Why dry body brushing?
Body brushing is more than just exfoliation. It's the time reserved for pleasing the senses, for savouring the luxurious feeling, and experiencing the tingling sensations as the botanical bristles lovingly stroke your body, making every skin cell bounce with joy.
Body brushing is not a new fad. It has been used worldwide for millennia, by people as diverse as the Egyptians, Ancient Greeks, Japanese and American Indians. It was and is even part of the Indian traditional Ayurvedic treatment, called Garshana.
Read on to discover how body brushing can benefit your overall health and how to do it.
1. Boosts collagen production and prevents premature ageing
Regular exfoliation with body brushes helps prevent premature ageing and promotes natural cellular regeneration. Our skin renews itself every 28 days. This regeneration process slows down as we reach our 30’s - fine lines and wrinkles begin to appear, our skin becomes dull and dries out faster and starts to slag as the skin is losing its elasticity and strength. Daily body brushing helps boosts the renewal process by stimulating collagen production. All of which is crucial to reducing fine lines and wrinkles, restoring the skin’s elasticity and firmness, and promoting brighter, youthful-looking skin.
2. Promotes lymphatic flow and aids detoxification
How can body brushing help the lymphatic system? The lymphatic system is an important part of our immune and circulatory system, consisting of lymphatic vessels, tissues and organs. These help the body maintain fluid balance and remove toxins, unwanted materials and waste. It is pivotal for the body's defence of infections and diseases.
The blood plasma carries oxygen and nutrients to our cell tissue, then returns to our bloodstream, leaving a small percentage of fluid behind. This fluid, called lymph, is clear and slightly yellow and contains toxins that blood plasma collected on the way to cell tissues. Lymphatic vessels, connected to hundreds of lymph nodes all over our body, carry the lymph to the lymph nodes for filtering.
The lymphatic system doesn’t have a pump in our body like the heart in our circulatory system. The lymph is transported by muscle contraction, and the valves prevent the lymph from flowing back. This means that it relies on manual stimulation and physical activity. Dry brushing helps boost lymph flow and activate lymphatic drainage, which leads to the lymph system running smoothly and flushing trapped toxins in a faster way. Discover more
3. Exfoliates and removes dead skin cells
Exfoliation is an important step in our skin and body care routine. If neglected, dead skin cells build up on our body and face, resulting in dull, dry and tired-looking skin. By removing dead, dry skin, body brushing allows for healthy new cell growth. Dry body brushing does the exfoliating job thoroughly, leaving your skin feeling soft and refreshed, and all the while giving you a smooth, radiant and healthy look.
4. Clears pores for clear, radiant and healthy-looking skin
Our skin needs clear pores to breathe. Our skin is prone to acne, blemishes, and inflammation when pores get blocked by make-up, excess oil, dust, or dead skin cells. Keeping pores clear with regular body brushing enables your skin to breathe and absorb moisture and beauty products more effectively. As a result, your skin stays hydrated and clean, the skin tone and texture improves, leaving your skin looking fresh, supple and strong. Introduce body brushing into your skincare routine and feel your skin alive.
5. Increases Blood Circulation
Dry body brushing increases blood circulation, which in turn helps to deliver oxygen and other nutrients to our organs and skin. As a result, increased blood flow promotes supple and radiant appearance.
6. Provides stress relief and an invigorating massage
If you like having a spa at home, you will find this therapeutic and invigorating feeling just like a spa offers. Set aside a certain time each day, quieten your mind and enjoy the dry brushing in your own personal time. It gives you a natural energy boost and soothes sore muscles. This simple skin massage is stimulating, energising and soothing, leaving you feeling great.
7. Helps reduce the appearance of cellulite
While there is nothing wrong with having cellulite, it is still one of the biggest concerns faced by most women and men alike, and most of us would still like to see it go. Cellulite is a build-up of fat deposits that begin to push through the connective tissue into the layer of the skin. Connective tissue can be weakened by hormones, excess of fat, lack of exercise or poor circulation. It causes dimpled appearance on the skin, most commonly in the legs, thighs, buttocks and sometimes in the arms. Although dry body brushing will not get rid of your cellulite entirely, regular brushing helps considerably to reduce it. Gentle massage with the body brush increases blood circulation and supports an even distribution of fat deposits leading to a reduction of cellulite and improved overall skin tone and texture.
8. Prevents stretch marks
Stretch marks can be the lines that tell the story of your life, and there is a way for them to be written with more subtlety. Stretch marks are long, narrow stripes that occur when the skin is stretched too quickly. This usually happens during puberty, rapid weight gain or pregnancy, when the connective tissue in the skin breaks down. Skin becomes thinner and streaks appear on the surface.
There are some ways to minimise and maybe fully prevent stretch marks from appearing. Moisturising and hydrating are some of the key steps, but body brushing is a significant way to keep your skin supple, which in turn helps to minimise skin breaks and the appearance of stretch marks.
9. Boosts your immune system
Gentle massaging of the skin and body with the natural bristles body brush gives us a desired boost of energy, as the blood flow increases. Try body brushing in the morning for an energising kick.