Dry Brushing: Helpful or Harmful to Skin

Women may intimately understand the basis for the saying “pain is beauty and beauty is pain”, but it doesn’t mean that pain is the only way for us to achieve the beautiful, glowing skin we so strongly desire.  In fact, in order to have beautiful skin, one only needs to understand the basics of good skin care and partake of those habits that assist in bringing it about.

Helpful and Harmful Skin Care Habits

There are many various beauty habits that an individual may wonder about–especially as regards to whether they are helpful to their skin or will cause more harm than they are worth.  A perfect example is exfoliating one’s face with a skin scrub.  This may seem like a highly beneficial beauty habit, especially since it helps to keep one’s skin baby-soft and smooth, but it can be harmful to over-exfoliate one’s face on a regular basis, stripping away protective layers of skin.  Another example is dry brushing–but this one is actually a wonderfully beneficial beauty habit.

Dry brushing is precisely what it sounds like.  With a long-handled, natural bristle brush, you stand naked in the bathtub and begin brushing your body down, starting at your feet and moving in long, sweeping movements toward your heart.  You should brush each area several times, overlapping as you move along and taking care to very gently brush over more sensitive areas like your chest.  A tingling sensation is normal, but dry brushing should never hurt.  Over time, you will find that your skin is less uncomfortably sensitive to dry brushing, but you should still use gentle sweeping movements.  Once you have finished dry brushing your entire body, take a cleansing shower.  After patting your skin dry, apply a natural fruit oil like rose hip or coconut oil.

With dry brushing you are addressing and improving the health of the largest organ of your body–which also happens to be an important organ of elimination, with more than a third of all your body’s toxins being excreted through the skin.  Obviously, this natural elimination process normally leads to clogged pores and those unsightly blemishes we all dread waking up to.  Dry brushing every day allows you to gently keep your skin fresh and clean through exfoliating dead skin, clearing out your pores, preventing flaky skin and body acne, stimulating your blood flow and lymphatic system, reducing cellulite, unclogging pores, decongesting skin and much more.  It’s time to forget that rough loofa in the shower and begin dry brushing instead!

Love,

Gen