True Radical Honesty From Our Community

Combination skin is the most common skin type in the world but the blend of excess oil in some areas and parched dryness in others can feel like a beauty curse. Honestly, it’s not. You just need to know how to deal with it.

When it comes to your skin type, the saying ‘the grass is always greener’ has never been more true. If you have oily skin you probably crave for the shine-free existence that dry skin types take for granted. And if you’re of a drier persuasion we bet you’d give your right arm for a little more sebum in certain areas. Are we right, or are we right?

Just like your height, eye color, shoe size and sporting prowess (or lack thereof!) your skin type is predetermined by your genes. Sure you can work on it, maximizing the good stuff and using clever tricks to hide or improve the not-so-good stuff, but at the end of the day, your skin is what it is – normal (rare), dry, oily or combination. Your role is to understand the best ways to manage whatever nature gave you. And no matter your skin type, this takes time and patience.

So let’s take a look at combination skin which is arguably the toughest skin type to deal with. Neither oily nor dry, but a mixture of the two, combination skin is a tricky little customer, which makes finding the right skincare routine feel like an impossible task. 

Do You Have Combination Skin?

The best way to check your skin type is to wash your face with a mild cleanser, then pat it dry and leave it for an hour or so without applying any other skincare product. After this time, the tell-tale signs of combination skin are greasiness and noticeable pores in the t-zone area (forehead, nose and chin), combined with dryness or a tight feeling around the cheeks and/or hairline.

It's also common for combination skin to experience breakouts in the t-zone area. This is thanks to excess sebum building up at the surface and getting unnecessarily up close and personal with your pores.

As previously mentioned, whether or not you have combination skin is very much the luck of the draw. However, many factors trigger excess oiliness in the t-zone and dryness elsewhere which can prompt certain changes throughout the year. Poor choices in your skincare routine can worsen the situation, while dietary choices, emotional stress and even the climate in which you live all have their say in the ever-changing characteristics of your combination skin.

The Most Common Triggers For Exacerbating Combination Skin

Your Hormones: Fluctuations in your hormones (think puberty, your monthly cycles, pregnancy, the contraceptive pill, menopause) raise your testosterone levels, thus causing sebum production to amp up. Hello, super greasy t-zone.

Your Diet: Too much sugar and too many processed carbs in your diet can also trigger your hormones to go all over the place. See above!

Your Environment: Extreme temperatures and humidity send your sebaceous glands crazy. Raging central heating, scorching showers and frigid temps outside, for example, suck moisture from the skin making oily skin play up and dry areas feel doubly worse.

Your Skincare Routine: Over-exfoliation, too many active ingredients, switching up your daily regime quicker than your underwear, all these things mess up your barrier function and unbalance your sebum levels.

6 Skincare Tricks To Help Restore Harmony To Combination Skin

The key for combination skin is not to concentrate on sucking the life from your oily areas. It’s way better to treat the entire surface of your skin like a delicate flower, sticking with gentle, hydrating formulations and calming, anti-inflammatory ingredients that balance both dryness and oily areas.

Read on for some of the best tried and tested ways to manage your combination skin.

1. Say No To Bar Soaps & Sulfate-Heavy Cleansers

Cleansers that work too hard at whisking away every last scrap of dirt, makeup and oil from the surface of the skin are, frankly, never a good idea – no matter your skin type. You see, ingredients like sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) and sodium laureth sulfate (SLES) are pretty common in cleansers, but they can disrupt the skin’s important barrier function, potentially making it vulnerable to dryness and irritation. This is particularly bad news for combination skin because it could make dry areas drier and oily areas oiler.

Instead, look for formulations that are packed with calming ingredients that help to balance sebum production. We love our Soothing Cleansing Milk which gently cleanses and removes makeup without disturbing the integrity of your barrier function.

2. Steer Clear Of Scorching Hot Water

While we’re on the subject of cleansing, never wash your face with hot water. Hot water strips away important oils and nutrients from the surface of your skin, exacerbating both dryness and oiliness. Not fun. 

3. Embrace The Wonders Of Exfoliating Acids

When it comes to exfoliating combination skin, less is more. Overdo it and the extremes of your oiliness and dryness will reach stratospheric levels.

