How to know your skin type: The Ultimate Test to Determine Skin Types and their Characteristics

The first and most crucial step to effective skincare is knowing your skin type. More often than not, most folks misdiagnose their skin type, which in turn leads to using products ill-suited for their skin. This may, in turn, aggravate their skin problems further.

Your skin type is determined by many factors, including internal environments such as; genetics, hormones and health, and external environments to include; temperature (climate), pollution, smoking, age, and the season of the year. It is also important to note that your skin type can change throughout your life and is most volatile between the ages of 25 -35, especially for women.

There are mainly four skin types that you all know; oily, dry, normal, and combination skin type.

Confused about which category you fall into? Don’t worry. In this post, I will walk you through several simple tests you can do anywhere to determine your skin type.

Let’s dive in.

How To Test Your Skin Type

1. The Pores Test

Steps

-Get a regular mirror, and look at the size of your pores.

• You have oily skin if your pores are visible all over, big, dilated, enlarged pores.
• If your pores are not visible, you have dry skin.
• If you have a look and see some pores around your t-zone, you probably have combo skin. Dilated pores will show this on the tea zone but almost no pores on the rest of the face.

Also, if your face seems to shine around the t-zone, that is a combination skin type.

1. The Pinch Test

Steps:

– Looking at a regular mirror, pinch your skin.

• If you pinch your skin and it feels nice and plump, you probably have normal skin.
• Dry skin will feel flaky and crumbly when pinched. Dry skin will also be shown by lots of lines going on when doing the pinch.

1. The Baking paper/ Parchment paper test

Steps:

– Wash your face, as usual. ( Do not change the cleanser you use). This can be done at night.

– Air dry your skin and don’t oil your face or add any products to your skin. Leave it in this state for 2 hours and go on with your day/night as usual.

– After 2 hours( if done at daytime), or in the morning( if done at night), cut up the baking sheet into small pieces.

– Apply the cut-up baking paper on your face in both the tea zone and the outer zone. That is, the forehead, chin, nose, cheeks(both sides), and under your eyes(both sides).

– Then observe which baking paper on your face falls off and which one gets saturated with oils (and how saturated) and continues to stick on.

• If all the papers are heavily drenched in oil, and none of them fall off your face, you have oily skin.
• If all the papers are lightly drenched in oil, and none of them fall off your face, chances are you have normal skin.
• If all the papers fall off and you have very very little oil, you have dry skin.
• If the papers around the cheek area and under the eyes fall off with very little oil and those on the t-zone don’t fall off and are oily, you have combination skin.

Characteristics of different skin types. (This will also help you figure out your skin type.)

Dry Skin

– Skin with the least amount of sebum, which could lead to heightened sensitivity.

– The skin has a tight feeling and minimal pores.

Normal Skin

– It is the rarest of all and is like hitting the jackpot on skin types as it is characterized by no to minimal breakouts.

– It also has good hydration, small minimum pores (T-Zone and Cheeks), and plump, dewy skin.

Oily Skin

– This is skin with the most amount of sebum and a visible amount of pores, especially on the t-zone and the cheeks.

– It is also prone to breakouts, whiteheads, blackheads, clogging, and pimples.

– The whole face is oily and not just parts of the face.

Kindly note: One can have oily dehydrated skin, where the skin is dry and flaky but still experiencing blackheads and whiteheads. Besides, on the positive, people with oily skin don’t wrinkle and age fast. This is due to the sebum production.

Combination Skin

– It is the most common skin type characterized by, parts of the face being dry and other parts oily or normal(commonly t-zone area and forehead).

With combo skin, you can have Either:

1. Dry skin on cheeks and oily skin on t-zone and forehead; or
2. Dry skin on cheeks and normal skin on t-zone and forehead.

You can also be a dry combination skin-type (lean more on the dry side) or oily combination skin type (lean more on the oily side).

Sensitive Skin

– This is not a skin type. It is more of a skin condition. You could have an oily, normal, combo, or dry BUT sensitive skin.

– Conditions like rosacea, eczema, and psoriasis are considered to be sensitive skin. Sensitive skin is skin that gets irritated and reacts very easily. If your face gets red very easily, just from touching, that is sensitive skin.

– If you have sensitive skin, you want to keep away from products that have fragrances and dyes.

Well, its that simple. And remember, your skin type will keep changing throughout your lifetime based on the various factors discussed above.

Now, based on the above, what is your skin type?