It’s all very well that beauty products label themselves for different skin types, but we can hear you wailing “but what is my skin type?!” If you’ve got a stubbornly oily nose, yet your forehead and cheeks feel tight after washing, it may seem like you need a PhD to work it out. You don’t. Here we look into the easiest way to identify your skin type, and how to feel more confident when choosing skin care products.
How do I tell what skin type I have?
First up, hold your horses. Before we get stuck into how you assess your own skin type, you need to know what the possibilities are.
Admittedly, this may be where you’ve run into your first area of confusion. Different ‘experts’ will tell you about different numbers of skin types. You’ll likely find yourself looking in despair at charts containing a myriad of options, or others which will tell you that you just need to identify whether your skin is oily or dry.
It’s bewildering and can leave you ready to chuck out any thoughts of a skin care regime with your laptop.
At UpCircle, we’ve given a lot of thought to skin types. It’s important to us because we want our products to actually work, not just tick some marketing spiel of a multinational beauty corporation.
We’ve broken it down into enough skin types to allow for genuine variation, but not so many that you end up dazed and confused. We’ve got six categories:
- Oily: Yep, your skin tends to produce too much oil. It looks shiny all over, not just as expected on your nose, and has a habit of being spot-prone.
- Normal: Your skin is balanced, meaning that there’s not too much oil and not any dryness. Lucky you! However, you can still experience redness at times, or dullness. No one’s perfect!
- Dry: You’re flummoxed by flakiness, and your skin often feels rough to the touch. It is generally caused by a lack of oil, or lipids.
- Dehydrated: Your skin may look dull and you frequently experience that feeling of tightness when you smile. Unlike dry skin, dehydrated skin is caused by a lack of water in the top layer of your skin.
- Combination: It’s the best of both worlds for you! You’ve got an oily nose and forehead, but that hasn’t let you off experiencing dryness elsewhere.
- Sensitive: You’re prone to redness caused by irritation. You generally have to be careful with which skincare products you use to avoid a face that feels like it’s on fire.
We’re not going to lie – these can overlap and the categories aren’t always straightforward. For example, you can have both sensitive and dry skin. Plus, your skin type can change at different times in your hormone cycle, or with the different seasons of the year.
Identifying your skin type
Your skin is a mighty big organ – your biggest, in fact. Therefore as an example, just because you have spots on your back, it doesn’t mean you need to choose all your skincare products based on what’s good for oily skin. You need to assess different areas separately.
The simplest way to identify your facial skin type is to use the ‘bare-faced method’. You’ll be pleased to hear that it’s not rocket science. Simply wash your face with a mild cleanser, dry and leave your skin bare for around half an hour.
Then go to the mirror and look at your nose, chin, forehead and cheeks to see if any of those areas are getting shiny with oil. Shine on your nose and forehead indicates nothing more exciting than normal skin. However, if you’re building up some shine on your cheeks or chin, then oiliness may cause your skin to be spot prone.
If, however, your face feels tight, or is showing signs of redness, then your skin may be dry or sensitive.
Choosing the right products for your skin
Having answered the question “what is my skin type?” you may be wondering whether you can get the right products for your skin combined with staying true to your beauty ethics. We promise you that you can.
In practice, we’ve discovered that, as well as skin types such as ‘oily’ or ‘dry’, people like to know which products will actually be best for their particular skincare concern. Even those with supposedly ‘normal’ skin can feel that it sometimes appears lack-lustre or dull. So we’ve helped you out by targeting our skincare products into five common skin concerns:
SPOT-PRONE: This is you if you are often caught bemoaning the fact that you’re stuck at age 14 skin-wise. If you experience oiliness, then our Anti-Breakout Bundle is perfect for you. We also really recommend our detoxifying Face Mask. Made using naturally skin-soothing olive stones mixed with kaolin clay, it’s wonderful for restoring a sense of calm to spot-prone skin.
SENSITIVE: This is you if simply looking at a bottle of perfumed moisturiser makes your skin flare up! If you have sensitive skin, then we’ve got the products you need to be kind to your skin. The Sensitive Skin Soother Bundle will leave you feeling nurtured.
DRY SKIN: You’ll recognise this if you wake in the morning, or when you get out of the shower, feeling like someone replaced your skin with crepe paper. For those with dry skin, we recommend the Hydration Bundle which will help hydrate your skin and banish the dryness.
DULL SKIN: You’re this person if you find yourself pinching your cheeks as a ‘natural blusher’ or refusing to leave the house for fear of being mistaken for a ghost. The Hydration Bundle is perfect for those with dull skin who are after a radiant and revitalised complexion.
REDNESS-PRONE: This is you if you take on a beetroot hue when you wash, exercise, rub in some moisturiser, or so much as glance at the sun for more than five minutes. If your skin is redness prone, then you too need to be kind to your skin. The Redness Reducer Bundle is the solution you’ve been looking for.
We are all unique and need different things from our skincare. However, finding what you need for your skin type shouldn’t come at the expense of your principles. So now you know what skin type you have, it’s time to spoil yourself with some organic, vegan, cruelty free skin care options which really work for you.