Basic Facial Skin Types and Skin Care

There are three basic skin types: oily, dry and combination skin. You may find that your own skin falls somewhere between the categories.

Oily Skin

Oily skin usually has a shine to it which is due to an excessive amount sebum, a substance secreted by the sebaceous glands. The purpose of sebum is that it helps the hair and skin from drying out but the excess sebum can cause oily skin, odors and acne.  Washing oily skin with a cleansing bar is an ideal way of caring for it. Warm water and a cleansing bar loosen the dirt, and then use cold water to rinse. Toners and astringents help to keep the pores clean and free of oily buildup. Moisturize as needed but be careful to not overdo the moisturizer on the oily patches. In fact, it might be best to apply moisturizer only on the drier skin and avoid the T-zone.

Dry skin

Dry skin has a dry appearance, can feel tight and will sometimes flake. This can be attributed to a lack of sebum. There is a bonus to having dry skin and that is that dry skin is less likely to develop acne than oily skin. The down side is that dry skin needs constant care to look and feel healthy particularly in harsher weather conditions. Dry skin does best with mild cleansers and alcohol-free toners. It needs a daily moisturizer. As you are applying your moisturizer, don’t forget about your neck.

Combination skin

Most people have this kind of skin. The hallmark of combination skin is an oily area, commonly referred to as a T-zone across the forehead, nose, and chin, often accompanied by patches of dry skin on the cheeks, and around the eyes and neck. The easiest way to take care of combination skin is to buy a cleanser designed for it, however, moisturizing combination skin can present its own set of challenges. The trick is to moisturize only the parts of the skin that need it so as not to make an oily area worse.