Dry skin

Think tightness, flaking, roughness, itchiness, and an overall lack of pliability. It's simple because there's a lack of fluids in your skin. In scientific terms, this happens when there's a disruption of the fatty lipid matrix in the stratum corneum - causing water to evaporate out of your skin at a faster than normal rate. This kicks off a cascade of unfortunate events. Skin can become thicker (and not in a good, plump, collagen-full kind way) as the process of sloughing off dead corneocyte cells slows down. This slowdown leads to that undesirable, rough, uneven texture and dull appearance. Unfortunately, skin tends to become dryer and dryer as you age. But not to fear choosing the right moisturizer can tackle this problem.

Key traits

Characteristics: Skin feels tight, dry, and flaky, has a rough texture, and may even feel itchy.

Pros: Minimal acne and blackheads, and you can get layer-happy with your routine if you want to.

Cons: Flakiness, uneven texture, fine lines, and wrinkles. These issues are often exacerbated by several factors, the climate you live in, plane rides with close to zero moisture, seasonal changes, and aging!

Normal skin

There's a lucky subset of you who have skin that seems just fine, normal, healthy, and hydrated. Skin is bouncy, your skin tone is bright, and you're neither flaky nor oily, because you've got that coveted optimal water concentration in the stratum corneum. Lucky you - carry on! That doesn't mean you won't experience unwanted skin changes here and there when life throws new challenges your way. But you already have a fantastic starting baseline.

Oily skin

The light shines just right, and you can't help but feel like you're a disco grease ball? Oily skin is characterized by excess sebum or oil production due to enlarged sebaceous glands. Sebum is produced by the sebaceous glands connected to your hair follicles. This is why acne is often linked to oily skin types. Men tend to have oily skin due to higher levels of testosterone.

Although you may find excess sebum production kind of gross, sebum actually plays an important part in overall skin health and immunity. Via sebum, the skin is able to produce fat-soluble antioxidants and provide an antimicrobial layer. Another misconception isn't that having oily skin means that you don't have to use moisturizer. While it's true that sebum can indirectly help SC hydration, sebum production and skin hydration are actually independent of one another. That's because sebum production doesn't involve the lipid matrix, which prevents water evaporation, it involves the sebaceous glands found in the hair follicle. Thus, more sebum output doesn't entirely correlate to a higher ability for the SC to retain water in the skin. Short version? Oily skin can still be dehydrated.

Key traits:

Characteristics: Excess sebum, acne, blackhead congestion, large pores, shiny skin by late afternoon, and a general feeling of wanting to wash your face too many times.

Pros: Since the skin tends to be better hydrated, people with oily skin often have fewer issues with fine lines and wrinkles.

Cons: Inconvenient. You are conscientious of how shiny you look for that dinner date. Random breakouts before that speech you have to give. Finding products takes some finagling.

Sensitive skin

To be honest, sensitive skin is not well understood to this day. For our purpose, it's mainly relevant in that it can mean bad reactions to a number of skincare products. Sensitive skin is hard for professionals to diagnose and treat since it's hard to even pin down the root cause in many cases. You could be dealing with a true skin allergy, irritation caused by products, or a unique development over time due to changes in health, lifestyle, and surroundings.

Part of the reason sensitive skin is so hard to manage is that everyone's skin triggers are unique. There are products out there that claim,, formulated without skin sensitizers", but the reality ist that anything, especially at a high enough concentration, can be sensitizers. Figuring out your skin's quirks and sensitivity triggers can go a long way in your skincare-routine building!

Combination Skin

You probably feel like your skin has both oily and dry patches, and just doesn't know what it wants. To be fair, that's actually how the skin is. The term T-zone was coined for the area with more sebaceous glands than the cheeks-and-chin area

However, truly combination skin is characterized by a much more pronounced difference in the T-zone and U-zone areas. This skin type actually is the most challenging when it comes to moisturization, and typically requires more micromanaging, involving different products for specific skin areas.

Have you found yourself in these basic skin types? We believe that the way to choose the right products is really confusing. But we are here with you, so do not hesitate to write if you need advice on products.

New on our website, you can come across a section with targeted care, where you can choose, for example, your skin type, or just acne, anti-aging, etc. It will provide you with recommended products, which we have carefully researched and selected to be able to help your needs.

Source: Skincare decoded - Victoria FU & Gloria Lu