This is an honest confession from me to you. Hopefully you can all learn from my mistake of over exfoliation!
I don’t think that I am addictive in nature, I never had, and it took a while for the issues I had to come together, and for me to realise what was causing them.
As an RY employee, I have a variety of, arguably, the worlds best Skin Care, literally at my fingertips. Even so, I think I have a relatively simple regime, and I have had it, with minor changes for long before my RY days.
My issues: firstly, increasingly dry skin. I always experience this on a small scale as the weather cools down each year. What would seem to some ironic, I was also experiencing a significant increase in breakouts, and yep… I’m a squeezer.
Just as I was about to add a hydration booster to my routine, I realised, it was my over obsession for my favorite exfoliant that was causing it all!
Most of us are aware of the need to regularly rid our face – and body – of dead skin cells. Otherwise the layers of dead cells we shed every day can leave our complexion looking dull and lack luster and can cause congestion and unwanted break-outs – especially for anyone suffering from oily or acne-prone skin.
Oily skins tend to expel an increased number of dead cells and if these are not effectively removed, they can block the pores, trapping any excess oil and bacteria with them. As we remove unwanted dead skin, the regeneration of new, healthy cells is encouraged and we are left with an overall brighter and healthier-looking complexion.
When we exfoliate too much, it almost has the reversed effect, by removing too much of the skins surface, your skin goes into overdrive and produces excess oil to help protect the reduced natural defenses of the skin.
I had to have my boyfriend hide my much loved MD Formulations Face & Body Scrub from me (after my first attempt of taking it out of the shower, I managed to convince myself it was necessary to get out of the shower and retrieve it) now i don’t know where it is, i cant use it! It has been coming up to to 3 weeks of not exfoliating, at all, and my skin has amazingly nearly cleared. No new deep wooping breakouts, and the older ones are clearing away.
Moral of my dilemma. Don’t get addicted to Glycolic exfoliants!