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Skin exfoliation is often thought of as an activity that you have to do to keep your skin looking youthful. However, exfoliation is also a natural process for your skin to remove its old cells and stimulate the formation of new replacement cells. In other words, your skin exfoliates itself. Scientists even have a special term for this natural exfoliation process – desquamation.

Desquamation often slows down or becomes patchy. Inadequate desquamation leads to dry or blemished skin. Dry skin looks flaky. Blemished skin may include acne, clogged pores, redness, or skin spots. All of these conditions can benefit from actively exfoliating your skin to give it the youthful, glowing appearance that it should have.

Herbal skin care products are particularly powerful for enhancing desquamation. The key is to use natural skin care products that provide deep cleansing that is non-irritating.

Removing Dead Skin Cells

You may not realize that the outer layer of your skin consists entirely of dead skin cells. You are literally covered with them! Normally they have been dead for at least a month. They form a protective layer against damage by microbial infection and by environmental toxins, including overexposure to UV light. Healthy skin sheds millions of dead skin cells each day. Skin shedding maintains an important balance between this protective layer and the formation of new cells to replace the dead ones.

This natural balance gets off kilter when the shedding process slows down due to external damage or aging. Such an imbalance causes your normally protective layer of dead skin cells to thicken beyond what is necessary, which leads to dull-looking skin. This is when taking an active role in exfoliating your skin becomes important for restoring the cycle of shedding and regeneration.

Exfoliating Dry Skin

By the way, skin may begin drying out before it becomes obviously flaky-looking. A simple home test will tell you whether you are forming surface dry skin cells. Take a small piece of clear tape and rub it gently on your forehead. Once you carefully remove it, take a look for any little pieces of flaky skin on the tape. They indicate dead skin cells that are not being removed fast enough by healthy desquamation.

Exfoliation for removing dry skin cells is particularly important before using rehydrating creams. Rehydrating dead cells would make no sense, so they should be removed beforehand. Winter is the season when exfoliation is particularly important, since skin dries out more in cold air that holds less moisture. Even indoor air can be super-dry when it is heated by a natural gas furnace.

Exfoliating Blemished Skin

Skin cell buildup can clog pores, trap oil in follicles, enable acne-causing bacteria, and cause patchy redness. Any of these conditions benefit tremendously from an active exfoliating program with herbal formulas. A mixture of herbs that cleanse, disinfect, and reduce inflammation will invigorate skin in preparation for applying moisturizing and anti-aging products.

Care must be taken to avoid ingredients that are overly drying or inflammatory. These include mixtures of strong anti-bacterial agents and of inflammatory organic acids. Particularly avoid substances such as alpha-hydroxy acids (AHA; e.g., glycolic acid) and beta-hydroxy acids (BHA; e.g., salicylic acid), since these are strong oxidants. They may temporarily reduce wrinkles, although they do so by inflaming cells to make them puff up to look smooth.

Reversing Skin Wrinkling

As the skin’s natural desquamation slows, the accumulation of dry skin cells creates a wrinkled appearance. This is when herbs that promote the structural proteins, collagen and elastin, in the lower levels of the epidermis can trick the skin into acting young again.

Helping your clients with a deep exfoliation through our gentle Jade & Pearl Resurfacing Peel will help slow their skin’s natural aging and help peel away the years of sun and environmental stress.

Followed by the Jade & Pearl Anti-Aging Green Tea Mask, it’s a wonderful approach to staying vibrant and young!

Outdoor fun is especially challenging for your natural detox systems. BBQs, great food and drinks, lots of time poolside or at the beach. All of the enjoyable activities that you love so much take a toll on your body, especially your skin. Chlorine and salt water strip skin of its natural oils. Overdoing exposure to sunlight leads to spots, uneven pigmentation, and even freckles. Heat incubates bacteria in pores and on skin surfaces.

It doesn’t mean that you have to fear the sun, restrict yourself to a vegan organic diet, drink only the purest glacial water imported from the Arctic, and stay out of the pool, lake, or ocean. Instead what it means is simply that it is high time for post-summer detoxing – internally and externally.

Taking the right steps for detoxing your body and your skin will surely do the trick for getting you back on track.

Top 5 Steps for Detoxing Your Body

1. The first and most important step for internal detoxing is simple: Eat more foods that are rich in detox properties. Start by having more dark green leafy veggies in your diet. Spinach, kale, and beet or turnip greens should be at the top of the list. Even lighter green veggies such as cabbage, asparagus, and kelp (yes, seaweed!) provide powerful detoxing value.

2. Give a tremendous boost to the power of detox foods with the liberal use of healthful herbs and spices. The top ones include garlic, turmeric, watercress, ginger, cinnamon, cayenne pepper, cardamom, parsley and cilantro.

3. Detoxing herbal supplements are also important for supporting the cleansing process. The best such herbs add the bonus of boosting the immune system. Examples include Astragalus, Hawthorn, Rhubarb, and Cinnamon bark, among many others. Additional key herbal ingredients for internal detox formulas include dandelion root, burdock root, ginseng, and licorice.

4. And always, always, always drink plenty of clean, fresh water. Hydration is crucial for internal cleansing.

5. One more thing – your liver will do a much better job detoxing your body if you cut down on caffeinated beverages, sweets, alcohol, and overeating. All of these thwart your efforts to detoxify your body.

Best Strategy for Detoxing Your Skin – A Detox Soak

Internal detoxing will, of course, help your skin, too.

Indeed, body detoxing goes hand in hand with the use of natural skin care formulas specifically designed for detoxing and rejuvenating your skin by further cleansing from the inside out.

Soaking in a detox bath for 20 minutes harnesses the power of herbs to drive total body cleansing through the skin. Four of the most important herbs and what they do for a relaxing and rejuvenating detox soak are:

1. Burdock Root, which is known to moisten the intestines and promote bowel movements, resolve toxicity, and have an antibiotic effect
2. Ledebouriella (Saposhnikoviae Root), which harmonizes the intestines and alleviate bowel issues such as spasms, gas and bloating
3. Cortex Moutan is known to increase circulation, have an anti-microbial effect, clear the liver and reduce swelling
4. Mulberry is known to have a detoxifying effect, reduce edema, and help harmonize blood pressure

A detox soak is the perfect complement to changes in your diet and lifestyle for total body cleansing.

Healthy Skin – More Than Skin Deep

Regardless of whatever challenges you imposed on your skin over the summer, reversing their effects takes a multi-pronged effort. Diet, hydration, detox supplements, and herbal skin care synergize with one another to cleanse your body and rejuvenate your skin.

Healthy, vibrant skin is your reward for a healthy, vibrant body.