This group includes people who suffer from rozacea, acne or eczema.
There are two types of exfoliation:
Mechanical – As the name says, this exfoliation happens physically, through friction, to remove dead skin cells.
Chemical – Most often, products that contain ingredients such as AHA and BHA acids (Alpha Hydroxy Acids and Beta Hydroxy Acids) are used. These acids produce deep peeling effect and help to get rid of dead cells without using physical abrasion. However, people with sensitive skin should be careful when using chemical exfoliation.
Natural exfoliation at home
Today there are a variety of face and body scrubs. But you shouldn’t neglect the home skin care with natural ingredients which sometimes is more effective and safer than the cosmetic products. Therefore, here are several ways you can revitalize your skin with doing natural exfoliation at home:
Natural exfoliation at home – DIY face scrub
2 teaspoons of fine oatmeal
1 teaspoon of sugar
¼ teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 teaspoons of honey
Wash your face and pat dry. Apply the mixture (of the ingredients above) and start to massage your skin with circular movements. Make sure that you don’t rub the area around the eyes. Massage your face for one minute and allow the mixture to stay on your face for 15 minutes. Wash your face with lukewarm water and apply your favorite moisturizer.
Natural exfoliation at home – DIY body scrub
Most women exfoliate their face, but you shouldn’t forget your body. You need to pay special attention to the dry areas like the elbows, feet and knees.
To get easy and fast soft and smooth skin, you only need to mix 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil with 3 tablespoons of sugar. This mixture will serve you as a DIY body scrub to remove the dead skin cells.
Instead of sugar you can use salt, but salt can cause burning sensation if you have small wounds and cuts on your skin. It’s important not to exfoliate your skin if you have sunburns or if you have wounds.
You can also use ground almonds mixed with extra virgin olive oil as a natural homemade face and body scrub.
Ground coffee can be an excellent ingredient for homemade face and body scrubs. Also caffeine helps in the fight against cellulite so you can make DIY anti cellulite coffee scrub.
For mechanical home exfoliation use loofah, sponge or glove, and rub the rough areas, and for the feet, use pumice stone or rough brush.
