Groom Service: How to Properly Exfoliate
What? Oh, yes, right: grooming. Welcome back to the three of you who read last week's column. For you first-timers, stick around and I guarantee you’ll be more handsome by the time you’ve read the last sentence (likely to be a bolted-on punchline of some kind. I haven’t decided yet).
No, wait, please do stay, it gets better. The way the internet is going, us wordsmen will eventually be paid in direct correlation to dwell time. Like some performance-based paycheck depending on how long our work can keep you hooked to a site. I can’t disappoint people by finishing quickly.
One person already disappointed by my words is Do It For Lil Saint, a reader who on my previous article commented, “nah b you dont need all that just coconut oil and a facial wash from the body shop and you straight i aint had pimples or nothing in like 6 yearx.”
First off, are you after my job? Because I’m not sure you can handle the dwell-time pressures that are coming, man. Secondly, this is actually my favorite article comment ever because it simultaneously sums up much of my feelings about grooming products and sets me up seamlessly for this week’s column. Thanks for the assist, b.
So as we grease ourselves up and glide slickly into the next stage of grooming advice, namely exfoliation, I bring with me in mind the words of Do It For Lil Saint and start with a product that makes a hero of its natural components. It also happens to be the only exfoliator I’m using right now.
Neville Rescue Scrub is killing it with its ingredients list (though admittedly volcanic ash and corn cob granules with organic cocoa butter does sound like the kind of insufferably smug lunch your hipster friend is likely to Instagram).
Here's how you should use it: squeeze a small blob into your palm, then massage onto a face made damp by warm water. Avoid the eye area and remember to give some love to your neck, too. Pressure should be minimal, almost imperceptible, despite your herculean strength and devil may care attitude, you lovable rogue, you.
Coming in at a lower price - because you’re going to need the extra cash to date the ravenous horde of women that’ll arrive at your door THE SECOND you read the last sentence of this column - is Kiehl’s Facial Fuel. It has a more granular feel on the face and is made for regular skin types, but still suits my delicate sensibilities. Facial Fuel really comes into its own if, like me, you overcompensate for being brought up in an emasculating household of a mother and two sisters by growing a super-manly beard. The grains go to work on stubble, making it easier to trim post-washing and less abrasive for that legion of ladies currently goose-stepping toward your flat.
Now, my three fans acquired way back from column one will remember that less-is-more is my modus operandi. Even with a product as natural as Neville’s, this truism holds solid. Overdoing it will redden your skin, dry your face and result in people everywhere crossing the street to avoid the indignity of meeting your gaze.
If even a gentle application sounds to you like the grooming equivalent of waterboarding, then I’d recommend buying a product made specifically for sensitive skin. Remaining around the $30 bracket and with good results is Jojoba Face Scrub by Malin & Goetz. It’s designed to limit the need for pressure, exfoliating with pore-unclogging jojoba (alias "goat nut," apparently), and polyethylene beads, which it probably borrows from that box in your mom’s closet.
Seeing as we’re all reading Highsnobiety and are proper progressive types, we’re cool with the idea of a face mask, right? Good. Because as a once-in-awhile, no-one’s-looking treatment, it’s worth it. In particular, I recommend Dr Sebagh’s Deep Exfoliating Mask, which is effective enough to make a barely-functioning alcoholic look the shit. Use it once a month or after those times you’ve been burning the midnight oil and remain resolute that the $20-million cost for the whole-head transplant happening this year is currently out of your price range.
Is that the doorbell?
Hit me with your grooming questions below so I don’t have to come up with column ideas for myself and can just answer them next week.
- Alex Harris
Knock, knock. Who is it? Groom service.
