And not with at-home scrubs
The gist:
If you exercise outdoors, your skin is regularly exposed to sunscreen, dirt, and other pollutants that clog your pores. For the over-30 crowd, it’s even worse: At that age, dead skin cells shed every four weeks (a process that takes three days for infants and slows down over the years), further blocking the pores, says Leah Gilmore, senior manager of operations for The Spa and EQX Body Lab in New York City. Alone and together, these factors can cause acne.
Expert insight:
Regular exfoliation encourages cell turnover and gets rid of pollutants, Gilmore says.
People often use at-home scrubs and cleansers for these benefits, but those products are often coarse and can cause micro-tears in the skin if used more than once a week, Gilmore explains. Treatments such as the HydraFacial are gentler and so effective that one session will last you three to four weeks. At EQX Body Lab and The Spa at Equinox, licensed estheticians use a push-pull vacuum to clean the pores, then apply hydrating serums to soften your skin. In turn, debris can more easily escape in the days that follow.
The bottom line:
Schedule a HydraFacial every three to four weeks year round or whenever your skin feels rough or dehydrated, Gilmore says. Do it post-workout or at the end of the day so the regenerative products stay on your skin as long as possible.