Oily skin is truly a wrecking ball of a skin type, the Miley Cyrus genre of skin that plummets forth acne and blemishes leaving your face so greasy you can almost expect the American Government to start drilling.

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Now me, I have a combination type skin that is even worse, first of all if I use something to keep the nasty oil from my face, the rest of my face that comprises of my cheeks mostly are left dry and hungover, if you have skin like me (god forbid), it is truly a disaster. But we are here to talk about oily skin and why you need to know what....you need to know.

Okay, so firstly what is the oily skin type I keep crying about? it is self explanatory yes, but for the specifics, you KNOW you have an oily skin type if your skin produces oil far too much than what you need to moisturize; it so happens because your sebaceous glands in your skin produce much more sebum or oil than the other skin types do; the causes of oily skin has to do a whole lot with genetics than other factors.

So how do you get rid of it right? Here's the thing, you don't and you can't so the only thing you can resort to is taking care of it in the right way and trying to make it work for your benefit and trust me when I say, once you do, people are going to mistake your oily skin for highlighter so its not that bad eh?

So what it begins with is obviously skincare. I've already written an article on the generic foundation of skincare but what we are getting into is obviously more detailed. A simple skincare routine comprises of mainly three steps that is (repeat after me) Cleanser, Toner and Moisturizer- which makes the CT and M. Now Indians are familiar with the first and last but have absolutely no clue about the toner.

So let me briefly explain what a Toner does. It is used after cleansing your face in order to remove the traces of oil and dirt left behind, it also corrects the pH balance of your skin while taking care of your pores and prepping your skin for the moisturizer that is to follow. People with oily skin are the ones who absolutely need to use a toner. In addition to a toner, you can also add in an exfoliating agent such as a scrub in order to remove dead skin cells which can lead to sebum mixing with them and causing acne, and occasionally a mask would also be preferable.

The oily skin folks always need to also keep their diet in check, sometimes an intake of oily or spicy food is the reason why our skin reflects the greasiness of our diet. In addition to diet, it is important to hydrate. Water can also be taken with detoxifying foods like lemon, cucumber, mint and occasional Apple cider Vinegar which also acts as a toner when mixed with water in 1:10 ratio, but you need to get the good kind.

By keeping all of this in mind, products that you buy for skincare should be non-comodegenic which means it should not clog pores, specially in products such as moisturizers. Ingredients such as Salicylic acid and Hyaluronic Acid are the ones that are good for people with oily skin because they retain moisture without keeping the skin oily.

For a skincare range, oily skin products tend to be marketed mostly through a green outlook, meaning that the ingredients are plant based such as tea tree, Green tea, Aloe vera and Kaolin clay so look out for these ingredients when you're buying skincare. Masks that benefit the oily skin are ones that are clay based so 'Multani Mitti' would work wonders for your skin. Sunscreen and foundation should be of the mattifying type

So these are the things that you can keep in mind while attempting to figure out your oily skin, remember that even if its more of a curse than a blessing, people with oily skin don't need a lot of heavy moisturizing with the serums and essences so it goes easy on the pocket but again, the hunt for a good cream that keeps acne at bay while also moisturizing is a task I havent yet been able to fulfil. Moreover, there have been some studies that claim that people with oily skin are less likely to get wrinkles later on so that is an absolute plus!

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