Getting Skin Deep

Getting Skin Deep
(With Skin Care)

I was definitely a lover of skin care from a young age, however I didn’t think too deeply about the complexity of skin care back then. So getting skin deep for me is about the fact that there’s a lot more going on in my skins health than before. For one back in the day, it wasn’t really that complex, and two—it didn’t have to be. Young skin—aside from any skin conditions that require treatment—doesn’t typically require much. Cleansing, hydrating and the occasional exfoliation was all it took for healthy, glowing skin. Anyway these products are ones that I love and help me tackle some of my skin woes.

Most days I miss that simplicity so much, especially because the skin care market is as over saturated with product as it has ever been and it isn’t always the easiest to know where to start. One thing is true, however I still really believe strongly in stripping it down to the basic steps for great skin.

Exfoliating to me was sort of that occasional treat that served to make me feel new again. As I understood it in my youth, dead skin laid on the surface of your skin and exfoliating helped to resurface revealing fresh, glowing skin.

I’ll start off with the only exfoliation I ever used in my teens up until my early twenties. With a couple of spoonfuls of granulated sugar and olive oil, I had concocted a very simple very accessible exfoliator. I remember feeling like that was sort of my secret weapon for glowing skin. These days I opt for a more refined grain, but at the time my skin was impeccable and it could handle it. Rinsing the scrub off with warm water was possibly one of the best feelings ever. You’ll never feel anything softer than that.

My next exfoliator of choice and one that I retired my olive oil/sugar scrub of many years for —was glycolic exfoliating pads. It was the first time I realized that there was another way to exfoliate and that was with glycolic acid which is a chemical exfoliant. As an avid shopper of CVS Pharmacy skin care, I had fallen in love with the sort of glow I would get from using these pads. The particular brand I used was Dr. Jeffrey Dover Skin Effects which may have been rebranded to Skin+Pharmacy (just my theory). I used them about once or twice a week and thoroughly enjoyed them as part of my skin care regimen. I don’t think I ever went back to my concoction after that. And actually I’m not sure that this was something that any other brand had started doing at the time, but I began using the glycolic day moisturizer with spf as well me that just changed the whole game for me. I felt great about using it every day! You can check out my Skin+Pharmacy post to see my review on the brand.

I began to explore my preferences between chemical exfoliants and ones that are more physical and granular and different product types. These days I use more granular exfoliants when I’ve got areas with dry patches of skin or want to clear my pores such as a warming exfoliator like Ole Henriksen Pore-Balance Facial Sauna Scrub. Most of the time however, the glycolic pads are enough for most areas of my face and neck and I try to use the more abrasive scrubs much less. My favorite thing to use however, is a glycolic moisturizer. So far I’ve only repurchased the one by Skin+Pharmacy multiple times—but I’d like to see what other brands also do them.

If you’re on the hunt for an exfoliator definitely consider the skin type that you have when deciding between a chemical and physical exfoliants. And please please don’t forget to wear SPF!!!