Dry Body Brushing Physical Exfoliation

You’ve heard me say many times that exfoliation is the single most important therapeutic treatment you can do for your skin, because it makes your skin smoother, brighter, more radiant, more lustrous… it helps remove brown pigmentation, it prevents and treats non-inflammatory acne breakouts, and it even helps to remove some of the early abnormal cells that go on to become precancerous keratoses, and then squamous cell cancers.

While I believe that chemical exfoliation is usually superior to physical exfoliation, there are a lot of different forms of physical, also known as mechanical, exfoliation, and many of them work very well.

Skin brushing, which is also called dry body brushing is a form of physical exfoliation, but it’s used for the body and not for face. While it certainly is a good way to exfoliate, it’s also alleged to improve skin circulation which would bring more nutrients to the skin, and it also allegedly can help increase lymphatic flow to help remove toxins from the skin.

The reality is that a simple message would accomplish the same thing, although when done with a brush, you have the added benefit of exfoliation.

There are some people who even believe that body brushing can help improve cellulite, but I think that’s a bit of a stretch, because you’d need much firmer, more forceful and deeper messaging than you can accomplish with a brush.

There are particular brand names that are often touted for “natural bristle” body brushes, such as Tampico skin brushes which are made with natural Agave plant fibers. But, I don’t know that these brushes are truly more effective than other brands or types of bristles such as these natural bristle brushes that you can pick up at your local store.

The bottom line on dry body brushing is that it’s an effective form of mechanical exfoliation for your body, but I’m not aware of any scientific evidence that it truly increases detoxification or that it increases nutrients to the skin.

Soooooooo… for body exfoliation, body brushing is fine… but for its other alleged benefits... buyer beware.