There are many different ways to categorize basic skin types, and different skincare brands have their systems. But it seems that, on the whole, especially for western brands, it is the familiar dry/normal/oily story.
However, I am never happy with it. It seems to totally disregard my own skin type.
A long time ago, I used to think I had oily skin. I used cleansers and toners designed for oily skin, and I looked for the most mattifying moisturizers. I also used exfoliators and deep-cleansing masques routinely. But the longer I used them, the oily my skin became. I was extremely confused.
Then, quite a few years ago, I heard people say they had “oily-dry” skin and I was intrigued. I looked into this and found a way to categorize skin types that I thought made much more sense.
The basic idea is that sebum secretion and surface water/moisture retention are two independent (but often cross-affecting) factors. Then we have four basic (not considering skin sensitivity) skincare types like this (I drew this myself, based on the skincare concept of IPSA, a leading cosmetics brand in Japan under Shiseido):
Types 1, 2, and 3 are pretty straightforward and are what we usually know about normal/dry/oily skin.
It is the Type 4 (oily-dry) that is the reason why I am writing this post. Many people with this type of skin think they have oily skin and are probably told so at cosmetics counters.
Under Type 4, the skin is oily because sebum secretion is compensating (or sometimes, over-compensating) the lack of water/moisture. This is a normal and very helpful coping mechanism (as opposed to Type 3 (dry skin), which relatively lacks this mechanism), but many people obviously don’t like having shiny faces and makeup melt-down. (In East Asia, people describe this skin type as “oily on the outside and dry on the inside“.)
In other words, under Type 4, the skin is oily because it is dry.
(Please note that Type 4 does not refer to what we usually know as “combination” skin. Type 4 refers to skin that appears oily all-over due to the lack of moisture underneath.)
People with oily-dry skin who don’t know it tend to be obsessed with deep-cleansing and mattifying their skin with harsh and drying products, but the only thing it does is to push everything to the extreme and make the skin drier and therefore oilier.
To take care of oily-dry skin, we need to see it as dry skin. In my own experience, when I use a light moisturizer, my skin feels dry after application and it gets oily and shiny very quickly. But with a slightly richer moisturizer, my skin feels comfortable and, more importantly, the skin doesn’t get nearly as oily.
The key, I think, is to use a moisturizer that is designed for normal or for dry skin (depending on how dry the skin actually is) with a relatively matte finish. For me, Lancome Hydra Zen and Olay Complete Care Night Enriched Cream work well on my oily-dry skin.
I personally feel that the common dry-normal-oily categorization of skin types is quite inadequate. As I said, IPSA is one of the brands that recognize oily-dry skin while Asian beauties with skin that is “oily on the outside and dry on the inside” are able to correctly identify their skin type and are therefore more able to take proper care of their skin.
For a few final words, the daily skin conditions, under each skin type, change with age, hormone, diet, stress level, weather, indoor heating, and many other factors. Your skincare routine has to be in keeping with the changes. Be sensitive, sensible, alert, and adaptive!
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you! It’s great to see this actually written down – I was starting to think I was crazy. My skin is oily/dry, and I find that the best way to keep it looking good is to use a very mild cleanser and a very rich moisturiser under mineral foundation – this keeps the oil right down and leaves me surprisingly matte all day, compared to the way it used to be when, like you, I thought it was oily! I am part Chinese, and I wonder whether my heritage has to do with this unusual skin type – all the friends I have who share it are also of Asian origin.
I am almost always told off at the makeup counter by SAs who look at my skin, diagnose it as greasy and try to sell me harsh astringents and light moisturisers. I usually reply that I’ve had this skin for 31 years and that I’m pretty clear on what I should be putting on it!
Hello Liz!
Thank you for your comment!
Yes, exactly, a mild cleanser and a rich moisturizer seem to do the trick for us, don’t they?
I am not totally sure whether racial backgrounds play a role here, but it might be worth looking into this.
I tend to think this could be actually quite a common skin type. You mentioned you have friends who have this skin type and so do I actually.
By the way, I love your blog! I am going to cook cola chicken next week…
That’s a really interesting way of classifying the skin. I find I have oily/dehydrtaed skin but I also suffer from blemishes too. Harsh astringents don’t work for me but I’m not sure how to shift the spots. I have white skin.
Hello Emma,
Thank you for stopping by my blog again!
I do have very occasional blemishes. When I do, what I do is that, after nighttime cleansing and toning, I avoid putting any moisturizer over the blemish. Instead, I use a spot treatment on the blemish. What I am using now is not available in the UK, but an equivalent is Clinique’s Anti-Blemish Clear Blemish Gel.
I find that it is by far the most effective to apply something like this on a blemish that is just about to come out. (I can sometimes feel a blemish coming out when I am washing my face.) For me, when I use the spot treatment early, the blemish will often disappear the next morning without ever fully popping out.
