Find Out Your Skin Type

It’s important to know your skin type. This allows you to take proper care of your skin as you would understand what best suits your skin and how your skin would react to certain situations.

According to your skin type, you would have to adjust your skincare routine. Therefore, it’s essential to know what type of skin you have! Knowing your skin type will make it easier to know which beauty products to use.

The Different Skin Types 

In general, there are four skin types – dry, normal/combination, oily skin, and sensitive skin

Dry Skin 

Without any skincare products applied, dry skin will often feel taut and stretched. In fact, some might even notice flaking and peeling of the skin during the day. Dry skin can be a result of several different factors – genetics, environment (such as lifestyle and diet), hormonal changes, and climate. Additionally, being dehydrated can also cause dry skin. Therefore, it is important to keep hydrated, especially if you have a high intake of caffeine or diuretics. 

If you have dry skin, it is important to exfoliate daily. However, be sure to exfoliate with gentle and non-abrasive ingredients. This is important as it will help remove dead skin and enhance skin cell turnover whilst not removing too much of the skin’s natural oils. The removal of the layer of dead skin will also ensure that serums, creams, and treatments can be absorbed easily.

If you are looking for a moisturizer, be sure to look for one with hyaluronic acid, glycerin, and marine algae. Such ingredients are suitable as they help to attract and deliver water molecules into your skin cells. You would also want emollients, such as squalane and camellia oil. These substances can help smoothen and hydrate your skin further. 

Normal/Combination Skin

A person with normal/combination skin would have an oily T-zone. However, their cheeks are usually dry. Someone with dry/combination skin would not have as many blemishes or breakouts as someone with oily skin too. And, if there are any blemishes, they are usually found in the T-zone. This is the ‘ideal’ skin type to have but that doesn’t mean that it does not require any skincare. 

With normal/combination skin, it is important to have a good moisturizer. This moisturizer can’t be too heavy or thick as it could clog pores and cause breakouts. However, it must be sufficiently moisturizing in order to ensure that skin is kept moisturized and hydrated. A good moisturizer to choose from would be one that has a gel-like texture. Such moisturizers are usually easily absorbed and do not leave an oily residue. It would also be helpful to gently exfoliate every day. 

Oily Skin 

If you have oily skin, acne breakouts can happen often. This is because people with oily skin are producing far too much natural oil and sebum. Therefore, oil and sebum can often clog pores and cause acne. This is especially worse if one does not wash their face often. Dirt and germs may then also clog pores and result in bacterial acne.

Furthermore, oily skin is also more likely to struggle with post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation. This is when dark marks are left behind after a breakout. This can be quite unsightly and upsetting for people with oily skin. However, not all is bad with oily skin. Due to the extra production of oil and sebum, the skin is left moisturized and hydrated. As such, wrinkles are less likely to occur. 

First and foremost, it is important for oily skin types to use an enzymatic exfoliator daily. This helps to enhance the cell turnover rate. Additionally, it will also ensure that sebum and oil do not clog and congest pores. This exfoliator can also balance the tone and texture of one’s skin. Therefore, it is important to use a good enzymatic exfoliator. Secondly, if you wanna know more about this. Exfoliation can also help to reduce the pigmentation of acne scars. This is because an exfoliator will strip away the top layers of skin. It might also be helpful to use anti-bacterial treatment creams and oils for breakouts, such as tea tree oil. 

Sensitive Skin

Sensitive skin is arguably the most challenging skin type to manage. This is because many ingredients can unexpectedly cause irritation and inflammation. Sensitive skin types are slightly special as their base skin type could be dry, oily, or normal/combination. However, this skin type tends to react badly to different substances.

Therefore, when it comes to this skin type, the main guideline is to always be careful when trying out new skincare products. It is always important to avoid known irritants such as parabens, synthetic fragrances, mineral oils, sulfate detergents, phthalates, urea, DEA, TEA, or alcohol. When trying out something new, always do a test patch to see if your skin reacts to it. It would be best to look for products that are made to cater to sensitive skin. 

How To Test and Find Out Your Skin Type? 

Firstly, you would want to be barefaced. This means no serums, moisturizers, or treatment creams. Instead, you should have only cleansed your face with something gentle. Wait about half an hour before checking. Do your forehead, chin, and nose shine? If it doesn’t, you have dry skin. Next, look at your cheeks, are they shiny with oil? If they aren’t, you have normal/combination skin.

In particular, how does your face feel? Does it feel stretched taut or uncomfortable when you smile? If so, you definitely have dry skin. If looking isn’t enough, you could use blotting paper as clearer indications of oil. 

If you have sensitive skin, you would probably already know. Different skincare products would have caused irritation for you and you might even suffer from a skin condition like rosacea, psoriasis, or eczema. 

Conclusion 

With this short article, we hope that you are able to better understand the various skin types. More importantly, we hope that you are able to figure out which skin type you have and how you can better take care of it. Our skin is the biggest organ of our body and hence, taking care of it is absolutely essential. 

Categories: Health

Nicolas Desjardins

Hello everyone, I am the main writer for SIND Canada. I've been writing articles for more than 12 years and I like sharing my knowledge. I'm currently writing for many websites and newspapers. I always keep myself very informed to give you the best information. All my years as a computer scientist made me become an incredible researcher. You can contact me on our forum or by email at [email protected].