I was inspired to write this by reading another interesting post by Perry Romanowski’s from The Beauty Brains.

In the past I wrote about the importance of exfoliation for maintaining good skin and some readers may wonder if exfoliation can be done indefinitely, or, as Peter’s client put it “Does exfoliating make you run out of skin?”

The answer is resoundingly NO.

The skin has a basal layer ( the live layer) which produces new skin cells that travel upwards and become the top layer. At this point these cells are dead and will naturally flake off to make room for new ones, and so on. The whole process takes about 35 days. Stem cells in the basal layer produce skin cells indefinitely, but, with aging the production slows down. This in turn means the natural sloughing process slows down too and this is why aging skin has that greyish tinge : it’s been around too long.

Exfoliation takes care of that problem by removing the dead cells and making room for fresh ones to come to the surface.

Exfoliating excess dead cells also eases penetration of anti-aging serums and creams and hereby enhances their effectiveness.

You have multiple choices when choosing exfoliants:

1. grainy, mechanical ones that work by gently moving your fingertips in small circles.

2. enzyme peels ( e.g.from pineapple, papaya) which are applied and allowed to work for a few minutes, then rinsed off.

3. AHA like glycolic acid, lactic acid, malic acid which can be done by an aesthetician.

4. chemical peels like TCA done by a dermatologist.

5. microdermabrasion that is done by either an aesthetician or dermatologist.(in reality it will be done by the nurse)

Exfoliation is beneficial for mature skin and should be done regularly, as part of a good skin care maintenance program.