How Often is Too Often With Exfoliating?

Although exfoliation may be an important part of skincare, it’s also very easy to make mistakes with this. One of the most common is over-exfoliating, with this being so damaging that it could take your skin several months to fully recover.

If you want to see all of the benefits of exfoliation without any of the downsides, knowing how often to exfoliate is key. Unfortunately, there isn’t a clear-cut answer to this. It depends on a few different factors, from your skin type to the time of year to the exfoliator that you’re using. 

So, how are you meant to figure this out so that you don’t end up exfoliating your skin too often? Keep reading as Lionesse explains.

Why Exfoliate in the First Place? 

Exfoliation is the act of removing dead skin cells from the skin’s surface and pore openings. Why does this need to be done? Because, over the course of 24 hours, you lose about five billion skin cells. While some of these are naturally shed by your skin, this process slows down with age, causing a large number of those cells to build up on the skin instead. Regularly clearing these away can bring about a plethora of benefits, such as:

• Immediately giving the skin a brighter and more radiant finish
• Leaving the skin feeling smoother, softer, and firmer
• Reducing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles
• Unclogging pores and preventing the appearance of acne breakouts
• Evening out the look of discoloration while lightening the visibility of dark spots
• Enhancing the absorption of the rest of your skincare products

While all of those perks may leave you tempted to exfoliate as often as you can, this wouldn’t be advisable. Instead, let’s take a look at how to figure out how often you should be exfoliating…

What’s Your Skin Type?

Your skin type is one of the most important factors to consider when deciding how often to exfoliate. This will largely dictate what your skin needs, so don’t ignore it! 

Dry Skin

If you have dry skin, you need to be very careful with exfoliation. While it can be a great way to get rid of the dry and flaky patches on your skin, exfoliating too often will quickly make that dryness worse. How? Because you’ll end up removing your skin’s sebum reserves faster than they can be replenished. Since dryness is caused by a lack of sebum, this is the last thing you want to do! 

This is why dry skin should only be exfoliated once or twice a week. Once a week would be a good baseline to start with, and you could then consider increasing this to twice a week if your skin seems to need more.

Oily Skin

Oily skin is the opposite of dry skin. Instead of being unable to produce enough oil, it produces way too much! Fortunately, exfoliation is a great solution for clearing away this excess oil and preventing the appearance of acne-breakouts.

With this said, you still don’t want to end up exfoliating oily skin too often. The damage that this can cause to your skin barrier could stimulate your sebaceous glands into producing even more oil, leaving your skin greasier than ever. This is why, with oily skin, it’s best to exfoliate two or three times a week.

Combination Skin

Combination skin features elements of both dry and oily skin. With both being such opposing skin types, this can make it difficult to figure out how often to exfoliate since your oily areas may require more than your dry areas.

To play it safe, avoid exfoliating combination skin more than twice a week. If this doesn’t seem to be enough for the oily parts of your face, you could consider giving those areas an extra exfoliation session each week. However, make sure that you don’t subject the dry areas of your face to this.

Sensitive Skin

If your skin type is sensitive, this means that your skin barrier has been compromised in some way. This means that you need to be very careful about exfoliation as making the wrong move could cause further damage to your skin barrier. This would then make your skin even more sensitive. 

Once a week is usually the best place to start when exfoliating sensitive skin. However, if your skin is telling you that this is too much (we’ll soon explain what this looks like!), you may want to cut back your exfoliation efforts to once every 8-10 days.

Normal Skin

If your skin type is normal, consider yourself lucky! This means that your skin barrier is healthy and balanced, with your skin producing just the right amount of sebum. However, this doesn’t mean that you don’t need to exfoliate as your skin would still benefit from a helping hand when it comes to clearing away built-up dead cells.

Of course, you don’t want to over-exfoliate either as this will only disrupt your well-balanced skin and could cause your skin type to swing to one of the less-than-ideal extremes. So, save your exfoliator for twice-weekly use if your skin type is normal.

What Type of Exfoliator Are You Using?

