The One Thing That Will Give You The Softest Skin After A Shower
With so many beauty and makeup products on the market intended to conceal dry, flaky, or dull skin, the truth is that nothing can truly replace soft, supple skin. While we all want to avoid dullness and flakiness, some of our regular daily habits can be the biggest mistakes we make regarding dry skin. In fact, excessive showering and hand-washing can play a role in stripping natural oils from the skin.
Medical conditions such as thyroid disease, diabetes, and anorexia can also cause the skin to dry out and crack (via Healthline). If allergic, chemicals found in common soaps and body washes can irritate your skin, causing contact dermatitis, which severely dries out the skin, too.
It's also true that some people just have naturally drier skin than others. Getting your skin in the best shape possible should be the first step in any beauty routine, and that usually begins with exfoliating.
How exfoliating fosters soft skin
The purpose of exfoliating is to rub away your skin's dead cells to leave a soft, fresh new layer of skin behind. Both good and bad changes can happen if you exfoliate every day so you may want to skip a few days in between, especially if you have sensitive skin (via Byrdie). If you don't exfoliate, you should know that this it's a natural mechanism that occurs over time because dead skin cells gradually slip away on their own.
According to WebMD, it takes about one full month, or anywhere from 28 to 45 days, for the skin to do a "complete cycle of cell turnover." This processing time increases with age, so the older you get, the longer you hold onto dead skin cells. Exfoliation takes place on the epidermis, which holds the outer layers of the skin. You may be surprised to learn it houses "10 to 30 layers of dead skin cells."
There are easy and convenient ways to exfoliate in the form of chemical and physical means, with the latest exfoliation craze coming in the form of exfoliating gloves.
Why exfoliating gloves work so well
Exfoliating gloves typically work by using mechanical means of exfoliation, meaning that the gloves have a rough surface which helps rub off dead skins cell when you brush them against your body. On this, dermatologist Dr. Purvisha Patel tells Good Housekeeping, "Exfoliating gloves are a form of physical exfoliation. The dead skin is manually scrubbed off of the skin." She continued, "Ideally, they should be used in the shower with a soap and warm water."
The benefits of exfoliating gloves are twofold: They literally wipe away dead skin cells and freshen up the outermost layer of skin, and when combined with a nourishing body wash, they deliver an instant dose of moisture when you shower. According to MindBodyGreen, the gloves not only help massage lymph fluid to keep your circulation flowing optimally, but they also help ward off ingrown hairs in the bikini line.
Best of all, the super convenience of having a glove that stays on your hand allows you to get to those hard-to-reach spots, not to mention it serving as the ultimate backscratcher to boot.