Apart from this, definitely use a mild cleanser and toner. (My current toner favorite is Lancome’s Tonique Douceur.) Also, do wear effective sunscreen every day, even on top of the blemishes, as UV rays can aggravate them.
For me, I love spicy food. But it can make my skin drier. So I try to have it as infrequently as possible.
Let me know if you have any more questions. I think choosing skincare products for people like us can be very tricky, so do let me know how you get on. :)
I’ve heard this a few times about our skin is compensating dry skin with more oil and I agree with it. But I have never tried to use richer moisturizer as my skin used to have the tendency to get blemishes. I have since grown out of acne but my skin still is oily as ever.
But one thing I don’t understand is that; if our skin produce more oil to compensate dry skin, why is it that oily skin that has high water retention (if any), is still oily?
Right now I’m not using any moisturizer but I’d like to look into Lancome Hydra Zen.
BTW good post and good insight.
Hi Rina,
Thank you very much for reading my blog and sharing your thoughts. Thank you as well for your kind words about this post.
It is a great question that you asked. I didn’t address this because the main focus of this post is on oily-dry skin.
I have been thinking about this for a while as well. I don’t have a definitive answer, but I do think skin types have a lot to do with hormones and genetics. I think there are some people who don’t particularly have a problem with water retention but their skin is still oily. From my personal observation, it seems that most people with Type 2 skin are usually quite young (teenagers and those in the early twenties).
I hope I’ve answered your question. (Do let me know what you think if you get to try Lancôme’s Hydra Zen.)
Thank you very much again for stopping by my blog. Hope to hear from you again! :)
Dear PJ,
Fistly, I would like to thank you for openign this blog and making people aware of the Japanese cosmetics, which happens to have a excellent quality. I am very interested in purchasing IPSA products. I am slightly confused about metabolizer. Is it a substitute for a moisturizer?
Thanks in advance,
Arubiina
Dear Arubiina,
Thank you very much for reading my blog and for your kind words!
You are right. IPSA’s various metabolizers are meant to be moisturizers. They are essentially toners and moisturizers in one product and they are applied right after cleansing.
If you have a chance to visit an IPSA counter (for the first time), the sales associate will usually recommend a skin test to determine which metabolizer suits you the best. After that, you should be given some samples and will be encouraged to try them first at home. (In my experiences, ISPA doesn’t do hard-sales, which I think is great.)
Hope it helps!
Thank you for posting your comment and question. Hope to hear from you again soon! :)
PJ
Thank you so much! That was a very informative post. For the longest time, I thought I was crazy, and like you, couldn’t pin point my skin’s type. It would be very oily, yet flakes like dry skin.
Before I’ve come across your article, however, I’ve been using a very rich creamy moisturizer day and night and now my skin is well hydrated – to the point of being too oily! The skin is very supple and soft though – so I guess I need to cut back on the moisture and use a very light lotion in the AM, then heavy moisturizer in the PM.
It’s very tough for oily-dry skin types. The key is striking a balance and that’s very difficult to do since everyone follows the dry/oily/combo rules. I did come across a Shiseido rep that told me the exact same thing you said though – smart oookie. :) It’s time cosmetic companies start recognizing the fourth type of skin, like IPSA.
Thank you again!
Hi Ann,
You are very welcome. I am glad you find the post informative.
Indeed, many people don’t realize that oily skin can be dehydrated as well. Finding the right skincare items for this skin type can be very tricky and requires trials and errors. But I am sure you will be able to fine-tune your skincare routine to suit your needs.
At the same time, I hope beauty brands (especially major ones) will start to have more products that suit us.
Thank you for your comment! :)
i have the same skin type as you do, my beautican advised me to use gel based products. and i am thinking to try the Olay products that you are using and it’s cream based as suggested by the names? :P please enlighten me ya.
Hi Heng Wei,
Yes, the Olay Night Enriched Cream is a cream-based product, but the texture is very light and it is absorbed very nicely. (It is of a light watery-cream texture.) For me, the gel-based products I have tried are not really moisturizing enough for me, and I find the two Olay products to be very suitable for me. (The Olay day lotion I use is of a creamy-fluid texture.)
Thank you for your question! Let me know if you have any other question. :)
Dear PJ,
I am considering buying IPSA Metabolizer and Cleansing Milky Foam. I just wonder whether or not IPSA use mineral oil in its products. I can not find a list ingredients.
Thanks in advance.
Best regards,
Arubiina
Hi Arubiina,
I have tried some IPSA skincare products quite a few years ago. But they were trial samples and they don’t have ingredient lists on them. I am not really sure if IPSA uses mineral oil in their products. (I went through some of the information on IPSA’s website and I didn’t seem to see any mention of whether they use mineral oil or not.)
If you are concerned about mineral oil, you might want to look into products from Freeplus (from Kanebo) and FANCL.
