Exfoliation

[ChloeC]

Hi girls, so I want to know your experiences with the above title.

I’ll start off with mine.  When certain advertisements appeared mostly on TV starting from years ago, that I can remember, they were obviously directed solely towards women and talked about how much this or that particular product could help in (something called) exfoliation.

It took a little while before I fully understood what that term meant (beyond just making one clean..er)…and a little longer to understand what it REALLY meant. This was prior to the age of search engines.

See, I was raised as a ‘manly’ man, and we took showers in boys locker rooms and eventually mens locker rooms (think military barracks, and a bunch of hairy….ok don’t think about it, fine with me). We never talked about exfoliation, ever.  When I went swimming at the local swimming pool for many summers growing up and had to take a shower prior to exiting the (no ceiling’d and fully open to all males) changing room to the pool area, nobody ever talked about having to exfoliate.

Basically it seemed that we were sort of taught that men took showers strictly to eliminate dirt, grit, grime, grease, and possibly an overabundance of sweat (remember girls, men sweat, girls just dew).  I mean once you eliminate all those things above, surely there’s nothing left but pure, heavenly soft, skin, right?

So for that last umpteen years I’ve been taking very regular showers, multi times per week, and not always drenching myself during the week in the litany of those words of filth, nor, especially during the winter have I been sweating very much. I’ve also increased my awareness about  changing clothes regularly (ie daily which did start years ago), so I began to think about why I’m taking showers as much as I am. I also started thinking about what this stuff was that I was now actually washing off (which took a little more effort, and btw getting very good at it) and making sure I was now ‘clean’.

So, spending about a minute seriously thinking about it all, I started putting it all together and had that aha moment.

Now when I take showers I do spend time actually ‘exfoliating’ besides the elimination of those other things.

Did you all understand the necessity of exfoliating at an early age? And how and when did you learn?

I have never met nor read of any male ever mentioning that word (or its variations) in any kind of discussions, ever. Yet, considering all the heavy clothes we now wear at times of the year, socks, heavy shoes, one would think that it would be a little more open for general conversation, since getting rid of much of that dead skin is probably not a bad idea for reasons beyond just clean bodies (cleaner clothes, cleaner bedding, etc. etc.), as it also removes other contaminates that aren’t particularly good for healthy bodies.

Or have I been living a too sheltered life. (I did ask my SO about that word and she doesn’t ever want to talk about it)

 

[Angela Booth]

We go through life and do not realise the importance of the things we do. We wash to keep clean and from my early days that was what we did. It was a basic function that has so many outcomes without us knowing. Do you have a loofah? A hard bath sponge to give the skin a good scrub? That would now be packaged as an exfoliation device with creams and potions.

In modern times we like to compartmentalise the functions and label them. Exfoliation is one of them. It is also a commercialisation of a process. Someone makes money out of it. 

This last year we have been told that we must wear facemasks and wash our hands to curtail the spread of covid. The producers of hand sanitisers, bactericide cleaners and masks have gone into overdrive. Post pandemic we will be wearing masks more and continue to use sanitising products. Someone will be making money.  When I was child it was coughs and sneezes spread diseases. Have a hanky ready and wash your hands. A simplistic way of containing germs and stop the spread of flu and colds.

I knew when I was young that my mum said that the Nivea cream will make you have soft skin. It is still around and in reality a cheap way of keeping the skin hydrated. I often wondered whether the Daleks were skin aware when the bellowed ‘Exfoliate, Exfoliate’….

 

[Bridgette VonSmirff]

I use Dove brand “skin polish” which is sandpaper in a cream, used in the shower as an exfoliant. My wife directed me to it. It sidi helps to use it just before shaving legs, etc. to get a nice soft close shave.

Nobody ever says anything about it during my 20 years in the service, that’s for sure.

Bridgette

[Author]

Posts