The trick to smooth skin. Hint: It doesn’t happen in the shower.

If I told you that the best way to exfoliate your skin wasn’t in the shower, you probably wouldn’t believe me.

Well, it’s true! And it’s called dry body brushing. Dry brushing is one of the best ways to exfoliate dead skin cells, and dry skin is a better canvas for manual exfoliation that wet skin. Dry brushing also stimulates your lymphatic system to work better and push out wastes. It also removes lactic acid and lymph build up from your skin. And several of its well known proponents, like mega model Miranda Kerr, swear by it for keeping cellulite at bay.

Body brushing is best done before you’re about to have a shower, since you’re going to be naked and you’ll be able to wash off any dead cells you remove.

Here’s the best way to do it, for exfoliation and detoxification results:

Start with completely dry skin, and your brush, sans long handle. Brush your feet in firm strokes, towards your ankles, then make firm strokes up your calves, towards your knees.

Then brush upwards along the backs of your knees groin and armpits (these are lymphatic drainage points, so pay them lots of attention).

Next, brush the fronts of your thighs, from knee to groin, your hip sockets and backs of your thighs.

Brush your bottom and any cellulite in circular strokes.

Next, brush your torso in downwards strokes, followed by your arms, with long strokes from wrist to shoulder. Finally, place your brush back on the wooden stick and brush as much of your back as you can.

Phew! The whole process should only take about 4 minutes. The most important thing to remember is to always brush towards your heart. Go gently to start with, as a new brush can take a while to break in. And you don’t want to get carried away and have brush strokes on your bottom for several hours afterwards. Trust me.

Article by Kate Montgomery