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.
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