Thank you for posting your comment again! :)
Hi!
Wow, I’m so glad I came across your blog! Thank you for the information.
I used to think I have oily skin with lots of breakouts, so I would be using the harsh products for oily skin and that just made my skin really oily and more breakouts. Then I did a facial 1 day and the beautician said I have dehydrated skin. I thought I had the most abnormal skin, good to know that it’s actually common and there are product ranges that specifically target this skin type.
Thanks.
Hi Stace,
Your skin type is certainly not abnormal at all. I do think there are many people with quite oily skin who are not aware of the fact that their skin can be drier than they think.
Hopefully you have found skincare products that really work for you! :)
Thank you very much for sharing your experience! :)
Hello PJ,
firstly, i wanna thank you for this post!!! finally know that me and the only SA that say about oily dry skin are not crazy. :P haha.
secondly, i’d like to ask a few questions.
– for oily dry skin, can we use toner?
– i’m a guy, currently using Ginvera Green Tea Whitening Complete Cleanser. they say it’s a mild cleanser. one thing about it is that it doesn’t clean the pores well, always leaving whiteheads and backheads (a few others i tried also same). should i change cleanser or use scrub / exfoliating gel / mask to remove whiteheads and blackheads?
– for the moisturisers, do we go for cream or gel base? anything we need to take note when buying? i tried using one cream base before, but it seems to clog the pores and then got whitehead -_-”’
– have you come across cases where after cleansing their face, a layer of ersidue remains on the face? i.e if you use fingernail to run across e.g cheek, you can have a layer of white residue (oily).
thanks alot alot alot!!!!! hope to hear from you soon!!!
Hi Tan,
You are very welcome! :)
To answer your questions:
– We can certainly use toners. The key things to look out for are that they should be alcohol-free and that they don’t have potentially irritating ingredients that are often in toners that are targeted at oily or blemish-prone skin, such as witch hazel.
– It is not easy to eradicate blackheads or whiteheads. There are some over-the-counter or prescription items that can help, but there may be side effects with some of them for some people (such as skin irritation). For oily-dry skin, I would still recommend a mild cleanser for daily use. You can add a gentle exfoliator to your routine, which may help minimize blackheads and whiteheads.
– Personally, I tend to find gel-based moisturizers too light for me. (They tend to make my skin feel tight and parched.) Creams with a light consistency and without too much occlusive emolliency (like that from plant or mineral oils) suit me a lot more. Again, make sure that they either are alcohol-free or have minimal alcohol.
– I know what you mean. Some facial cleansers are formulated with filming agents and many are formulated with emollients. But those who like a squeaky-clean feel after cleansing might not like them. It is mainly a matter of personal preference. I personally don’t mind a very light filminess but I don’t like those which feel too filmy after they are rinsed off.
I hope the answers help, and thank you very much for stopping by my blog! :)
oh, thank you very much for this article.
I think, I have oily-dry skin too. First I thought, I have oily skin, then I recognized my skin is very dry at my cheeks, but oily in the t-zone, so I thought it’s combination skin.
But in fact, my skin is dry at my cheeks, and oily-dry in the t-zone, so it’s a combination of oily-dry skin and combination skin??! :D
I’ll look forward to use a richer facecream and then I look, whats happening ;)
bye! :)
p.s.: Please cut me slack, I’m from Germany and I only learned English at school :)
Hi Mona,
You are very welcome!
It is certainly possible for different parts of the skin to behave differently. Choosing a suitable moisturizer can be tricky, and it is usually a matter of trial and error.
I think, in your case, using a slightly richer moisturizer definitely might help. Do keep me updated with your thoughts.
Thank you very much for posting your comment! :)
Hi,
Thanks for this post. I have the same type of skin and I’m going through so many products right now. I am yet to find the right now.
What do you think of Shiseido’s Benefiance WrinkleResist 24 line as well as the Clarins Extra Firming Day Cream?
I am currently using Vichy’s Aqualia Thermal Line.
The Lancome Hydrazen line didn’t work for me at all.
Which gentle cleanser would you recommend? I’m using Vichy’s Normaderm since I am prone to pimples on my chin.
Thanks,
Ane
Hi Ane,
You are very welcome! :)
I haven’t tried Clarins Extra-Firming Day Wrinkle Lifting Cream, but I have reviewed two products from Shiseido’s Benefiance WrinkleResist24 range:
http://www.atouchofblusher.com/2011/07/skincare-review-shiseido-benefiance-wrinkleresist24-day-cream-spf-15-night-emulsion.html
In terms of cleansers, I have been using RMK Cleansing Oil N and Simple Moisturising Foaming Facial Wash. You can read my posts on these as well as other items in my daily skincare routine in the “My Skincare Essentials” list on the right sidebar.
Thank you very much for stopping by! :)