Men's Skin Type

Determining Men's Skin Type

6. Do some areas of your skin tend to break out with small to medium size blemishes? You could have mild to moderate acne.

7. Do some areas of your skin have more significant, consistent breakouts that are sometimes deep and painful and/or that lead to scarring? You could have more serious acne.

8. Do areas of your skin, particularly around your nose, chin, cheeks, or forehead have noticeable blackheads? You are battling with blackheads.

9. Sun damage is an ongoing struggle for every man and woman. However it is hard to determine how much it has influenced your skin. A man at the age of 20 or 30 may have serious sun damage, but the results of that damage won't show up until later in his 30s, 40s, and 50s. Some amount of sun damage is universal for almost everyone, regardless of men or women. Sun damage begins the moment your skin sees daylight. Even diligent, daily use of a well-formulated sunscreen only filters up to 97% of the sun's rays, but for most of us, we weren't even thinking about any of this when we were younger. Generally, we can all assume we have some amount of sun damage, so every man's skin has this condition. That means every man needs skincare products with ingredients that fight or prevent sun damage.(And by the way, dry skin doesn’t cause wrinkles.)

10. Do you notice skin discolorations on your face such as areas of new freckling or for people of color, areas of gray or dark pigment? More often than not, these discolorations are a condition called melasma (also known as chloasma). Typically, these skin discolorations are either caused from sun damage or hormonal fluctuations.

11. Because everyone has sensitive skin to one degree or another, you must only use products that are gentle, nondrying, and nonirritating.

12. Do you have patches of raised, red, dry, white scaly, crusted skin around your hairline, nose, eyes, or cheeks? This may be a skin disorder called psoriasis, which requires medical attention.

13. If you have consistently puffy, swollen eyes, you may have allergies to dust, mold or hay fever, though even food allergies can trigger swelling around the eye. You may want to discuss this issue with your doctor. (by the way, despite the claims, there are no skincare products that can alter puffy eyes.

As you change and adjust your skincare routine with products that are appropriate for your skin type, you will hopefully notice only positive changes that get you closer to the skin you want. Remember men’s skin type isn’t static, even with appropriate, well-formulated skincare products, your skin type can change depending on the season, your stress level, and just the fact that skin does go through changes. You should re-evaluate your skin as you notice differences, so keep this list close by so you can fully understand what you are dealing with and not blindly apply products that have no chance of helping.

Men's Skin Type

Determining Men's Skin Type

Preferably, you should not be using products that produce or reinforce unwanted skin types. Among the offending products are bar soaps and bar cleansers, which can make skin dry and irritated; occlusive moisturizers that can clog pores and make breakouts worse; or male skincare products that contain irritating ingredients, like after-shave, astringents and toners loaded with alcohol and other potentially irritating ingredients that cause redness, inflammation, and flaking on the skin. All of these can wreak havoc on the skin. Through this men's skincare blog, I hope you will be armed with more information on understanding men's skin type and know how to treat your skin appropriately with what is actually helpful for your skin.

1. Do not judge your skin type after you’ve washed your face because the initial sensation you experience after washing your face can be your reaction to the water or the cleanser. You need to wait at least four hours after you’ve washed your face to accurately judge what is taking place on your skin. (Although with the right cleanser you can mitigate any discomfort after washing your face.)

2. Next, look in the mirror. Are there areas on your face that are noticeably shiny? Are those areas all over or just over the nose, cheeks, forehead, and chin? If you’re not sure, take an oil blotter and dab at your face. Wait another hour and dab again. If the oil blotter has oil smears on it, then you are presently dealing with some amount of oily skin.

3. Do any areas of your face appear dry or matte? If the answer to this question is yes, then you are dealing with dry skin.

4. If some areas of your face are both dry and oily then you are dealing with combination skin.

5. Whether your skin is dry or oily, note if you have areas of redness over the nose and cheek area accompanied by red bumps that look like blemishes but aren't really pimples. Are there noticeable surfaced capillaries over these sections as well as areas of extreme sensitivity? Do you flush easily? If you've answer yes to these questions you possibly have rosacea. Rosacea is a medical condition requiring the attention of a dermatologist.

