Regardless of what products you’ve tried, the results may always seem the same. Parts of your face seem to break out and produce massive amounts of oil, while other areas seem parched, flaky, and irritated.
If this sounds familiar, you probably have combination skin. Understanding what combination skin is and how to care for your skin type can help you regain balance and love your skin. With a little knowledge, you can bring back healthy, radiant skin.
What Are the Main Skin Types?
Experts recognize five distinct skin types:
- Sensitive skin. This skin type may be more reactive to new products. When you use a new product, you may experience stinging, burning, or even dry patches of irritation and redness. You may even develop blemishes from time to time.
- Normal skin. Normal skin types are considered lottery winners of the skin type world. These types are not sensitive to new products, rarely develop breakouts, and have an even tone and texture.
- Dry skin. Dry skin types are characterized by overall dryness, or dry areas on the skin. This skin type produces less natural oils than normal skin types, and may always feel drier, even when you use plenty of moisturizing lotion.
- Oily skin. Oily skin types might produce more oil than others. This skin type has large pores, develops blackheads and whiteheads easily, and has more oily areas than dry areas. Oily skin types are often blemish-prone, because sebum can mix with dead skin cells on the surface of the skin, resulting in clogged pores.
- Combination skin. Combination skin is among the more common skin types. Combination skin has combinations of all the other skin types, but on one face. That means you might notice areas of your face that are oily, and areas that are dry. Often, combination skin types will experience dry skin on the cheeks and a more oil t-zone.
If you aren’t sure if you have combination skin, there’s an easy test you can do to find out if that is your skin type.
How To Know If You Have Combination Skin
Sometimes, your skin just feels completely off-balanced. Do you have combination skin? Dry skin that just needs hydration? Oily skin that needs an oil-free skincare routine?
This simple test can help you determine your skin type easily:
- Cleanse your skin with an oil-free cleanser, or with NuFACE Prep-N-Glow® Facial Wipes.
- Pat your skin dry and wait 15 minutes.
- After 15 minutes, check the condition of your skin. Notice where you have oily patches or dry patches. Notice whether your skin feels tight, itchy, or excessively oily.
If you find that you have an oily t-zone with dry cheeks, you probably have combination skin.
What Can Exacerbate Combination Skin?
Blame it on your mom and dad. Your genetics play a major role in how your skin behaves, especially as you age. If different areas of your parents’ skin are dry and oily, chances are you might have inherited your combination skin type from them.
Other causes can include:
- Aging. As we age, our hormones change. The change in hormones can cause our sebaceous glands to produce more or less oil in different areas. This is one reason why teenagers tend to get more breakouts; there is an excess of hormones flowing through the body. With age, oil production slows and skin may become more dry.
- External Factors. Your diet, climate, and water consumption may influence how your skin behaves. If you live in a particularly dry climate, your skin may respond by ramping up oil production to make up for dryness. In addition, smoking and drinking alcohol can dehydrate skin considerably.
- Skincare Products. Different skin types may benefit from tailored skincare. If you have oily, blemish-prone skin, for instance, you want products that are non-comedogenic. If you have sensitive skin, you’ll want to select gentle cleansers that won’t irritate the skin.
5 Tips for Caring for Combination Skin
It can be tricky to get the right balance of products to hydrate dry areas without causing excess sebum production in others. If you choose products that eliminate oil, you might end up with rough skin texture in dry areas. Here’s how to handle combination skin to strike a balance.
1. Hydrate
It’s foundational to skincare for any skin type, but especially for combination skin. While drinking water is important, using products that hydrate skin deeply (without creating a buildup of oil on the skin barrier) is essential.
NuFACE Supercharged IonPlex® Facial Mist is a solution that works for all skin types. Formulated with ceramides to restore and replenish the skin barrier and a proprietary blend of glacial water and ions to hydrate skin, it’s an easy way to add a burst of hydration whenever you need it. It also contains hyaluronic acid, an ingredient found naturally in your skin that can hold up to 1,000 times its weight in moisture. This allows it to hydrate your skin, without adding heavy oils that could clog your t-zone.
2. Choose an Effective Boosting Serum
Facial serums are like concentrated boosts of skin-loving ingredients. Consider Super Vita-C Booster Serum which helps brighten and correct skin texture and tone to restore the look of healthy skin, or Super Antioxidant Booster Serum, which loads skin with protective antioxidants and helps keep skin tight and firm.
3. Moisturize Dry Areas
It’s easier to restore balance to your oily areas by using natural ingredients. Helping keep dry areas quenched can be a bigger task. NuFACE Aqua Gel Activator is a microcurrent activator you can use alone as a moisturizer, or before you begin a microcurrent treatment. This activator is formulated to help keep your skin hydrated for up to 24 hours, locking in moisture and helping balance out your skin.
4. Wear Sunscreen Daily
Protecting your skin with a daily sunscreen is essential for keeping it healthy. Look for an oil-free, non-comedogenic formula with an SPF 30 or higher to ensure your skin is thoroughly protected and healthy.
5. Don’t Forget To Exfoliate
Exfoliating can help remove dead skin cells and flaking skin on dry areas of the face and help balance your natural moisture levels. NuFACE Prep-N-Glow Exfoliating & Hydrating Facial Wipes cleanse and exfoliate in one easy and convenient wipe that you can use anywhere, anytime.
Get Control of Your Combination Skin
Your skin may have a mind of its own, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of it. Finding the right skincare products to use for your skin is essential for keeping skin healthy and helping balance the divide between the oily areas of your skin and the dry areas.
You can support your skin’s health with products from NuFACE. NuFACE uses ingredients that work synergistically with your skin to help recalibrate it and restore its radiance.
Sources:
Skin care tips dermatologists use | American Academy of Dermatology
Glowing skin might start in your genes | Popular Science
Effects of electrical stimulation on skin surface | PubMed.org