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In addition to keeping your skin type in mind when deciding how often to exfoliate, you should also consider the type of exfoliator that you’re using. Some are much more potent than others and, therefore, shouldn’t be used quite as often. However, while those overly aggressive exfoliating formulas may seem advantageous, experts tend to agree that gentle is best when it comes to picking an exfoliator. 

One formula that works well for all skin types is the Lionesse White Pearl Facial Peeling. It’s a physical exfoliator, albeit a gentle one that isn’t going to cause micro-tears in your skin in the way that some face scrubs do. It’s also loaded with hydrating ingredients and a sprinkling of pearl powder to give your skin some extra luminosity. 

If your skin type is severely oily, you may need an acid-based exfoliator. Both alpha-hydroxy acids and beta-hydroxy acids can be beneficial but don’t go all in with a high concentration to start with. Again, keep things gentle to avoid the risk of over-exfoliation.

Signs That You Aren’t Exfoliating Often Enough

How can you tell if you aren’t exfoliating often enough? Your dead skin cells will be building up on your skin’s surface to quite an extent in between exfoliation sessions. Your skin will take on a dull and lifeless appearance, with a significant lack of radiance. 

If your pores often end up clogged, then this could also mean that your skin needs to be exfoliated more often. If you’re already exfoliating the maximum recommended amount, your next step should be to consider a slightly stronger exfoliator.

Signs That You’re Exfoliating Too Often

On the flip side, if you’re exfoliating too often, you could experience a variety of issues. As we discussed above, over-exfoliating will usually worsen your existing skin concerns. Dry skin will become drier, oily skin will become oilier, and sensitive skin will become much more irritated and inflamed.

Sensitivities will also become more prevalent for everyone, even if your skin isn’t normally sensitive. You may find that your skin starts reacting to products/triggers that never previously bothered it, which is a sign that you need to tone down your exfoliation efforts.

Incorporating Exfoliation Into Your Skincare Routine

How you incorporate exfoliation into your skincare routine can sometimes be just as important as ensuring that you’re exfoliating the right amount. Here’s the best way to go about it:

Start by Cleansing Your Skin

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Exfoliation is all about giving your skin a deeper cleanse. However, if the surface of your skin is cluttered with dirt and other impurities, your exfoliator won’t be able to reach those deeper layers where it’s really needed.

This is why you should always cleanse before exfoliating. Ideally, do so with a gentle cleanser to avoid disrupting skin barrier function. A formula like the Lionesse White Pearl Facial Cleanser is perfect for this! 

Exfoliate

Now that your skin has been cleansed, you can move on to exfoliating. In terms of how to do this, this all depends on the exfoliator that you’re using. Follow the usage directions that come with the product, adhering to these as much as possible.

Hydrate

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Now that your skin is freshly exfoliated, your skin cells will be feeling particularly receptive to any other products that you apply. Because of this, now is a great time to quench your skin with one or two hydrating skincare products. 

The Lionesse Morganite Transforming Serum is one of our favorite post-exfoliation skincare products. With sodium hyaluronate, peptides, collagen, and glycerin, it will help your skin barrier to feel stronger and replenished while bumping up your skin’s hydration levels. Meanwhile, vitamin C will work to target your various visible skin concerns.

Moisturize

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Even if you decide to skip the serum, moisturizing is non-negotiable, especially after you’ve exfoliated. Exfoliating temporarily leaves the skin barrier more susceptible to damage. Applying a moisturizer over the top helps to keep your skin barrier feeling fortified, giving it an extra physical shield.

Pick a moisturizer that works well with your skin type. The Lionesse White Pearl Night Cream, for example, is loved by those with dry skin. It’s richly moisturizing, making it ideal for use after exfoliation. On the other hand, if your skin type is on the oilier side, try the Lionesse Diamond Neck & Face Lift Cream. It’s wonderfully hydrating but won’t leave your skin feeling heavy or greasy.

Summary

As you can see, there’s so much to think about when it comes to exfoliation. Figuring out how often to exfoliate is just one part of the puzzle. You then need to combine this knowledge with the right exfoliator, before following up your exfoliation session with the correct skincare products. Get all of this right and your skin should respond with a radiant glow, a texture that feels softer and smoother, and an overall healthier appearance.

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