Here’s the final part of this series on exfoliation. We’ve looked at all of the physical exfoliants and chemical exfoliants, now we’re turning to the most important question: Which exfoliant should you use? And how often?

Or which exfoliants, rather. Because once you start seeing the results from exfoliating – the glowy skin, the smooth texture, the pigmentation fading – you’ll want to try more. It’s a slippery slope into pretty skin. Unfortunately though, this process can be painstaking and slow, since it takes a while to see the results of any changes in your skincare routine, so have patience!

• Guiding Rules
• How to Get Started
• Choosing an Exfoliant
  • Physical or chemical?
  • Which physical exfoliant should I use?
  • Which chemical exfoliant should I use?
• My Exfoliation Routine

Guiding Rules

Let’s lay out some guiding principles before we get too excited…

1. Add one new product at a time, a couple of weeks apart

Introducing a whole bunch of skincare products at once is tempting, but a bit of self-control is a good idea. The key reason is that if your skin has a reaction (allergy, irritation, breakouts or just clogged pores), you won’t be able to work out what the culprit is for a while. You’ll have to take everything out, then reintroduce them one by one a couple of weeks apart to check.

Best case scenario? Your skin doesn’t react, it looks amazing, but now you don’t know which of the 5 new products worked. Your skincare routine now takes 3 hours and costs $200 a month.

2. Go slow

This applies to all dimensions of exfoliation. For everything, you need to patch test first if you have sensitive skin. If you have robust skin, you should still patch test first, but I’m the first to admit that I’m too impatient for this most of the time.

In terms of frequency, this means start off with once a week, and if your skin can handle it, then work up gradually.

In terms of harshness for physical exfoliation, start gentle – this means starting with the softest brush, or the finest grains, or pressing gently and scrubbing for only a few seconds.

For chemical exfoliation, this means starting on a lower percentage and working upwards, or starting for a few minutes if it’s a wash-off product, before working up to 10 minutes or whatever the maximum recommended time is.

3. Watch out for overexfoliation

Sensitive, red, tight, weirdly shiny (not in a good way) skin is a hallmark of exfoliating too much, too fast. Your skin needs its protective outer layer, and scrubbing too much off will lead to inflamed, dehydrated skin. If this happens to you, put a hold on all exfoliation until your skin gets back to normal – then let it rest for a few days before going back to exfoliating.

4. Your mileage may vary

This applies to skincare in general. Human skin is all the same to some extent, but it’s still different enough that no product will ever work for everyone the same way. So don’t blindly follow someone on social media who has great skin and scrubs with diamond dust for 5 hours a day – but at the same time, if there’s someone with similar skin concerns as you, and a particular product worked fantastically for them, then it could be a good starting point.

5. Don’t just exfoliate

You should be cleansing before you exfoliate, and moisturising afterwards. Your skincare needs might also change a bit as you exfoliate more regularly.

How to Get Started

Depending on your skincare routine and how well you know your skin, you may be able to skip some of these steps.

1. Stop all exfoliation you currently do in your routine

Step 1 is to stop all the exfoliation your currently do, then get set up with a barebones routine (cleanser, moisturiser, sunscreen) until your skin adjusts to its normal state (a couple of weeks).

Most people who are new to skincare tend to overexfoliate – daily apricot scrubs, Clarisonic use twice a day, etc. If this is you, you’ll need to put your exfoliation on pause to allow your skin to recover, so you can see what actually works with your skin in its healthy state.

2. Introduce a gentle exfoliant into your routine

Start with a gentle physical or chemical exfoliant, depending on what your skin’s needs are. Use it once weekly. Observe the results after a couple of weeks. If you don’t like the results or you don’t see a difference, switch to another exfoliant until you do find one you like. Then…

3. Increase exfoliation

Once you find an exfoliant that works for you, you can:

• Increase the strength of your current exfoliant: increase the percentage if it’s a chemical exfoliant, or increase the time it’s acting on your skin
• Increase the frequency of your current exfoliant: use it twice as often, for example
• Add another gentle physical or chemical exfoliant: if you want to address a problem your current exfoliant doesn’t help with, you can add a different exfoliant to your regimen to tackle that issue. Make sure you don’t use both exfoliants in the same session!

Remember: Wait at least 2 weeks before changing your routine! If it’s too much, then refer to rule #3: put a hold on the extra exfoliant, let your skin calm down, then try something else.

Eventually you’ll get to know the effect that each exfoliant has on your skin, and you can adjust the frequency or strength of the exfoliants you’re using in your routine according to what your skin needs.

Choosing an Exfoliant

Physical or Chemical?

The two major categories of exfoliant are physical exfoliants, which buff away dead cells mechanically, and chemical exfoliants, which remove dead cells by unsticking the glue holding them together, or by correcting the rate at which the skin produces skin cells.

Both types of exfoliation have their benefits, and different types of physical or chemical exfoliation have their advantages and disadvantages too. For most people, I would recommend working up to using both. There are no hard and fast rules about only using AHAs for dry skin, or only using scrubs on oily skin – all skin types can benefit from both physical and chemical exfoliants. Both can be suitable for sensitive skin, if you stick to the gentle ones.

In general, people tend to see greater effects using chemical exfoliation, as the results are longer lasting since they work on the deeper layers of the skin.

Which physical exfoliant should I use?

Here’s a quick guide to physical exfoliants, with strength ratings and the advantages and disadvantages of each method. You can find more details on usage, and a few examples of each type in the first post in this series on physical exfoliants.

A disclaimer: The strength ratings are based on subjective experience (my own and those of other skincare nerds) – there isn’t a standardised test for harshness, and even if there was, there would be a lot of variation between products in a category. Physical exfoliation strength also depends a lot on the way it’s used (for how long, with how much pressure, with what sort of motion etc.).

You should start using each physical exfoliant with light pressure, in small circles, for no longer than a minute.

Which chemical exfoliant should I use?

Chemical exfoliants are a bit harder to order because there’s a lot of variations in formulation and additional considerations that can drastically change the amount of exfoliation possible. Keep this in mind when choosing a product – with each category, start with a low percentage and/or short application time (where applicable). If your skin is particularly sensitive, you can start by washing off a leave-on product after a few hours, even if the instructions advise you not to rinse. If you experience stinging initially with a leave-on product, you can mix it with a moisturiser first, until you get used to it.

My Exfoliation Routine

Here’s what my current exfoliation routine looks like. I’ve built it slowly over the past 5-ish years of nerdery, so I know my skin pretty well and adjust it according to what my skin’s needs are (it changes depending on the season, the stage in my menstrual cycle, the amount of sleep I’ve had, the way the wind’s blowing…).

Physical exfoliation: once a week. I use either a vibrating, non-oscillating cleansing brush (medium strength) with a cleanser for about 1 minute on my face, or a peeling gel (gentle strength) for about 1 minute on my face.

Chemical exfoliation: twice a week. Depending on my skin’s needs, I use:

• AHA or retinol on my cheeks
• Salicylic acid on my T-zone
• Enzyme exfoliant all over (wash-off)

Approximately once every two months I do a peel as well.

That’s all the planned parts I have – do you have any additional questions? Please let me know!