How to Exfoliate and Get Smooth Skin

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Whether you have sensitive skin or skin that's prone to breakouts, a simple skin care practice can help you achieve and maintain smooth skin and a healthy glow: exfoliating. There are hundreds of products on the market that will exfoliate your skin with ingredients like ground up peach pits, walnut shells, micro beads or salt, and they all serve a similar purpose.

Why You Should Exfoliate Your Skin

Exfoliating:

• Refines and smooths your skin's texture so it looks and feels soft. 
• Cleanses your skin while dislodging oil and dirt in your pores, breaks up white- and blackheads, and prevents acne.
• Increases blood flow to your face so your skin glows. 

How to Exfoliate Your Skin 

1. Wash your face with your favorite face scrub or cleanser. Washing your face before exfoliating helps get rid of excess bacteria on your face and prepares your skin.
2. Apply the exfoliating product to your skin. 
3. Rub the product onto your skin using a gentle, circular motion. You don't have to grind the product into your skin for it to be effective.
4. Rinse of the exfoliating product with warm water. 
5. Pat your face dry. 
6. Apply your favorite moisturizer. 

Since exfoliating can cause your face to have some normal temporary redness, I recommend that you exfoliate at night so you don't have to worry about applying makeup correctly. Plus, your face will look great in the morning.

If you have sensitive skin, exfoliate your skin once a week. Otherwise, exfoliate twice a week or as many times as the manufacturer recommends.

Natural Exfoliating Product

I like to exfoliate my skin. I like how the scratchy ingredients feel as they massage my skin. I swoon over how soft my skin feels afterward.

I recently tried the Adovia Exfoliating Facial Sea Salts. Unlike other exfoliating products, the jar only contains sea salt from the Dead Sea -- no cleanser or lotion to bind the salts together. This type of packaging ensures that the salts don't dissolve, I guess.

To apply the salts to my skin, I pressed my damp hands into the jar of salt and then rubbed the salt on my damp skin. The salts felt good on my skin and their smell reminded me of being at the beach. After I rinsed my skin, I felt (and smelled) like I just got out of the ocean.

You can mix a bit of the salts with a facial cleanser or coconut oil if you're afraid of the salt falling off your face. While I generally exfoliate my skin in the shower, I don't recommend bringing the jar of salt into the shower with you because they may get wet, which will ruin them.

After exfoliating, I moisturized my skin and applied Adovia's Mineral Eye Gel around my eyes. While I'm a big Adovia fan and like its skin care products, I can't say that I appreciate the eye cream. When I used it, the fumes or evaporating moisture from the cream greatly irritate my eyes for a few moments. A few moments is all it takes, however, to make me not use it around my eyes anymore, despite the benefits it offers. I guess my eyes are more sensitive than I thought.

So, I say "Yes"to the Exfoliating Facial Sea Salts and "Pass" to the eye cream. You can find both on Amazon.com.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. This post contains affiliate links, meaning that I receive a small commission if you click on an Amazon.com link and make a purchase.  

Posh Bath Products

I received the products mentioned in exchange for an unbiased review on my blog. This post contains affiliate links, meaning that I receive a small commission if you click on an Amazon.com link and make a purchase.  

I've recently had the opportunity to try several products made by Adovia. So far, I've liked everything I've sampled, including the latest products: Dead Sea Salt Soap and Adovia Mineral Lift Serum. The following are my thoughts about the products.

Dead Sea Salt Soap

The first thing that I noticed about the Dead Sea Salt Soap was its color -- it has a shimmering white color that appeals to me. I like shiny things.

The smell is a regular soap smell; nothing special. It also feels like regular soap to me. However, I did notice that the soap lathers well. 

The directions on the package say that you can use the soap on your face. At first, I was hesitant to do this because body soap usually dries the skin on my face. Surprisingly, the Adovia soap did not make my skin feel dry at all. This made me come to the conclusion that this soap would be good for those who have naturally dry skin.

The soap contains minerals like potassium, sodium, zinc and magnesium. My husband said that he felt as if little gritty particles scratched him when he used it, which he did not like. I never felt the scratchy particles, but my husband is sensitive to this type of stuff.

Mineral Lift Serum

The Adovia Mineral Lift Serum has ingredients like green tea, seaweed, vitamins, evening primrose oil and minerals from the Dad Sea. It's a light serum designed to moisturize, firm and tighten the skin.

While I'm not sure if the serum helped reduce the appearance of any of my fine lines, it did help keep my complexion clear. The serum feels light and absorbs into the skin quickly.

Since this product is a serum, I used a moisturizer after applying it because my skin needed the extra hydration.  

All in all, the product worked as expected.



I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

This post contains affiliate links.

Have You Wash Your Hair with Mud?

I received the products mentioned in exchange for an unbiased review on my blog. This post contains affiliate links, meaning that I receive a small commission if you click on an Amazon.com link and make a purchase.  

I have naturally curly hair that's naturally thin and dry, so I do everything that I can to keep it moisturized, healthy and shiny. My curly hair routine usually involves:

• Washing my hair every other day.
• Using hair products (e.g., gel and hairspray) only when I go out. 
• Using a leave-in conditioner daily.
• Blow-drying my hair only when I have to.
• Never straightening my hair with chemicals or a flat iron.
• Never dying my hair.

When Adovia offered the chance to try its Dead Sea Mud Shampoo and Dead Sea Salt Deep Hair Conditioner, I jumped at the chance. It's not every day that you get to shampoo your hair with mud. Right?

When I got the shampoo, I found out that its texture is not like mud; it's like regular shampoo. The "mud" part comes from the fact that the company uses minerals found in the Dead Sea's silt to make the shampoo.

When I tried the shampoo, I noticed that it has a pleasant, clean smell that both men and women would enjoy. The color is also cool, like a shimmery, deep olive green. The shampoo is pretty sudsy, so a little goes a long way.

What I liked best is that the shampoo didn't dry out my hair. I attribute this to the olive oil and chamomile in the ingredients. 

Since shampoos work best with their complementary conditioners, I was eager to try the Dead Sea Salt conditioner. Again, the scent is pleasing; it smells like the shampoo. The conditioner felt hydrating, but not heavy or oily.

The benefit of the products working together were most the noticeable after I rinsed my hair. After it air-dried, my hair had more volume (this has never happened before) and was more manageable. I always thought that shampoos and conditioners all did the same thing, but I definitely noticed a positive difference with the Adovia products.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.