But How Bad Is It REALLY To Use Apricot Scrub On Our Faces?

These days, it seems everyone says it’s a bad idea to exfoliate your face with a physical exfoliator — St. Ives Apricot Scrub is particularly maligned after receiving years of negative media attention. (Vox has even published a timeline called “St. Ives Apricot Scrub: A Brief History of Hate.”)

But before all that happened, I had no clue I should have a reason to be wary of it.

When I was in college, I washed my face with St. Ives Apricot Scrub twice a day, every day. I loved the fruity scent and how clean and tight it made my skin feel. After a while, though, I noticed my skin looking a little red but I didn’t link it to my skin care habits until I visited a makeup counter at the mall seeking a good concealer to disguise the redness.

“Why are you so red?” the lady behind the counter asked. “What are you using on your skin?” When I told her, she suggested the scrub was too harsh (even St. Ives suggests using the scrub only three to four times a week). She recommended using a gentler cleanser, and I took her advice and noticed an improvement.

But in today’s modern age of advanced dermatology, are we still nixing the St. Ives scrub? We asked dermatologists to weigh in.

The alleged problem with physical exfoliators

While exfoliating does help remove dead skin cells and potentially improve the appearance of your skin, the American Academy of Dermatology says it can cause more harm than good if you exfoliate too much and don’t do it properly.

“It’s tempting to physically scrub our skin to get the fresh clean sensation, but most people tend to overdo it,” Jinmeng Zhang , a board-certified dermatologist at U.S. Dermatology Partners in Peoria, Arizona, told HuffPost.

Physical scrubs include products that contain microbeads