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The Best Body Exfoliants for an All-Over Smooth

Traditional scrubs utilizing sea salts, ground seeds, sugars and even pinot noir grapes.

fresh brown sugar body polishSephora

By Adam Hurly

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You know that feeling of crawling into bed when the sheets are clean and crisp, and you’re fresh too? Nothing feels as satisfying.

Though one thing comes close: The feeling of freshly exfoliated skin, all over your body, chased with a nourishing body lotion or oil. Most of us are walking around every day, not realizing how much dead skin we’re lugging around, and how it’s inhibiting us from feeling smooth and refreshed.

It’s an easy feeling to catch, though, thanks to body exfoliators of all kinds. Our favorites are more traditional scrubs, utilizing sea salts, ground seeds, and sugars—and even pinot noir grapes. But there are exfoliating bar soaps, chemical exfoliant wipes, silicone brushes, and high-powered exfoliating massage devices, all of which help you achieve that refreshing sensation of having smooth, healthy skin.

Here are the best body exfoliants, to help you achieve satisfying levels of smooth.

Best Overall Body Exfoliant: OSEA Sea Salt Body Scrub

We’re big fans of salt scrubs, and OSEA’s worldly salt blend wins best in show. With salts sourced from the Himalayas, Bolivia, Dead Sea, and Utah Desert, it not only buffs away your roughest, driest skin, but it also helps soothe sore muscles, and dissolves nicely into your tub for an all-over soothing salt soak. It also utilizes shea butter and red algae, to help preserve the skin’s moisture-retaining and anti-aging barrier functions.

Best Upgrade Body Exfoliant: Vinésime Pinot Noir Body Scrub

Like all of Vinésime’s products, this body scrub is made from pinot noir marc (the grape skins, seeds, and such that remain after winemaking). And better yet, it’s from Domaine Mongeard-Mugneret in Burgundy’s Richebourg region, utilizing organic Grand Cru grapes… so in short, it’s fancy, and even smells like a bottle of your best reserve. With a jelly texture, it’s a cinch to distribute around the skin, as you buff away rough patches, all without wasting a single precious drop. Furthermore, it uses grapeseed oil, which is rich in antioxidants and promotes collagen production + skin repair; it also has hyaluronic acid, which boosts the skin’s moisture retention and softness.

Best Budget Body Exfoliant: Dove Body Polish

Like any Dove product, 1/4 of this body polish is made of the brand’s proprietary moisturizing formula. It’s just as gentle on skin as any other Dove product, too, despite its crushed-macadamia grit. It’s difficult to use body scrubs conservatively, and they often disappear in as few uses as a bar of soap. So, it makes sense that frequent users may prefer a less expensive (but equally effective) option—and here it is.

Fresh Brown Sugar Body Polish

Another popular exfoliating agent is sugar, which is gentler on skin than a salt scrub with the same intent. Those tiny sugar granules create a natural grit, and Fresh’s brown sugar blend also uses oils of jojoba, sweet almond, apricot kernel, and primrose to soothe and nourish the skin mid scrub. The addition of ginseng root and peppermint leave skin feeling tingly and fresh after the matter, too.

PMD 3-in-1 Smart Brush

Retire your old back-scrubbing brush, in favor of PMD’s pulsating, 3-in-1 smart device. It channels 7,000 pulses per minute as it cleanses, scrubs, and massages the body. Between its silicone brush head and a silver-infused loofah, it’s antimicrobial and won’t gather bacteria like lesser loofahs and brushes. An aluminum oxide exfoliator helps smooth out calluses and rough patches. Plus, you can lather on some body oil after your shower and massage it into your freshly buffed skin using the massage head—it’s an entire spa in a single device.

Lumin Silicone Body Scrubber

If you’d rather not buy a product that needs refilling, then Lumin’s silicone body scrubber is the everlasting loofah alternative of your dreams. Unlike loofahs, it’s easy to keep clean, and it never loses its physical integrity. Use it to build a lather with any body wash, and to buff away any dead skin cells as you go. It even comes with a nifty suction holder, so that it can dry clean and upright in the shower.

Baxter of California Exfoliating Bar Soap

Most scrub-infused bar soaps fall short of true exfoliating expectations. They’re too sparsely packed, or their ingredients lack any real grit. That’s what makes Baxter of California’s exfoliating bar soap the best in its league: It utilizes jojoba meal and crushed olive seeds, which are finely ground and densely packed, in order to smooth skin while it washes. Avoid any use on the face, unless you’re bringing it in for a sniff—its cedar + oakmoss scent is incredible.

Dr. Dennis Gross Exfoliating Body Treatment Wipes

If you’re friction averse and want a once-weekly body buffing, then try these exfoliating wipes from Dr. Dennis Gross. They utilize a trio of exfoliating acids (glycolic, lactic, and salicylic), which together dissolve dead skin cells and help flush pores of any excess oil and grime. The result is smoother skin, especially when these wipes are used on clean skin before tucking oneself in for the night. They’re also terrific one-offs for the guy who only periodically needs a polishing.

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