The Academy also warns these ingredients can be too harsh. Start at the lowest strength, use it at night only, and use it on alternate days at first. If your skin stings or flakes, use it less often rather than stopping, and pair it with a heavier moisturizer while you adjust. If you are building a broader routine, our guide to sunscreen for sensitive skin helps you pick the one product you should never skip.
What should you avoid if your skin is oily?
Skip the five things that make oily skin worse. Skip harsh scrubs and cleansing brushes, which irritate the skin and drive oil production. Skip heavy creams and facial oils, which sit on the surface. Skip drying toners with alcohol, which cause rebound oil. Skip several new products at once, because you will not know which one caused a reaction. And skip going to bed in makeup.
One more is worth calling out. Skipping moisturizer because your skin feels oily is the most common mistake in this category. Dehydrated skin produces more oil, so the routine that feels heavier is often the one that reduces shine within a few weeks. The Academy is clear that a moisturizer belongs in every routine, including oily ones.
How do you shop for oily skin products without wasting money?
Read the ingredient list, not the front of the bottle. Look for oil free and noncomedogenic on cleansers, moisturizers, and makeup. Then check that the product you want to change is one you can replace, not add. If you already own a cleanser, a moisturizer, and a sunscreen, the only new item you need is a treatment.
Test in the store when you can. Squeeze the moisturizer and spread it on the back of your hand. If it feels greasy after a minute, it is too heavy for your face. Pay attention to what the packaging claims as well. The FDA does not pre approve cosmetic products before they reach stores, so a brand new claim on a bottle is marketing until a dermatologist tells you otherwise.
How long before a new routine shows results?
Give it four weeks, and judge the right things. Oiliness usually shifts in two to three weeks, because the skin needs time to adjust to a different cleanser and a different moisturizer. Breakouts take longer, because a pore has to clear and then heal. Texture and brightness take longer still, usually eight to twelve weeks, because that is one full turnover of the outer layer of skin.
Judge the process, not one bad morning. Take the same photo each morning in the same light, look at the blotter at noon, and note how many times you washed your face. The Academy of Dermatology's advice to cleanse no more than twice a day is the number most people break first, and it is the fastest way to make oily skin worse. If your skin feels tight after washing, you are using too much cleanser, and that tightness is what triggers the rebound shine you are trying to avoid.
One rule for the experiment. Change one thing at a time, and keep the rest of the routine steady. If you add a new cleanser, a new acid, and a new moisturizer in the same week, and your skin reacts, you will not know which one did it. That is how people end up with a shelf full of products that all claim to be the problem.
What about makeup, blotting papers, and breakouts?
Use oil free, water based makeup and matte finishes. The Academy specifically recommends both for oily skin. Keep blotting papers in your bag and press them onto your skin for a few seconds, then lift. Rubbing spreads oil, and it transfers it to other areas of your face.
For breakouts, keep treating the skin the same way. Oily skin does not need a different routine when a spot appears, it needs the same routine with more consistency. If you want to support your overall skin health while you work on this, our guide to vitamins for hair growth covers how nutrition claims for skin and hair get read, which is the same standard you should apply to any product ad.
Photo: Shixart1985, CC, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Woman_applies_skincare_product_in_bathroom.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=original)
Fazlur Rahman
