If you have oily skin, you need to adopt a few particular skincare routines to manage the excess sebum on your skin.
Here’s some great tips from Prevention about how to have gorgeous skin without the annoying sheen.
1. Use a stripping toner
Toners are tempting for those of us with oily skin, but they can actually make your issue worse: Toners dry out the skin, so it overcompensates and actually produces more oil. Our skin is designed to stay moist, so super drying products shift glands into overdrive. Use witch hazel, a gentle, plant-based astringent, instead.
2. Moisturise the wrong way
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some ingredients can add unneeded grease to the skin, which stops up pores and can lead to breakouts. Instead, try oil-free moisturisers, which tend to contain glycerin and other humectants that draw water out onto the skin rather than suffocating it with more grease. Instead of using thicker creams or greasy ointments, consider liquids, gels, and serums, like Babor Skinovage Px Perfect Combination Intense Balancing Cream.
3. Wear thick makeup
You had a hunch, and it’s true: Wearing a pancake layer of makeup and failing to wash it all off at the end of the day can clog your pores, says Graber. When buying makeup, look for oil-free options, says Vashi, and also look for niacinamide, a B vitamin derivative that has been shown to absorb oil.
4. Scrub your skin
It seems logical: Scrub the skin clean; get rid of oil. Right? Wrong. Avoid harsh scrubs, because like toners, they can spur the skin to produce more oil. Instead, opt for a salicylic acid–based exfoliation treatment once or twice a week. Salicylic acid actually seeps into the pores and dissolves oil and gunk.
5. Skip a postworkout refresh
It’s not the sweat from a workout that clogs pores, but what the sweat swirls around. After a day of work, dust and grime can settle on the skin, and sweat can sweep this gunk into pores. It’s important to wash your face postworkout; get it out with a cleanser containing salicylic acid, glycolic acid, or benzol peroxide.