Exfoliation with Peels and Scrubs
Exfoliation - shedding those old dead skin cells to make room for the new ones - is always an important element in skin care. Today I’m going to talk about and compare two popular means of exfoliation: exfoliating scrubs and chemical peels.
Uneven shedding and a build up of dead skin cells can lead to clogged pores, as well as making your skin look older than it should. Both exfoliating scrubs and chemical peels work to resolve this problem, but use different means to achieve that ends, and can have different side effects, positive or negative.
Chemical Peels, as the name suggests, use chemicals to basically dry out an kill the top layer of your skin, which then sloughs off or is removed with the peel. Drugs such as salicylic acid are popular ingredients to achieve this effect. Peels that focus on exfoliation can easily overdry your skin, so they typically include other moisturizing ingredients to balance the effect of the exfoliating drugs. Since chemical peels are applied so that they sit on your face for several minutes, they have the advantage of being able to penetrate deeper into your skin than other treatments which are immediately washed off, including most scrubs. Usually, this means the added benefit of more effectively killing unwanted bacteria under the surface of your skin. The downside is that everyone’s skin is different, and we don’t all react to the chemicals found in peels the same way. For some, the antibacterial effects will be less effective, and for others with sensitive skin the chemicals may be too strong, leaving the skin irritated or inflamed.
Exfoliating scrubs, on the other hand, put you in more direct control of the exfoliation. These scrubs have a thick consistency like a sandy paste, with particles that literally scrape away dead cells as you massage the scrub into your face. Most exfoliating scrubs marketed for skin care also include plenty of chemicals, vitamins and nutrients, but these are usually present in weak concentrations, and the shorter time period that the scrub spends on your face means that they seldom penetrate deep beneath the surface. The primary benefit of scrubs is the scrubbing-action itself. One thing to watch out for are scrubs in which the particles are extremely fine. These smaller particles can sometimes do more harm than good, by actually seeping to the openings of your pores, tearing at the pores (making them actually more visible) or getting lodged and stuck. You’re better off with a scrub in which the particles are closer to coarse sand rather than fine sugar. With the right scrub, these products may be more reliable for exfoliation than peels, since you control the level of exfoliation yourself, and physically scrubbing away dead cells is always going to be effective when chemicals fail.
