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I've done what I'm about to describe a few times to take care of my skin if it starts acting up and getting flaky, and I thought I ought to share it. It might be similar to something you're already doing if you use jojoba oil before applying BP. I think of it almost like a combination of a mask and a scrub, but very different in a lot of ways, and simpler than most homemade concoctions.
You would want to do this BEFORE cleansing your face or taking a shower, either morning or night is fine. You pour a good amount of jojoba oil into your palm, probably 10-12 drops worth or so, but basically just a large amount so that you can rub it all over your face. You start dabbing the jojoba oil all over your face, and once you have it all on there, you start massaging it in with your finger tips. At first, just lightly spread it around, but then build up pressure a little. Be very careful around active acne if you have it, but definitely rub in the jojoba oil. Don't be aggressive, but you don't want to be quite as gentle as you are when you apply BP, for example. You should feel some grittiness to your skin as you massage the jojoba oil in, which is a combination of the skin that was flaking off and maybe some residual BP/moisturizer, since after all, you haven't washed your face yet. The massage helps to loosen a whole bunch of flakes and is also good for your circulation as a bonus. I give my face a massage for several minutes straight, just rubbing it in and picking up more and more grittiness. You might put a couple more drops of oil on very dry patches partway through to help loosen those flakes even more. When you feel like you've loosened all that you can and that new gritty stuff isn't coming up (or if you get the the point where you think your face will start to get raw if you go for much longer, which means you should have used more jojoba oil, I suspect), then stop. Just leave the jojoba oil on your face for about another 10 minutes so that your face is really nice and moisturized, like leaving on a moisturizing mask. Then, just wash it off! You might want to wash your face off in the shower since the heat will make removing the jojoba oil easier if your cleanser is really mild, but it shouldn't be too hard to clean up. You mostly just want to get rid of the grittiness and leftover crud you had on your face, nothing wrong with leaving some jojoba oil behind. Then do your regimen as normal following cleansing, perhaps even using more jojoba oil before BP if that's what you like to do.
You might wonder if this is excessively irritating. I think it's a good deal less irritating than using a brush of some sort to physically remove flakes, and since a lot of people seem to be able to handle that as it is, this should be tolerable for even more people. I also think it's less irritating than a scrub because you're loosening the flakes with a moisturizing oil (technically jojoba oil is a liquid wax but whatever
), rather than ripping them off with some abrasive bits. Plus, as a bonus, you have this moisturizing, protective barrier on your face for a little bit while you're massaging the jojoba oil in and leaving it on for the 10 minutes, so it's like a therapeutic moisturizing mask. If you know that jojoba oil makes you break out, obviously, this is not the flake treatment for you, and if you have such sensitive skin that massaging your face for a few minutes would leave you feeling irritated, then this is also not for you. For everyone else, though, I think this is a nice way to deal with flakes as they come up, either as regular treatment several times a week or just something to do once in a while when they get bad.Hope this helps! If you try this and like it or hate it, definitely leave feedback so that others may benefit; after all, I'm the only person with my exact skin, so I don't know how other people will handle it. I wouldn't expect perfect results at first if your face is very dry and has too many flakes to deal with, but if you try this every other day or so, I think you'd see an improvement in your skin's texture and dryness pretty quickly.
