When someone tells me they have combination skin, I always have to ask what exactly they mean by that. Usually I hear something to the tune of, “I have oily places and dry places on my face.” The truth is, all skins have a combination of several different things going on with them. Understanding correct terminology is helpful when it comes time to self-diagnosis your skin type.
The theory behind combination skin is dry patches and oily places on the same face. The facial axis (also called the t-zone) has more oil glands than the rest of the face, the nose housing the highest concentration. That’s why almost everybody has pockets of oil (blackheads) clogging the pores on the nose to some degree. The dry patches most people feel is either on their cheeks or is a face-wide feeling of dryness.
My contention is you can’t have both oil-dry (what I call true-dry) and serious oiliness together. Oily and normal skin, yes. Oily skin that is dehydrated (feels dry)—absolutely. But thinking you have opposing oil conditions (dry and oily) makes it confusing as to what kind of products to use on your skin.
Many people experience what they call “dry” skin when in reality their skin is dehydrated, which feels like true-dry (oil-dry) skin. But as you can read in numerous articles under categories dehydrated skin as well as dry skin issues, there is a great difference between the two skin conditions: dry and dehydrated. And the treatment of the two different conditions is also very different.
The theory behind combination skin is dry patches and oily places on the same face. The facial axis (also called the t-zone) has more oil glands than the rest of the face, the nose housing the highest concentration. That’s why almost everybody has pockets of oil (blackheads) clogging the pores on the nose to some degree. The dry patches most people feel is either on their cheeks or is a face-wide feeling of dryness.
My contention is you can’t have both oil-dry (what I call true-dry) and serious oiliness together. Oily and normal skin, yes. Oily skin that is dehydrated (feels dry)—absolutely. But thinking you have opposing oil conditions (dry and oily) makes it confusing as to what kind of products to use on your skin.
For more information, see:
- Using dry skin products on oily skin—STOP THE INSANITY!
- Determining Skin Type
- Combination & Normal/No-Problem Skin explained
