'But you said it was going to be about makeup!' - you thinking? Well, it is.
The most important thing you need to know before you even start thinking about putting any makeup on (or even buying any) is your skin type as this determines what kind of products will or won't work for you. I know this may sound boring. Where is the creativity and the joy of colours in this? But believe me, it's important. Your skin is the canvas for your makeup and more importantly, it is what tells other people most about you. Its condition reflects your lifestyle, your age, even your diet, so caring for it the right way will make all the difference. In this first post, I will help you determine what your skin type is.
You might want to do this on a weekend morning (not after a night out by any means) when you don't want to put any makeup on and you don't need to go anywhere.
1. First, wash your face with just water. It is very important not to use any cleansing products when doing this, as these can affect how your skin 'behaves', giving you incorrect results.
2. Now wait at least an hour, two is even better. Try not to touch your face during this time to avoid transferring oil from your fingers to your face. Note if you feel any tightness and where you feel it, this will indicate dryness.
3. Take a tissue and press it on your face, but do not wipe. The tissue will absorb any access oil from your face and its pattern is important.
4. Look in the mirror and note what you see.
Normal skin doesn't feel tight or oily even after the two hours. It has an even tone, its pores are not or only barely visible, there is no redness or flakiness and apart from the odd blemish sometimes, it's not very problematic. Normal skin is what we all want but few have it, so if you do, consider yourself lucky.
Dry skin will feel tight all over (maybe more on some spots than others) soon after washing, its pores are invisible and it's prone to flakiness and redness. It hardly ever has blemishes (unless it's also sensitive, more about this later), but wrinkles appear on it earlier than on others.
Oily skin doesn't feel tight at all but will leave oil on your tissue. Some spots may be oilier than others but there are no dry patches at all. Pores are easily visible, some even large and blemishes appear quite often, especially if you skip cleansing at night. The easiest way to tell oily skin is by looking at it: it's shiny and not in a good way.
Combination skin is what most people have, it's a mix of the above three skin types. Let me introduce you to the T-zone if you don't know it yet. This is the area covering your forehead, nose and chin, the shape of the letter T, hence the name. Combination skin is oily in the T-Zone and dry or normal elsewhere.
Sensitive skin is not really a skin type, either of the above can also be sensitive. It reacts more readily to chemicals in cosmetics and to the changes of weather. It often has acne or blemishes, and it can become red or even itchy. Sensitive skin can be very difficult to deal with but I will give you some tips in a future post that might help a little. (Sorry, but it couldn't all fit in here.)
Now this was not difficult at all, was it? Good. If you have the feeling that this is too simple to be true, you are a wise person :) The thing is, that it's not this simple. Hormonal changes (all kinds be it natural or artificial), ageing and even the changing of seasons influence our skin a great deal and our skin type changes as a result. It is very important that you do not ignore these changes and choose your cosmetics and makeup to suit your skin in its current state otherwise you can introduce problems instead of treating them.
Any questions on the above or if you feel I missed to mention something, comments are very welcome.
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