Buff puffs, loofahs, mesh poofs, and, to a certain extent, washcloths are used by many people on a daily basis to provide varying degrees of exfoliation to the face and body. The amount of exfoliation is dependent on the force of application, the number of passes over the skin, and abrasiveness of the material being used. There is little information in the published literature discussing the effects of washing devices on skin physiology and function. A study by Grove showed that use of abrasive fiber sponges stimulates epidermal cell turnover and reduces the size of corneocytes, indicating an exfoliation effect on skin (10).
Another study by Bergfeld et al. directly compared the relative effectiveness of manual exfoliation with a loofah (controlled application twice daily) in comparison to topical application of the AHA, glycolic acid (10% lotion twice daily to one hand plus weekly, 3-minute 50% peels), in improving the quality of photoaged skin on the back of hands. Results on 21 women (mean age 44 years) indicated that glycolic acid treatment was superior to mechanical exfoliation in improving the quality of photodamaged skin. There was a greater than four-fold improvement in overall photodamage severity compared to the loofah treatment, and significant improvements (p < 0.05) in texture and wrinkling were also observed for the glycolic acid treatment. There were no significant changes to these characteristics on the loofah treated sites; however, loofah use resulted in significantly less irritation (11).