How to Identify Your Skin Type and Develop a Skincare Routine

A well-crafted skincare routine is a limited set of products designed to address your skin’s needs while maintaining its quality. This is crucial, as some active ingredients might solve specific problems but harm your skin in the process, indicating an unbalanced regimen.

If you have numerous skincare products yet remain unsatisfied with your skin, it’s likely because you lack a structured routine. Products used haphazardly often fail to work synergistically. Therefore, buying the most expensive cream won’t help without a coherent strategy.

Planning your skincare regimen is essential. Knowing your skin’s weaknesses and needs allows you to outline a skincare plan for the next decade, adjusting as circumstances change.

Your skincare routine should be seasonal, as winter and summer skincare differ significantly. In summer, the focus is on protection, while in winter, it’s on more intensive care.

Here’s an example of my potential fall skincare routine:

Basic Cleansing with a Creamy Foam: Provides adequate cleansing without drying the skin.
Niacinamide Toner: Moisturizes the skin and enhances its protective functions.
Light Gel Cream: Contains Centella to heal and soothe the skin post-active treatments.
Ceramide Mist: Restores the skin’s lipid barrier, preventing flaking.
Serum with Retinol and Acids: Maintains acne remission, brightens the skin, and prevents age-related changes due to active facial expressions.
Purifying Mask: For deeper cleansing once a week.
This six-product routine covers my cleansing, soothing, and moisturizing needs while enhancing the skin's appearance.

Additional products like sheet masks, patches, and alginates can be layered on, but they are optional. Professional treatments or home equivalents can also be incorporated.

The key is to ensure that while improving your skin, you don’t compromise its quality. Strive for balance and work from a place of self-love and care.

How to Determine Your Skin Type?
Understanding your skin type is crucial, as it dictates the approach to your skincare regimen. Ideally, if everyone had the same skin type, choosing cosmetics would be straightforward, and manufacturers could focus solely on effectiveness. However, reality is different.

There are four genetic skin types:

Oily
Combination
Normal
Dry
Knowing your skin type is essential because each requires a distinct approach.

For example, consider a 24-year-old patient complaining of facial dryness, visiting on December 24. Is it seasonal dryness due to winter, or an exacerbation of an existing condition?

In the first scenario, we’d recommend an additional hydration step; in the second, a thicker protective cream. Missteps in this process could either leave the skin insufficiently hydrated or clog the pores.

Key questions to ask: Is this a new issue? Is it seasonal? Do I suffer more from blackheads or flakiness? Do I need to control oiliness throughout the day?

Your primary guide should be your pores. Dry skin will have none, while oily skin will have visible pores across the face.

Combination skin presents a mix of oily and dry areas.

By identifying your skin type and understanding its specific needs, you can create a skincare routine that ensures optimal results and a healthy, radiant complexion.