Scrubs can also be a little abrasive for your sensitive areas, so your best bet? Go for a leave-on exfoliant, instead. Specifically our 6% AHA, BHA + PHA Liquid Exfoliant. This gentle exfoliating toner combines salicylic acid to balance sebum and keep your pores clear along with glycolic acid, vitamin C and reishi mushroom to boost cellular turnover while brightening and soothing the skin.

4. Gently Spot-Treat Breakouts

If your oily areas are causing your skin to break out, try spot-treating them with our Tea Tree Super Serum +. Oily skin types love applying this treatment serum all over but if have combination skin you might be better off applying it just two or three times a week to your t-zone only. This will help to mop up excess oil and decongest the skin exactly where you need it.

5. Switch Things Up With The Seasons

Everyone’s combination skin is different but, generally speaking, your drier areas will need more of a focus in the winter, while the oily sections will have their moment to shine (no pun intended!) come the summer months.

During winter, layer on extra hydration by applying a non-pore-clogging serum like Hyaluronic Acid Facial Serum. Then smooth on a rich moisturizer to your dry areas only, using a lighter gel or lotion on the t-zone. The good news is that in the summertime, this lightweight formulation might work all over, but listen to your skin and switch up or dial down your moisturizing game as needs be.

6. Make Multi-Masking A Weekly Must

To give combination skin a weekly boost of exactly what it needs, get involved in some multi-masking.

What is multi-masking? Well, this clever trick involves applying two face masks to your skin at the same time. You apply a clay or charcoal face mask to your t-zone to purify the skin and absorb excess oil, then elsewhere you apply a hydrating or soothing mask to moisturize and calm dry areas. This might sound like a bit of a headache, but it’s a really simple way to help balance your skin. Plus it forces you to relax for 20 minutes while you let you masks do their thing.

And that’s golden.

Got oily or combination skin? Then chances are a shiny t-zone is something you’re keen to manage. Good news: we've pulled together the lowdown on how to minimize excess oil and turn your shine into a different kind of glow.

Shiny skin is something those with dry skin probably dream of. If only they knew, right? Because while dry skin comes with its own set of grievances, an oily t-zone, that starts across your forehead, works its way down your nose, then culminates all over your chin, is certainly no picnic. Sure, it’s completely natural, and in fact combination skin, which is characterized by dryness over the cheeks and oiliness in the t-zone, is considered to be the most common skin type in the world. But still, it's frustrating at the best of times...

It's important to remember, however, that the amount of oil your skin produces is not entirely under your control. So, our first piece of important advice? Don’t sweat it too much; there’s only so much you can do. Instead, focus on the things you are able to influence by adhering to some smart shine-busting skincare tactics.

But First, What Causes Oily Skin?

Your skin type is entirely determined by how much sebum your skin produces. Sebum is an oily, waxy substance that’s produced by the sebaceous glands in the dermis, near the base of your hair follicles. Sebum is actually super important for the health of your skin because it works hard to seal in moisture and keep your skin lubricated. It also helps to protect it from external factors like allergens and pollutants.

Depending on how much sebum your glands produce, your skin type will either be dry , normal, combination or oily. And when it comes to a shiny t-zone, oily or combination skin types are those most commonly affected. 

Sebum: The Good & The Bad

While an oily t-zone is often frowned upon, excess sebum is not all bad. Sure, it can lead to things like blocked pores, blackheads and pimples, but it also results in a stronger barrier function which reduces your likelihood of developing sensitivities to certain skincare ingredients. Oh, and get this, it also slows down the development of premature wrinkles. Hurray for sebum! 

On the other hand, skin that produces too little sebum is frequently partnered with things like redness, irritation and sensitivities thanks to a compromised barrier function that’s less able to keep the skin moisturized and shielded from harm.

Of course, in a perfect world we would all have 'normal,' perfectly balanced skin. Sadly, that elusive perfect world simply does not exist.

What Makes The T-Zone Particularly Oily?

Whether you have oily or combination skin, the t-zone, which includes the forehead, nose and chin, is notorious for being the oiliest area of the face. And the reason is pretty simple: the t-zone contains more sebaceous glands than anywhere else. Nothing more complicated than that.

