How To Find Out What Skin Type You Have

One crucial aspect of taking care of your skin is knowing what skin type you have and how it reacts to specific conditions and the changing seasons. After all skin is the body’s largest organ, and it is as complicated as the heart, liver, lungs and other vital organs.

Applying cleansers and treatments which are too course, even if they’re recommended for dealing with oily skin, can send the signal into your skin that additional oil is needed thereby making the oily-skin problem you set out to fix in the first place now an even bigger problem. Taking the time to find out your skin’s special needs can allow you to select the ideal choices which will balance your skin giving you a much healthier, more luminous complexion.

Every person’s skin is unique, but there are a couple of typical skin types. The three main skin types are generally referred to as Dry, Oily, and Combination (Combination is sometimes referred to as “normal” skin type).

How To Find Out Your Skin Type

If you’re like me you’re already in the habit of using a lot of different skin care products on-top of regular use of make-up. The problem with this is it makes it difficult to know what your natural skin type is because you’re so used to seeing the results of this-product or that-product so the first thing we need to do is set aside a couple days to go make-up and skin-care product free in order to get a better idea of how our skin naturally looks.

Step One: Wash Your Face

Remove makeup and wash off the day’s oil and dirt so your skin can start fresh.

Step Two: No Makeup Or Skin-Care Products For 1-2 Days

This can be tough depending on your schedule, if its impossible right now for you to find a couple days where you don’t feel like you need to be wearing make-up or exfoliating every day then for now you can do this with just waiting several hours after the face wash – but ideally it would be 1-2 full days for most accurate results possible.

Step Three: Take a Good Look

Take note of your skins natural characteristics.

Dry Skin Type

You have Dry Skin if your skin feels tight and has flaky areas.

Dry skin may feel tight during the daytime, and might experience discoloration that is noticeable. Dry skin is caused by many things including genetic factors, environmental factors like lifestyle & diet, hormonal fluctuations, and even the climate.

Dehydration can also be a primary cause of dry skin, so drinking loads of water and preventing diuretics such as caffeine and alcohol can make a considerable difference in the way your skin looks and feels particularly if you have naturally dry skin.

Oily Skin Type

You have oily skin if your skin looks shiny and feels slick to the touch.

Excess oil may oftentimes leave pores clogged and stuffy. The good news however is that fatty skin appears younger and more supple since it has more natural moisture than dry skin, people with oily skin usually don’t start to wrinkle until a bit later in life than people with really dry skin.

Daily enzymatic exfoliation (or an enzyme peel) is a good method for keeping oily skin at bay without losing the benefits of the excess moisture oily skin is known for. A gentle bodily exfoliator (one that doesn’t use abrasives like crushed seeds or nuts which could cause tiny tears in the skin) can also be helpful for balancing the tone and feel of skin.

Combination Skin Type

You have combination skin if theirs no signs of dramatic flaking or oiliness.

People with normal/combination skin often experience dryness around the cheeks, while the T-Zone is usually oily. This can be frustrating for them because they may find themselves going back and forth from products meant to help fight oily skin and products meant to help fight dry skin with both of them seeming to cause problems

Moderate, daily exfoliation is important to maintain the t-zone while a good moisturizer is whats needed on the cheeks. Don’t feel like you need to cover your entire face in whatever product you’re using.

Tip: Witch Hazel is great for combination skin

In Summary

When you don’t know what skin-type you have you may end up running around trying tons of different products and never getting satisfying results. This is why it is so important to know what skin type you have that way you can take care of it with ease.

Next up: check out these tips for having beautiful skin at any age.