Other forms: exfoliating, exfoliated, exfoliates
To exfoliate is to rub away dead skin from the surface. Exfoliate twice a week, exfoliating scrub, gently exfoliate.
Skin sheds itself anyway, and over-doing it strips the barrier and makes things worse — which is why the advice is always less often than people expect. Chemical exfoliants use acids instead of grit. Note the Latin, meaning to strip of leaves.
1verbexfoliateTo rub away dead skin from the surface.
“Exfoliate your face gently once a week to remove dry, flaky skin.”
exfoliate is a rubbing away.
Latin exfoliare means to strip of leaves, from ex, out of, plus folium, a leaf. Foliage comes from the same leaf.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰleh₃-
Latin
exfoliō — to strip of leaves
English, today
exfoliate
Built from
From Latin exfoliō (“to strip of leaves”), from ex- (“out of”) + folium (“leaf”); compare effoliate and French exfolier.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA