This Is The Only Thing You Should Be Using To Wash Your Body

For many of us, showering is not just part of our personal hygiene routine — it might be the only few minutes of peace, tranquility and reflection we get to ourselves in the day. And while the particulars of our showers might vary in terms of nature, duration and temperature, one thing remains constant: the quest to get squeaky clean.

Our shower habits are usually based on how we were raised and our cultural backgrounds. That means some of us are all about the loofahs, others are team washcloth, and some rely on a sponge. But is all that exfoliating actually good for our skin?

As we age, after all, so does the largest organ of our body: our glorious, sexy skinbag. Keeping our skin as healthy and supple as possible is paramount. So we — Raj Punjabi and Noah Michelson, hosts of HuffPost’s “Am I Doing It Wrong?” podcast — wanted to find out the optimal approach (from a clinical perspective) when we’re soaping up in the shower.

Press play to listen to the full episode and learn about surprising showering mistakes and how to shower better:

“So 100%, it’s your hands,” Dr. Divya Shokeen , the founder of Ocean Skin & Vein Institute in Manhattan Beach, California, recently told us when she dropped by our studio to chat about her showering secrets. “There’s no negotiation on that in terms of the medical studies.”

Shokeen explained that when we use loofahs, sponges or any other implement to soap up, we are disrupting our skin’s mantle,the natural film of oils and acids that protect it. We want to keep that mantle intact, she told us, because it shields us against barrier disruption and transepidermal water loss — and it keeps the bad bacteria out.

“Rubbing a washcloth on yourself repeatedly sloughs off a lot of dead skin cells