Wellness

Glow from Head-to-Toe with Dry Brushing

Written by OSEA Staff | Updated April 9, 2025

Dry brushing may sound like a new trend to budding skincare enthusiasts, but the beauty practice has been used for thousands of years by many historic civilizations, including the ancient Egyptians, Chinese and Greeks. With roots in Indian Ayurvedic medicine¹, this age-old self-care ritual is an exfoliation technique that involves gently massaging the skin with a natural bristle brush. Dry brushing invigorates, revitalizes, and exfoliates the skin, preparing it for hydration and an undeniable outer glow.

What Is Dry Brushing?

Though it’s seen many iterations through the ages, modern dry brushing uses a natural-bristle, vegan body brush made from plant fibers, like sisal. Our Plant-Based Body Brush is most effective when applied to dry, bare skin in short, soft strokes or in a circular motion.

Start at the feet and move up towards the heart to stimulate circulation and whisk away dry, flaky skin cells². This practice really is self-care from head to toe—you’ll get a full, relaxing body treatment while preparing for the rest of your skincare routine.

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What Are the Top Benefits of Dry Brushing?

Gently Exfoliates

One of the many benefits of dry brushing the skin lies in the brush’s design. The stiff natural bristles of a body brush make it the perfect exfoliating tool to remove dead skin. Lightly brushing increases cellular turnover by sloughing off dead skin cells³, as well as any dirt or impurities at the surface of the skin. This leaves it looking and feeling cleaner.

Smooths Appearance of Skin

Dead skin cells give skin a rough, dull and scaly appearance that’s hard to smooth over with just a moisturizer. Routinely dry brushing skin allows you to exfoliate rough, dry patches on the body and more effectively target areas where the skin tends to be thicker, like elbows, knees, and ankles⁴.

Creates a Clean Canvas for Skincare

Putting a product on flaky skin with buildup is far less effective than starting with a clean, fresh surface. Dead skin cells and other impurities block pores, preventing skincare products from effectively penetrating the surface layers of your skin². Sweeping away surface impurities with a body brush creates the perfect foundation for maximum hydration. Exfoliation prepares the skin to better absorb your favorite body oil or lotion for a radiant finish.

The Best Time to Dry Brush

The best time to dry brush is just before taking a bath or shower. The stiff bristles gently exfoliate bare skin and remove dead cells before a peaceful cleanse. Be sure to follow it up with your favorite moisturizer for the ultimate hydration. And while we love dry brushing for almost everyone, if you have extremely sensitive skin or inflamed skin from eczema or psoriasis, this may not be the right ritual for you.

We recommend combining the dry brush with our Salts of the Earth Body Scrub and Undaria Algae™ Body Oil in the Total Body Glow Trio set. Use the dry brush one or two times per week, and gently exfoliate with our skin-softening body scrub. This mineral-rich formula buffs and smooths the skin, while shea butter and Gigartina seaweed give you a nourishing glow. Finish your skincare routine with our seaweed-infused body oil, clinically proven to improve the look of skin elasticity, deliver deep moisturization and visibly smooth skin after just one use*.

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Ready to Refresh and Renew?

Make dry brushing your skin a relaxing new part of your daily routine. Check out our step-by-step dry brushing guide on the best way to get glowing skin and see the benefits for yourself!

*Based on a 2-week third-party clinical study of 53 women ages 25–65 (including expert skin grading, instrumental measurements & consumer perception study).