Can You Detox The Skin?

I’ve been wanting to do a post on the topic of “skin detoxing" for a while so I interviewed a Toxicologist to get the skinny.

TLTR - The answer is no.

”As a toxicologist, one of my biggest pet peeves is when a brand uses the word “detox” in their marketing. Whether it’s in skincare, supplements, juice cleanses, smoothies, or whatever, it just makes me cringe. Can somebody please explain to me how and when that thing started?

Detoxification (or detox for short) is the process of removing harmful substances from the body. That process is mainly carried out by the liver and kidneys and to certain extent lungs and intestines. Your skin is not a part of that process. It’s physiologically IMPOSSIBLE to pull out toxins through your skin, no matter the method you’re using. If you have a healthy liver and kidneys, and healthy metabolism in general, you have nothing to worry about. The human body is a perfectly designed system that can easily get rid of things it doesn’t need. No amount of juice cleanses, smoothies, or supplements will speed up that process. Actually, that way you can only push your body into overdrive because it will want to get rid of all that crap, and that way you can cause more harm than good.

In certain cases, such as accidental or intentional ingestion of harmful substances, your body needs some help. And that’s where doctors and other experts, such as myself, come in. If your body can’t efficiently get rid of harmful substances because there’s too much of them, we do things such as gastric suction, dialysis, giving the patient some activated charcoal to ingest, administering antidotes, etc. And once again, the skin is not included. We don’t slather on some clay or activated charcoal and wait for it to pull out the toxins. That’s not how it works. If that worked, it would make my job a hell of a lot easier, but unfortunately, it doesn’t. Don’t fall for marketing tricks.”