Can you use a salt scrub on your face?

The short answer

Don’t use a body scrub on your face. It is formulated for skin that is thicker, tougher and used to more friction than your face is.

Our salt scrub is made for the body, which is why the jar says body.

Why the difference exists

Facial skin is thinner than the skin on your back, legs and arms, and it is exposed to more weather and more touching. A salt crystal with edges that is the right size for a heel is the wrong size for a cheek: it drags instead of lifting.

Salt also doesn’t dissolve in oil, so the crystal keeps its edges the whole way — there is no “milder towards the end” as with a sugar scrub. What makes a salt scrub good on the body is therefore exactly what makes it unsuitable on the face. The difference between salt and sugar is the same question from the other side.

Lips

Lips land in between. Plenty of people use a small amount of scrub on their lips, and if you do: very little, very lightly, never on a cracked or broken lip, and rinse properly.

We don’t recommend it as a routine. If you want something on your lips there is lip balm, which is made for it.

What we have for the face

Magic Wonder Balm is the product of ours intended for face and lips. It is a balm, not a scrub — it doesn’t exfoliate anything, and that is the point.

If you are looking for a facial exfoliant we don’t have one, and that is a more honest answer than pointing at a product that isn’t one.

Neck and décolletage

The skin there is more like facial skin than body skin: thinner, more sensitive, more exposed. If you use the body scrub there it should be with a distinctly lighter hand and less often than on legs and back. Plenty of people skip the area entirely, and that is a reasonable choice.

If you already have

Rinse with warm water, pat dry and leave the skin alone. Skip anything fragranced and anything that stings until it feels normal again. Redness that lasts more than a day, or skin that cracks, belongs with someone who can assess skin.