How Often Should You Exfoliate Your Skin?

Exfoliation is essential if you want healthy-looking skin, yet knowing how often to exfoliate can be tricky. Get this wrong by exfoliating too much and you could end up causing serious damage to your skin, which could take months to repair.

So, if you want to make sure that you’re on the right track when it comes to your exfoliation game, read on as Lionesse explains how often each skin type should be exfoliated.

What is Exfoliation and Why is it So Important?

Exfoliation is a skincare technique that involves clearing away dead skin cells, excess sebum, and other impurities from the skin’s surface and pores. 

You can do this with either a chemical exfoliant or a physical exfoliant. Chemical exfoliants make use of hydroxy acids to dissolve the bonds that keep dead cells attached to the skin, allowing those cells to drop away. Meanwhile, physical exfoliants, like the Lionesse White Pearl Facial Peeling, create friction against the skin to physically dislodge those cells. 

Whichever type of exfoliator you choose to use, some of the benefits that you’ll experience from regularly exfoliating your skin include:

• Unclogging pores. This goes a long way in preventing the appearance of acne
• Reducing the feeling of roughness, giving the skin’s texture a smooth and even finish
• Brightening the overall complexion. This is down to how a buildup of dead cells on your skin leaves the skin looking dull, inhibiting its ability to reflect light
• Diminishing the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles
• Making the skin feel firmer and tighter
• Enhancing the absorption of any other skincare products that you apply 
• Lightening the visibility of hyperpigmentation. Although many dark marks will naturally fade over time, regularly exfoliating will help them to look lighter much faster
• Boosting circulation if you’re using a physical exfoliant. This gives the skin a gorgeous natural glow

What Happens If You Exfoliate Too Often?

So, if exfoliation is so great, then why does it matter how often you exfoliate? Can’t you just exfoliate every day and reap the rewards even sooner?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Although exfoliation removes the dead skin cells and excess sebum that’s coating your skin’s surface and pores, that layer also serves as a component of the protective barrier that keeps your skin safe from the environment. As soon as you get rid of it, your skin becomes more vulnerable to environmental damage.

This is why you need to leave it a while in between exfoliation sessions. Exfoliate too often and you’ll end up causing deep damage to your skin barrier.

The symptoms of over-exfoliation are varied but include:

• Redness and irritation, due to how your skin will now be so much more sensitive to environmental aggressors
• Dehydration since your skin barrier won’t be able to retain the same amount of moisture
• Increased oiliness and acne, which are common when the skin is dehydrated
• Dryness and flaky skin, which is, again, common with dehydrated skin and a damaged skin barrier
• A tight and uncomfortable sensation in the skin. This is caused by your new skin cells being exposed to the environment before they’re ready

When it comes to the symptoms of over-exfoliation, it isn’t an either/or situation. Instead, you could experience a combination, or even all, of the above, making it so important to get things right when exfoliating your skin.

How Often to Exfoliate Your Skin Type

There are a few factors to take into consideration when deciding how often to exfoliate your face. However, the most important one is your skin type. This will largely dictate the needs of your skin, as well as influence how your skin will respond to exfoliation.

Let’s take a closer look at how often each skin type should be exfoliated:

Dry Skin

Dry skin is already lacking in natural oils, which is something that exfoliation will remove even more of. Therefore, you need to be careful when deciding how often to exfoliate – overdoing it will only exacerbate your dryness.

For most people with dry skin, exfoliating once a week is sufficient. If you’re new to exfoliation, this is a great place to start. Give it a few weeks and see how your skin is reacting. If all looks and feels well, you could consider increasing this to twice a week if you wanted to.

Either way, with dry skin, it’s vital that you moisturize as soon as you’re done exfoliating. This doesn’t necessarily mean using a cream – a moisturizing serum, like the Lionesse Morganite Transforming Serum, would work too. The key is to ensure that your skin doesn’t remain bare for too long after it has been exfoliated, as this will only leave it feeling drier.

Oily, Acne-Prone Skin

Over-exfoliation is very easy to do when you have oily skin. A good exfoliator will quickly cut through that greasy sheen that coats your skin, making it tempting to exfoliate more often. However, when oily skin is exfoliated too often, it will likely end up even oilier in the long run. This will make acne breakouts more prevalent too.

