Looking for the best body scrub? We tried four of the most popular ones. Here’s what we thought!
For a longer time that I wish to admit, I didn’t think it was all that important to exfoliate my body. I would always exfoliate my face every other day (I hate blackheads!), but when it came to my body? Eh, I thought it didn’t need regular exfoliation.
Boy, was I wrong! I try to go to the gym four to five times a week and this past year I’ve noticed the skin on my body breaking out and just being generally dull. And it dawned on me that I should probably regularly exfoliate my body at least once a week (duh)!
So I went on a mission throughout the year to test out some of the most popular body exfoliators out there and found some favorites. Below, my picks for the best body scrubs, including why and when I use them.
For The Deep Clean: Frank Original Coffee Scrub
When my skin is feeling super dry and flaky, I always reach for this scrub. I consider this the OG body exfoliator because it really deeply cleans your skin and scrubs off flakes and impurities. Let me put it this way: This scrub is the closest thing I get to those amazing body scrubs at Korean spas.
The exfoliator is made of primarily ground up roasted coffee beans and this is the ingredient that does most of the intense exfoliating magic. Note: This scrub is not a soft and gentle one; it hits skin quite hard and really goes to town and scrubs away at skin:
But don’t be afraid that this scrub is going to be so harsh that it will damage your skin—the formula also contains a good amount of cold pressed almond oil that leaves skin just hydrated enough after it’s been scrubbed free of dead skin cells. Once you rinse the scrub off, your skin feels so insanely soft. It also feels tighter, thanks to caffeine’s powerful diuretic effects, which allows it to dehydrate fat cells temporarily and promote smooth skin.
The only thing I’m not a huge fan of with this scrub is the scent. As you can probably guess, it smells strongly of coffee, and I’m not so into smelling like a huge pot of coffee for the rest of the day. Thankfully, the scents fades after a few hours, but be warned that you will smell like Starbucks for a little while after leaving the shower. Depending on your coffee obsession, you may love or hate this.
For Helping to Keep Body Acne At Bay: Pacifica Acne Warrior Body Scrub
When I start noticing little bump on my chest and back from working out, I grab this Pacifica scrub to gently exfoliate them away. The reason why this scrub is so great at preventing and helping tame any body acne is because it contains salicylic acid. This form of BHA is an oil soluble acid that penetrates deeply into pores to rid them of oil-based impurities. Even better, the scrub also contains aloe and cucumber to moisturize and smoothe!
For When You Need to Exfoliate But Your Skin Is Acting Up: The Tatcha Indigo Smoothing Black Sugar Body Grommage
Don’t get tripped up by the name: Grommage is just a fancy French word that means “to erase,” and the definition of erase in this context means to slough off dead skin cells. This Tatcha scrub does just that in the most gentle way possible. It uses ultra-fine black sugar granules to delicately reveal fresh skin without causing any irritation.
It’s also ultra soothing, thanks to the indigofera tinctoria leaf extract, AKA Japanese Indigo, that’s in the formula. This is an ingredient that is known for its anti-inflammatory properties and barrier strengthening abilities. It’s also what gives this scrub its pretty deep blue color:
I’ve used this scrub when my skin has been on its last days of recovering from a nasty sunburn and was relieved to discover that it effectively scrubbed off any remaining peeling skin without making my skin any redder. It also smells so good—like citrus-y sherbert. After using it, your skin feels soft but also hydrated, thanks a collection of oils (including camellia and coconut) that’s infused in the scrub.
For That Big Night Out: Frank Shimmer Scrub
I was super excited to try this one. A body scrub that both exfoliates my skin and leaves it with a shimmer so it will look like I applied highlighter all over my body? Sounds fun! And this body scrub is major fun. It’s perfect for those moments when you need your skin to literally shine because you’re going to be in photos or you just want to look really, really luminous for a night.
The scrub is mainly composed of sugar, salt, grapeseed oil, coffee, and “glow dust,” which is just little naturally derived silver and gold particles. While gold may not do anything beneficial for your skin, this scrub does make you shiny, like if you dipped your body in an actual highlighter:
When I rinsed it off, my skin looked intensely bright and had actual sparkles on it, but it wasn’t too sparkly. The sparkles lasted an entire day and into the first half of the next day before fading away.
I liked the scent of this scrub better than the original Frank scrub; it smells more like a dessert and less like a cup of coffee. My only gripe is that it doesn’t exfoliate as well as the original (probably because it seems to use more sugar than coffee), and I felt like my skin wasn’t as soft as it could be. But for a fun scrub that makes me feel like I’m wearing subtle highlighter all over, this scrub is the way to go.