Determining your Skin Type

While the state of your skin, good or bad, has much to do with heredity, hormones and your lifestyle, keeping it clean and protected plays a very important part in its surface condition and long-lasting looks. The human body is made up of about seventy per cent water, and fifteen per cent or more of this is in the dermis. The outermost layer of your skin  the part you see and skin care and beauty products work on  depends for its youthful looks and resilience on a constant supply of water from the lower layers and its ability to retain that water without losing too much through evaporation. Also up there on the surface, sebum (the fatty secretion of the sebaceous glands), sweat and evaporating water mingle to form a slightly acidic, protective emulsion called the hydro-lipidic film which in turn helps to prevent excessive evaporation of water. It’s a perfect irrigation system when all is working well, but so much can upset it.
Even a normal skin can dry out if it spends most of its days stuck in the dry atmosphere of many air-conditioned buildings or goes through a long winter of temperature changes from over-enthusiastic central heating indoors to icy cold and skin-stripping winds outside. All the hormonal changing conditions such as periods, pregnancy, menopause, and even the Pill, can throw out the natural balance of your skin. Other culprits might be air travel, a holiday in the sun, drastic dieting and over-harsh or poor cleansing processes. Illness, even a relatively minor one that’s treated with over-the-counter medicaments, can change your skin’s behavior.
Sebum output and the skin’s natural moisture content diminish as we grow older. And a down period at any time in your life when you’re short of sleep, eating irregularly or living with negative stress can play havoc with your skin.
Nothing remains static on the skin front and you may be weary of hear­ing talk of dry, oily or combination skin when yours seems to vary from day to day, and certainly from season to season. But you really do have a basic type, which will naturally move to drier, wherever it starts, as the years go by. Skin care companies spend a fortune researching ingredients that will help counteract natural imbalances and adverse conditions, so when you’re buying products, aim for the category formulated for your skin’s usual behaviour, but keep a careful check for any changes.