Determining Your Skin Type

Ideally, you should be using products that don't create or reinforce undesirable skin types. Among the offending products are bar soaps and bar cleansers (both can artificially make skin dry and irritated), occlusive moisturizers that can clog pores and make breakouts worse, or skin-care products that contain irritating ingredients (redness, inflammation, and flaking) including astringents and toners loaded with alcohol and other potentially irritating ingredients. All of these can wreak havoc on the skin. Regardless, from this point forward you will be better able to understand your skin type and know how to treat your skin appropriately with what is actually helpful for your skin.

1. Do not judge your skin type after you wash your face. Because the initial sensation you experience after washing your face can be your reaction to the water or the cleanser, you need to wait at least four hours after you’ve washed your face to accurately judge what is taking place on your skin. (Although with the right cleanser you can mitigate any discomfort after washing your face.) Try to do this assessment on a day when you are not wearing makeup so your foundation and powder won’t affect your evaluation.
   
   
2. Next, look in the mirror. Are there areas on your face that are noticeably shiny? Are those areas all over or just over the nose, cheeks, forehead, and chin? If you’re not sure, take a Kleenex and dab at your face. Wait another hour and dab again. If the Kleenex has oil smears on it, then you are presently dealing with some amount of oily skin (or possibly a moisturizer that is too emollient for you, but as you read the information about your skin type I can help you work through all this). For more information, see Battle Plans for Blemishes.
   
   
3. Do any areas of your face appear dry or matte? If the answer to this question is yes, then you are dealing with dry skin. For more information, see Battle Plan for Dry Skin.
   
   
4. If some areas of your face are both dry and oily then you are dealing with combination skin (though this condition can often be a result of using skin-care products that are both too emollient for your skin type and too drying, but we will work through all this). For more information, see Battle Plans for Combination Skin.
   
   
5. Whether your skin is dry or oily, note if you have areas of redness over the nose and cheek area accompanied by red bumps that look like blemishes but aren't really pimples. Are there noticeable surfaced capillaries over these sections as well as areas of extreme sensitivity? Do you flush easily? If you've answer yes to these questions you possibly have rosacea. (Source: www.rosacea.org) Rosacea is a medical condition requiring the attention of a dermatologist. For more information about rosacea, see When Blushing is Not by Choice: Causes and Treatments for Rosacea.
   
   
6. Do some areas of your skin tend to break out with small to medium size blemishes, particularly around the time of your menstrual cycle? If you've answered yes to this, you have mild to moderate acne. For more information, see Battle Plans for Blemishes.
   
   
7. Do some areas of your skin have more significant, consistent breakouts that are sometimes deep and painful and/or that lead to scarring? If you’ve answered yes to this you have more serious acne. For more information, see Battle Plans for Blemishes.
   
   
8. Do areas of your skin, particularly around your nose, chin, cheeks, or forehead have noticeable blackheads? For more information, see Getting Rid of Blackheads.
   
   
9. Sun damage is an ongoing struggle for everyone but how much it has impacted your skin is hard to determine. Someone at the age of 20 or 30 may have serious sun damage, but the results of that damage won't show up until later in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Some amount of sun damage is universal for almost everyone. Sun damage begins the moment your skin sees daylight. Even diligent, daily use of a well-formulated sunscreen only filters up to 97% of the sun's rays, but for most of us, we weren't even thinking about any of this when we were younger. Generally, we can all assume we have some amount of sun damage, so everyone's skin has this condition. That means everyone needs skin-care products with ingredients that fight or prevent sun damage. For more information, see Battle Plan for Wrinkles and Sun Essentials. (And by the way, dry skin doesn’t cause wrinkles, for more information click here.)
   
   
10. Do you notice skin discolorations on your face such as areas of new freckling or for women of color, areas of gray or dark pigment? More often than not, these discolorations are a condition called melasma (also known as chloasma or pregnancy masking). Typically, these skin discolorations are either caused from sun damage or hormonal fluctuations. For more information about skin discolorations, see Skin Lightening.
    
    
11. As I explained, because everyone has sensitive skin to one degree or another, you must only use products that are gentle, nondrying, and nonirritating. So add sensitive skin to your skin type. For more information about what can trigger irritation, see How to be Gentle to Your Skin.
    
    
12. Do you have patches of raised, red, dry, white scaly, crusted skin around your hairline, nose, eyes, or cheeks? This may be a skin disorder called psoriasis, which requires medical attention.
    
    
13. If you have consistently puffy, swollen eyes, you may have allergies to dust, mold or hayfever, though even food allergies can trigger swelling around the eye. You may want to discuss with your doctor the option of taking an antihistamine (there are great over-the-counter options) to see if that helps the condition. Regrettably, despite the claims, there are no skin-care products that can alter puffy eyes.
    

As you modify and adjust your skin care routine with products that are appropriate for your skin type, you will hopefully notice only positive changes that get you closer to the skin you want. Remember skin type isn’t static, even with appropriate, well-formulated skin-care products, your skin type can change depending on the season, your hormones, your stress level, and just the fact that skin does go through changes. You should reevaluate your skin as you notice differences, so keep this list close by so you can fully understand what you are dealing with and not blindly apply products that have no chance of helping.

For more information about your skin type, see Understanding Why Skin Type Can Be So Complicated.