How to Identify Your Skin Type

Every skincare decision starts here — and most beginners guess wrong, leading to products that don't match what their skin actually needs.

The Bare-Face Test

Wash your face with a gentle cleanser, apply nothing else, and wait 30-60 minutes. How skin feels and looks at that point, without any products influencing it, is the clearest indicator of your actual skin type.

Oily Skin

Shine appears across the whole face, particularly the forehead, nose, and chin, within an hour of cleansing. Pores often look more visible. This skin type benefits most from the Salicylic Acid Gel Cleanser and lightweight, gel-textured products throughout.

Dry Skin

Skin feels tight, sometimes uncomfortable, after cleansing. Flaking or rough patches may be visible, especially on the cheeks. The Oat Extract Cleanser and richer, cream-textured moisturisers suit this type better than gel formulas.

Combination Skin

The T-zone (forehead, nose, chin) shows oiliness while the cheeks stay normal or dry. This is genuinely the most common skin type, and often the most confusing to shop for since no single product perfectly addresses both zones.

Sensitive Skin

Redness, stinging, or visible reaction to new products — even ones marketed as gentle — points to sensitive skin. This isn't always a separate category from the others; oily, dry, or combination skin can all also be sensitive.

Normal Skin

Skin that feels comfortable, neither oily nor tight, with minimal visible pores or reactivity, is considered normal skin — genuinely less common than most people assume, and still benefits from a consistent, basic routine.

What If You're Still Not Sure

If your skin type genuinely seems to shift by season, that's normal — many people run more oily in summer heat and drier in winter. Building a routine flexible enough to adjust, rather than assuming one fixed skin type forever, works better long-term.