Skin on the Body: Fundamentals for Your Best Body Care Routine
I know this from experience when I say it; having a great skincare routine for your body and carefully choosing the products you use has a big impact on the way your skin feels and functions.
Choosing the right products to use on your skin is key for healthy, clear, and soft skin.
scrub me secret: I’ve always had extremely sensitive, dry, and reactive skin. I spent so many years with red, itchy, bumpy, and broken-out skin on my body. When I was younger it was less common to be mindful of the types of body care products you used (we often used highly fragranced, sulfate-laden, and chemical-laden items). It was also less common to have specific body care practices like showering with cooler water, dry brushing, and body oiling. My skin was suffering. When I became an esthetician, got into the wellness space, and started creating my own body care products to use on my skin, my skin began to feel better and thrive.
A body skincare routine using the right (well-made) products and treating your skin with care results in softer, clearer, smoother, healthier skin. When we don’t care for the skin on our bodies properly it can become dry, itchy, sensitive, bumpy, and/or broken out. These are my best tips and recommendations for building a great body skincare routine for yourself. 🛁 ⤵️
6 Tips for the Best Body Skincare Routine
Use body wash or soap with skin-loving, non-damaging ingredients:
Avoiding body cleansers with artificial fragrances, perfumes, parabens, anionic surfactants, sulfates, Phenoxyethanol, and other skin-irritating ingredients will save your skin from excess dryness, itchiness, little bumps, and other signs of sensitivity. I like to look for products that use essential oils instead of fragrance, or perfume, or unscented products. I look for soaps or washes with nutrient-rich oils, plant-based ingredients like aloe and chamomile (plus so many more), and ingredients that I recognize and understand what they are.
🧼 scrub me soaps are the only cleansers I use for my skin. These are soaps I make with ingredients that support your skin’s health and don’t damage the barrier or sensitize your skin.
🧼 Is body wash your preference over bar soap? Pipette relaxing body wash is esthetician-approved and great for any skin type.
scrub me secret: I like to use a website called the EWG Skin Deep Database to look up skincare products and check to see if their ingredients are safe for my skin and body. This website is run by the environmental working group whos mission is to empower people to make informed choices about products and live a healthy life in a healthy environment.
Always use moisturizer or body oil after bathing/showering:
Our skin needs nourishment, hydration, and moisture after showering and cleansing our skin. This is especially true if you bathe or shower in hot water. Our skin’s barrier becomes slightly unbalanced after cleansing and it needs to be rebalanced and hydrated in order to feel and function healthily. I love using body oil with grapeseed oil, olive oil, argan oil, and/or jojoba oil in it. Shea butter is also an amazing ingredient for nourishing our skin and locking in moisture. When choosing the right body lotion, butter, or oil the same rules apply as they did for the body washes. Avoid fragrances, perfumes, parabens, anionic surfactants, sulfates, Phenoxyethanol, and other skin-irritating ingredients. Check in with the EWG Skin Deep Database if you are unsure about the product ingredients.
🧴 scrub me whipped shea butter and endless summer body oil are the items I use to moisturize, hydrate, and nourish the skin on my body.
🧴 If you’re more in the mood for a lighter-weight body lotion Honest Company fragrance-free face and body lotion is a great choice for the body.
🧴 The Osea Undaria Algae Body Oil is another product I love and recommend often.
scrub me secret: While hot water can feel cozy and relaxing, it’s not great for our skin. We can dry out our skin and make it sensitive if we shower in too hot of water. Lukewarm or cooler water is recommended. If you’re showering, I suggest you try a cold rinse at the end of your shower. It’s great for circulation, shiny hair, clearer skin, and less puffiness.
Spot treat areas with breakouts or sensitivity:
Certain areas of our body get sensitive or broken out more easily than others. For areas with acne or pimples, a spot treatment that kills bacteria in acne and reduces excess oil and skin cell buildup is really helpful. [I’ll list recommendations below!] I would suggest spot-treating breakouts nightly or every other night. Areas with redness, sensitivity, or bumps caused by sensitivity can benefit from a soothing and anti-inflammatory spot treatment. You can use an anti-inflammatory spot treatment daily or as needed.
Spot treatments for acne and pimples:
Kinship Pimple Potion - great for smaller whiteheads or pimples that leave behind marks
PCA Acne Cream - a great spot treatment for larger whiteheads, clusters of acne, or cystic acne
Spot treatments for sensitive skin:
Murad Quick Relief Colloidal Oat Treatment: A soothing and anti-inflammatory balm for itchy places, bumpy areas, or other areas with sensitive skin. If you would like you can also use powder colloidal oats and mix it with water to create a treatment mask.
Ology Essentials CBD Elixir: Even though this is a facial product, it’s a highly potent and soothing CBD product that hydrates and soothes the skin. Helping to take away texture and redness.
Increase circulation, lymphatic movement, and cell turnover with dry brushing or exfoliation:
Dry brushing or physically exfoliating your skin 1-4x a week is such a great habit to have. Your skin will be softer, firmer, and more luminous, plus your body will feel less puffy and stiff if you incorporate dry brushing or scrubbing from neck to toes into your body care routine. When using a dry brush, exfoliation gloves, or a body scrub product the key is to not apply too much pressure. A firm but not strong touch is required, so you don’t over-exfoliate your skin and cause sensitivity. This is also why daily exfoliation is not recommended.
I like to use exfoliation gloves to dry brush my body a couple of times a week. I also like to use soap bars that contain ground coffee or seeds sometimes to exfoliate my skin that way. Below I’ll list some great dry brushing and exfoliation products.
✨ Circular dry brush with added beads to improve circulation
✨ Softest Skin Ever Set: Dry brush gloves, dry brush diagram, and endless summer body oil
✨ Buff bar body soap: plant-based bar soap with seeds for exfoliation
Sun Protection
Protecting the skin on our bodies from UV damage is just as important as protecting our faces. Most importantly, want to protect against skin cancers caused by sun exposure. By protecting our skin from overexposure to sun and UV rays we also reduce signs of aging like sagging skin, wrinkles, and pigment spots. We also avoid possible sunburns that leave our skin red and flaky for long periods.
Here are a couple of ways you can protect the skin on your body from the sun:
☀️Use an overall body moisturizer that contains SPF before you leave the house. I like Alba sport sunscreen and Kinship Cloud Cover SPF.
☀️Wearing UPF clothing is another great way to protect your body against damaging sun rays. I even found a cute UPF swimsuit! There are many options for this ultraviolet light-blocking clothing.
☀️Hang out in the shade vs. out in the sun when lounging poolside, at the beach, or on a patio.
☀️If you’re able to get the windows of your car tinted that provides you with a lot more UV protection while driving vs. nontinted windows.
Clean your skin after sweating
To avoid breakouts and sensitive skin it’s best to shower and change into clean clothes after a workout or activity where you get sweaty. At the very least we want to wipe down our skin and change into clean clothes if showering isn’t an option. When we sweat into our clothes bacteria build up in both our clothes and our skin. If we sit for too long in these sweaty clothes then it can cause pimples, blackheads, or bumps.
Always change into clean clothes after a workout or sweat session and if you can, shower before putting on your clean clothes or wipe yourself down with a purifying toner or salicylic acid wipe.
scrub me secret: it’s best to change your bedsheets and pillowcases every 7-10 days. When we sleep we sweat and shed dead skin cells. Not to mention extra debris in the sheets if you sleep with a pet. Changing the sheets and pillowcases once a week helps reduce breakouts and congestion.
What do you think? Will you commit to a body care routine this year?