Combating Combination Skin

By Helen Wang

For those with combination skin, they know the biggest frustration is caring for it properly.

Having both oily and dry skin areas on your face can make skin care seem almost impossible. However there are things that you can do to care for and keep your combination skin feeling good and healthy.

First of all, make sure you are cleansing every day with a mild cleanser on your entire face. Use the cleanser twice a day, preferably after get up in the morning and before bed at night.

These are the times your face most needs to be cleansed anyway, but if you have combination skin it is imperative.

If there are parts of your face that are dry, while other parts are oily, then you have what is called combination skin. In general, your skin will likely feel fairly normal to you on most of your face.

The oily part will be mostly in the T-zone area. The T-zone area is the part of your face across your forehead and down your nose and chin, forming a "T" on your face.

There are certain other signs to look for so that you will know if you have combination skin and will know how to treat it. After you wash, some areas of your face may feel tight.

This will typically be on the parts of your face not included in the T-zone area. These areas will likely also look dull and flaky and may feel rough. A second sign would be that parts of your skin will look shiny, feel greasy, or be prone to blackheads and pimples, typically in the T-zone area.

Once you have identified which parts of your face are the dry parts, most likely these areas are not in the T-zone and this is the area you will treat with a good moisturizer and only on those dry areas.

The goal when you have combination skin is to normalize it. Using it in your oily T-zone will only make that area worse.

By normalizing is trying to gain a balance between the dry and oily areas so that all your skin looks and feels the same. You want to look for products that are made for such normalization n order to accomplish this feat.

An example is one that contain alpha hydroxyl acids (fruit acids or AHA???¡§o?¡§¡§s) or retinol. Retinol are a vitamin A derivative and should help you to gain more normal and even looking skin.

The reason AHA creams are so beneficial to your skin is that they area catalyst for skin cell regeneration. They expose the healthier skin cells beneath them by burning off or removing the top layer of skin cells (or the too oily and too dry ones).

These cells are more likely to absorb moisturizers besides helping to improve skin elasticity through their water-binding properties. This can help with that "tight" feeling you may get in the dry areas with your combination skin.

However, be aware is that once you are using AHA???¡§o?¡§¡§s, you need to continue using them. The moment you stop, your cells will not regenerate at the rate they were with the AHA and will return to their original state very soon. All the matter here is genuine and to the point.

Trying to control the shine is the next important move. The oily areas of your face will tend to shine as oils collect in the pores.

Such makeup is made to soak up oils from your face and prevent shine. Again, this will likely be more of a problem in your T-zone area than anywhere else. Combination skin can be frustrating, uncomfortable, and on certain days embarrassing. However, the problem is not untreatable.

By recognizing that you have combination skin, taking the time to identify your areas, and learning treatments you can still have beautiful skin.

Be sure to read your makeup labels and skin care product ingredients to keep you looking even more beautiful and natural. Make sure you understand what each product you put on your face does, so that you will know when and where to put your products on.

You can achieve balance and a natural glow by learning not to additionally dry the dry areas or moisturize the oily areas.