To be continued…

What Influences Men's Skin Type

Almost everything can influence skin type for men, which is why it can be so tricky to attribute one skin type to what you see on your face. Both external and internal factors can and do affect the way your skin looks and feels. To effectively evaluate your skin and determine the correct skin-care routine, the following needs to be considered:

Internal Influences:

Health problems/Skin disorders (rosacea, psoriasis, thyroid disorders, etc.)
Genetic predisposition of skin type (oily versus dry, prone to breakouts, sensitive skin)
Smoking
Medications you may be taking
Diet

External Influences

Climate/weather (cold, warm, moist, dry)
Your skincare routine (over-moisturizing or over-exfoliating, using irritating or drying products, using the wrong products for your skin type)
Unprotected or prolonged sun exposure

These complexes, often overlapping circumstances all contribute to what takes place on and in your skin, which then determines your skin type.

Will Men's Skin Type Change?

Yes, absolutely! Another problem with skin typing is the assumption that men’s skin type will remain the same forever, or at least until you age. That, too, is rarely the case. If your skincare regime focuses on skin type alone, it can become obsolete the moment the season changes, your work life becomes stressful, or your body experiences diet fluctuations or other physical changes, and whatever else life may bring.

To complicate things even more, in any given period you may have multiple skin types! It is not unusual for men to have a little bit of each skin type simultaneously or at different times of the month or week. An overview of how your skin behaves and changes is necessary to assess what your skin needs and then respond by applying the appropriate products to those problems areas.

Will Men Ever Have "Normal" Skin

It depends on how you define normal. As far as the cosmetics industry is concerned, men and women can and should have normal skin. Yet acquiring normal skin is like trying to scale a peak with a slippery, precarious slope. Like the rest of our bodies, men’s skin is in a constant state of change. Even men with seemingly perfect complexions go through phases of having oily, dry, or blemish-prone skin and then there are all the issues related to sun damage or merely growing older. In reality, no one is likely to have normal skin for very long, no matter what one does. Chasing after normal skin can set you on an endless skincare buying spree, running around in circles trying everything and finding nothing that works for very long or that makes matters worse.

In any case, identifying men’s skin type is highly subjective. Many men have really wonderful skin but refuse to accept it. The smallest blemish or wrinkle or the slightest amount of dry skin distresses them. Or some people see a line or two around their eyes and immediately buy the most expensive anti-wrinkle creams they can find in the hope of warding off their worst imagined nightmare. This is one of those times where being realistic is the most important part of any men’s skincare regime.

Does Combination Skin Makes Men’s Skin Type Confusing? Coming up next...

All Men Have Different Skin Types

What Are The Skin Types For Men

Skin type describes and interprets how and why your skin looks, feels, and behaves as it does.

The four most common skin type categories for men are categorizes as:

Normal (no apparent signs of oily or dry areas)
Oily (shine appears all over skin, no dry areas at all)
Dry (flaking can appear, no oily areas at all, skin feels tight)
Combination (oily, typically in the central part of the face, and dry or normal areas elsewhere)

(Often acne-prone skin is listed under oily or combination skin types, though it is sometimes listed as a skin type all by itself. Occasionally, sensitive skin may be listed as an individual skin type but I feel strongly that all skin types, regardless for men or women, should be considered sensitive.)

The truth is, understanding your skin type is more often than not far more complicated than those 4 or 6 categories, which is why lots of men find identifying theirs an indefinable challenge of changes that never settles down in one specific direction. Yet, understanding your skin type is extremely important, just not in the way the cosmetics industry approaches it or the way we've been taught to think about it.

First, skin type is never static. The variations of what is taking place on your skin can not only change season to season but month to month and even week to week. Adding to the complexity is the strong possibility of skin disorders such as rosacea, eczema, skin discolorations, precancerous conditions, blackheads, sun damage and whiteheads. Four or six categories of skin type just can't cover it.

When it comes to determining skin type you need to forget what you've been taught by cosmetic salespeople, estheticians, fashion magazines, (and even some dermatologists). The typical categories of normal, oily, dry, and combination, are a good basic, but they don’t address every nuance, and they change and fluctuate with everything from the weather to your stress levels.

Why is recognizing all the nuances of your skin type so important? Because different skin types require different product formulations. Even though many men's skin types often need the same active ingredients such as sunscreen agents, antioxidants, cell-communicating ingredients, and so on, the base they are in (lotion, cream, gel, serum, or liquid) should match the needs of your skin type. Skin type is the single most important decision influencing the choices we make about the kind of skincare regimes and the products we buy. But we need to be very careful of how we categorize our skin, or the very products we thought would help could actually make matters worse.

Next update: What Influences Men's Skin Type?