Facial scrubbing is one of those things that are simply necessary for good looking skin. No question about that. There’s a catch to this though. Not all facial scrubs serve this intended purpose well. In fact, a bad facial scrub is worse than going without one at all. Poorly done or timed facial scrubs are a real thing. Something you really want to avoid, lest you end up with one or more of these unfortunate endings
Excessive skin dryness
With scrubbing the intention is to get rid of the ‘excess’ oil, dead cells and other dirt. Doing it excessively may however give you dry skin. Just because it’s good for your skin, more is not necessarily better. You don’t need a daily scrub. You risk leaving your skin so dry, and that starts off its own not-so-good series of events
Skin irritation
Scrubbing relies on the abrasion effect of the substance you’re using. With a wide range of scrub products on the market today, there’s an equally wide variation in the strength of abrasives used. Choosing the wrong product, or just simply being excessively aggressive with your scrubbing can irritate your skin. A good scrub product does not need aggressive scrub to work well. Also, instead of having one ‘catch-up’ session every month, go for a bi-weekly gentle scrub that will regularly cleanse your skin without leaving room for lengthy build-up
Skin clogging and breakouts
This is what we would call a good-scrub-gone-bad. A scrub leading to breakouts simply defeats its own purpose. When done insufficiently, the scrub substance may end up clogging the pores more, leading to even more acne breakouts. This can happen as a result of any of the following:
- The scrubbing being done hurriedly, and the product being incompletely washed off after the session
- Using a mechanical exfoliator(scrub) like a chemical exfoliator.
Skin damage and Infection
A good scrub should still adhere to the simple principles of hygiene and infection prevention. In a typical scrub session, your face is in intimate contact with the scrubbing hands, for some good time. Translation? There’s a considerable chance for transmission of infection, especially in case there’s skin irritation or damage.
Hyper pigmented blemishes
This usually results from a poorly-timed scrubbing, especially of the face. Scrubbing is meant to help keep your skin pores free from clogging, which in turn results in an acne-free face. A wrongly-timed scrub is one done when you already have an on-going acne break-out. This usually never ends well. Scrubbed acne usually heals badly, with excessive scaring and dark spots. To avoid this, you need to think of scrubbing as a preventive measure, rather than a curative one.
In a nutshell, a poorly done or timed scrubbing can wreak havoc in your skin. However, this shouldn’t be a drawback in any way. The benefits of a scrub done right, outweigh these potential cons, especially now, that you know what to watch out for.
:) Happy scrubbing!!