Dry Brushing – The Detox Spa Ritual

Hi friends! Today I’m writing about a topic that seems to be quite popular at the moment, even though it has been around for decades. Dry brushing! Have you tried it yet? I actually stumbled upon it while I was researching how to boost my metabolism, which my recent blood test indicated as way too slow. Since I stopped taking the pill over a year ago, my body and hormones got aaall out of balance and I have yet to get back to normal. I could write a whole blogpost about that dilemma (maybe another day), but for now I’ll stick to dry brushing – one of the things that I find really helpful on my journey to balanced health.

So what’s dry brushing?

It’s basically a way to vitalize blood flow, boost your metabolism and get rid of toxins that become trapped in the skin – our body’s largest organ (juust sayin’!). By using a semi-hard bristle brush, you brush your whole body, starting at the feet and moving towards the heart, in small overlapping strokes. The reason for brushing towards the heart is that brushing away from the heart could disturb the natural blood flow in your blood vessels and therefor hinder the detoxification.

As recommended, I started doing dry brushes in the morning, right after I get up and stretch. I found it to be a great way to really wake up and feel alive. Like after a cold shower but without the torture. 😀 You instantly feel your blood circulate and once you’re done, your skin feels refreshed, relaxed and super soft! The fact that you instantly feel an effect on your well-being is one of the reasons I really like dry brushing and also stick to doing it.

By the way, if you feel like the brush is too hard when you first start off, just try it a few more times. For me it was really a matter of getting used to. While I thought that it was a bit painful in the beginning, it quickly became a real enjoyable feeling. Now I actually love it like I love a good back scratch.

My favorite brush

On my search for a good brush I had a few criteria in mind. The brush should be plastic free, organic and made of plant fibers (often time they are made with boar hair). The perfect match I then found at Grüne Erde – an Austrian company that produces high standard eco-friendly, organic and social-fair products. It’s made of olive wood and sisal fibers – perfect!

With almost 25 Euros it wasn’t the cheapest option but since I’m using it almost every day and generally buy less stuff but good quality, this was still a fair deal to me. So far I’m really happy with it and can highly recommend it if you are looking for a brush as well.

What goes with it?

The dry brushing alone is awesome, but to make this little spa/detox morning ritual even better, I finish off (unless I shower first) by rubbing a thin layer of body oil on my skin.

For this I use this lovely body oil from Weleda – one of my favorite beauty care companies, that uses natural and organic ingredients and has high environmental and social standards. The oils main ingredients are sesame oil and sea buckthorn oil, both of which support the metabolism of the skin naturally. And it smells so fresh!

Plastic-free aspects 

As I’m trying to live zero-waste, I’m happy that the brush and oil are pretty much plastic-free and these are great zero-waste body care products. The only plastic part is the cap of the glass bottle, which is small and can luckily be recycled, but still I wondered if it could be replaced with a more sustainable alternative. So I wrote a mail to Weleda to see if they could go plastic-free all the way. I often do this because I think it’s important for us costumers to create a dialog with companies and let them know that we support their efforts in creating eco-friendly products and packaging. Always use your costumer power, right? 😉  I thought you might be interested in their answer as well, so here a quick resume:

Even though they didn’t mention that they plan a completely plastic-free packaging, they explained that they are constantly researching ways to make packaging with minimal environmental impact. The lady explained that many factors have to be considered and that even materials like paper, glass and aluminium have an environmental impact that has to be included into the whole thought-process. Also they need to consider, practicability, looks, stability of the product, recyclability, and toxic free materials.

What I took from this is that Weleda seem to be very conscious about the environmental impact of their products and they do try to strive for a healthy planet as well as for happy costumers. It also reminded me that we should always see the overall effects of products and that sometimes even materials like glass could potentially harm the environment (for example when the transportation ways go long distances and more weight will cause more CO2 emission).

On a last note… I hope I was able to spark a little interest in dry brushing in you. It’s a healthy and enjoyable body treatment that only takes a few minutes. You should definitely try it!

MerkenMerken

MerkenMerken

MerkenMerken