The sweet spot when exfoliating oily skin is usually two to three times a week. To avoid overdoing it, start with twice a week for a few weeks. If your skin is tolerating this well, you could then increase this to three times a week.

Don’t forget that skincare products absorb better into freshly exfoliated skin, so use this to your advantage. Post-exfoliation is the perfect time to apply products designed to reduce the appearance of acne, such as the Lionesse Black Onyx Serum. With vitamins A and C, along with sodium hyaluronate and black onyx powder, this silky solution will hydrate your skin while giving it a matte finish.

Combination Skin

With combination skin featuring elements from both the dry and oily skin types, your exfoliation efforts should do the same. This means exfoliating your skin about twice a week.

Of course, if the oily areas of your face seem to need some extra exfoliation, go ahead and give it that. You could either add in an extra exfoliation session where you concentrate on the oily parts of your face, or you could use an alpha-hydroxy acid serum on your oily areas. The Lionesse Opal Sheer Collagen Serum, for example, contains lactic acid. It’s an exfoliating acid that also happens to be extremely hydrating, making it perfect for combination skin.

Sensitive Skin

If you have sensitive skin, then this means that your skin barrier has already been compromised in some way. This is why your skin is more sensitive to the environment around it. 

As a result, you need to be very careful about how often you exfoliate. Your skin will be highly susceptible to over-exfoliation, so even once a week could be too much for it. Start by exfoliating once every ten days, gradually increasing this frequency if your skin doesn’t seem to mind.

Once you’re done exfoliating, treat your skin to a product designed to soothe and rebalance the complexion. The Lionesse White Pearl Skin Toner would be a great choice. With aloe vera leaf juice, cucumber fruit extract, and chamomile flower extract, it not only calms the feeling of irritation and sensitivities but also provides a splash of hydration.

Normal Skin

If your skin type is normal, then you’re very lucky! This is the rarest of skin types, indicating that your skin is neither overly oily nor overly dry. Although this gives you a little more leeway when it comes to working out how often you should exfoliate your skin, it also means that your skin could quickly go from normal to damaged if you go overboard.

So, what’s the answer? Exfoliating twice a week should be enough to keep your skin looking flawless.

After exfoliating, be sure to cover your skin with a moisturizer. The Lionesse Golden Sapphire Cream, which will brighten, soften, and firm up your complexion, would be a good one to try!

What About Exfoliating Your Body?

It’s not just the face that needs to be exfoliated. The skin on the body requires the same attention too!

Fortunately, the skin on the body isn’t quite as demanding as the skin on the face. It’s thicker and tougher, meaning that it will tolerate more when it comes to exfoliation.

Again, keep your skin type in mind. Follow the guidelines that we’ve shared above but don’t be afraid to exfoliate your body a little more often than you do your face. As always, pay attention to how your skin responds so that you can adjust your exfoliation frequency accordingly.

Of course, with the skin on the body being thicker, your facial exfoliator, which is designed for thinner skin, is unlikely to make much of an impact here. Instead, it’s worth investing in a dedicated body exfoliant, such as the Lionesse Body Scrub. It makes use of a blend of diamond powder and sea salt to gently but firmly clear away dead skin on the body, leaving it feeling beautifully smooth and soft!

When using a scrub on your body, remember to be gentle. It may feel satisfying to put some pressure on but you don’t want to end up scratching or tearing your skin. This will only leave your body dealing with the symptoms of over-exfoliation. Instead, keep your touch light, allowing the granules in your body scrub to do the work themselves.

When to Exfoliate Your Skin

Now that you know how often to exfoliate, let’s quickly talk about when you should be exfoliating. 

While some prefer to exfoliate in the mornings, evenings are usually a safer bet. As we mentioned earlier, exfoliation leaves your skin more vulnerable to environmental damage. If you exfoliate before heading out for the day, everything from the sun to pollution is more likely to harm your skin. Save your exfoliator for evening use and your skin will have all night to recover.

Summary

There are a few variables to keep in mind when deciding how often to exfoliate. However, so long as you’re using a gentle and high-quality exfoliator, the guidelines that we’ve shared above are a great place to start. They’ll ensure that you give your skin just the right amount of exfoliation that it needs to look healthy and happy.

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