Your Dos & Don’t For A More Balanced T-Zone

Do you feel like your skin produces way more oil than your bestie’s? Well, you can thank genetics, hormones, your age and the weather for the most part. And unfortunately, these aren’t factors you can control. However, you can still do your bit by making smart skincare choices. Here’s how…

1. DO Choose The Right Cleanser

Harsh cleansers can strip your skin dry, triggering your sebaceous glands to produce even more oil – which is definitely not the result we’re aiming for. This makes your cleansing choices super, like super, important.

Avoid strong sulfates, harsh alcohols and synthetic fragrances for starters, and concentrate on ingredients that are effective at reducing oil, but don’t remove it completely. Things like kaolin and activated charcoal are great for mopping up excess oil and detoxifying the skin, so give our Charcoal Clarifying Cleanser a go which blends coconut-derived activated charcoal with balancing hydrators like aloe vera and reishi mushroom.

Also, try to avoid hot water when cleansing your skin as this stimulates sebum production. You have been warned.

2. DON'T Forget To Moisturize

You might feel tempted to skip moisturizer because surely it’ll do nothing but make your skin feel and look even more oily, right? Wrong. Skipping moisturizer actually signals your skin to produce more oil. Yes, just like poor cleansing. Instead, choose the right kind of moisturizer – lightweight and oil-free – to help keep your skin balanced.

If your skin is also feeling a little dehydrated, it’s also wise to layer up with a light moisture-boosting serum like our Hyaluronic Acid Facial Serum. Just a thought.

3. DO Try Salicylic Acid

As skincare ingredients go, salicylic acid is arguably the most important one to have in your shiny t-zone arsenal.

Salicylic acid is a beta hydroxy acid (BHA). BHAs are chemical exfoliants that break down the bonds between skin cells to encourage them to slough away more efficiently. Kind of like glycolic acid. However, unlike glycolic acid which is a water-soluble AHA, salicylic acid is fat-soluble which means that as well as providing exfoliating benefits, it’s also able to penetrate into your pores to help balance sebum. Salicylic acid also has anti-inflammatory and antibacterial qualities which makes it a shoo-in if your oily t-zone goes hand-in-hand with acne breakouts. 

Try our 6% AHA, BHA + PHA Liquid Exfoliant with combines this little gem with the aforementioned glycolic acid as well as hydrating powerhouses, glycerin and hyaluronic acid.

4. DON'T Strip Your Skin With Harsh Toner

Toners are fabulous, but here’s the thing: you don’t want yours to get rid of sebum altogether. This means that oil-reducing toners are probably best avoided.

Gentle, alcohol-free toners, on the other hand, that help to create harmony at the surface of your skin by balancing sebum and improving hydration? We’re all over those. Look for ingredients like witch hazel, niacinamide, zinc and MSM which help do just that. Our Ocean Minerals Super Toner, for example, has your name all over it.

5. DO Introduce Your Skin To Tea Tree Oil

Another great ingredient for balancing an oily t-zone is one of our all-time favorites: tea tree oil. Just like salicylic acid, tea tree oil is proven to contain antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, making it downright awesome for killing acne-causing bacteria on the surface of your skin. It's also a natural astringent which means it helps to regulate and control sebum production.

Tea tree oil, however, is pretty potent, so if you’re introducing it into your routine for the first time, treat it with respect. Our Tea Tree Super Serum+, for example, is well tolerated by the skin, but should still be patch tested first. Also, you may find just two or three applications a week is enough to bring harmony to your oily or combination skin. 

6. DON'T Make Friends With Occlusives

We’ve talked about many of the good ingredients but, don't forget, there are also some terrible ones you should avoid like the plague – most notably, occlusives. Now, don’t get us wrong, occlusives are awesome if you have a dry complexion or a chronic skin condition like eczema, because they leave a kind of thin film on the top of your skin which prevents water evaporation and helps to truly lock in moisture at a surface level. However, this barrier can also block up your pores which is terrible news for an oily t-zone – literally inviting acne breakouts along for the party.

Your best bet is to avoid occlusives at all costs. To be honest, they’re usually thick in texture so aren’t the kind of thing you would naturally go for anyway, but still, it’s worth knowing that things like petroleum jelly, rich cocoa butter, beeswax and coconut oil are not your ideal skincare friends.