Beautiful skin is a top priority for everyone: a bright glow boosts your confidence and helps you proudly face the world. We’re all different, which is why there is such a wide variety of products available for people of all skin and hair types.

You know by now that maintaining natural hair requires special products to reduce dryness, repair damage, and protect the delicate coils that produce its unique texture, but you might not realize that you also need specialized solutions for skincare, too. 

African-American skin tends to have more sebaceous glands and larger hair follicles, which means it is often oilier than other skin types. While this does have its benefits – it helps reduce signs of aging like wrinkles – it also means you need to be especially careful so as not to clog your pores. 

So, if you have an oily complexion, does this mean you need to avoid face oil? Not necessarily! While facial oils are generally marketed toward those with dry skin, they can be enormously beneficial to those with combination or oily skin as well. Let’s take a closer look at why everyone, oily skin or otherwise, can benefit from this remarkable product.

Oily Skin is Often Dehydrated

The interesting thing about oily skin is that even though it feels slightly greasy, it actually might be dehydrated, too; in fact, very oily skin often results from a lack of water, which your body tries to compensate for by creating more sebum. 

You might use harsh products in an effort to banish all the oil, but this simply dries the skin. To try to balance it out, your sebaceous glands will produce more oil, which leads to a vicious cycle of greasy yet parched skin.

Face oils contain ingredients like humectants, which help attract moisture to the skin, and they also provide a barrier that will reduce moisture loss. This hydrates and nourishes the skin, leading to a healthy-looking – yet not oily! – glow. 

These Products Can Provide Much-Needed Balance to the Skin

Your sebaceous glands do their best to create a barrier between your delicate skin and the outside world through natural oils, but they can often overproduce these, leading to the familiar unpleasant sheen. Washing your face with astringents simply exacerbates the issue rather than solving it, as does failing to moisturize.

It may seem counterintuitive, but products like argan oil, a common ingredient of face oils, will lead to more balanced skin with the right combination of moisture and oil. It will also provide you with a fresh, beautiful glow and reduce the appearance of visible signs of aging – something that everyone, no matter their skin type, can appreciate.

Face Oils Balance Out Combination Skin

Combination skin is also common in African-American individuals; this skin type comes when you have a very oil T-zone but dry cheeks, and it can be incredibly frustrating to deal with, as each zone of your face needs different care. You can often feel this the most during winter and summer when your cheeks feel very chapped, but your nose is shinier than ever, which really puts a damper on holiday photos.

Thankfully, face oils are a great option for combination skin: they provide much-needed moisture to dry areas while helping to balance out oily areas at the same time. 

How to Pick the Right Face Oil

Firstly, you need to check the ingredients list: light oils are best for oily skin as opposed to heavy emollients. Ingredients like argan oil, jojoba oil, and squalene are excellent options for oily skin. Sunflower oil is also an excellent option for oily skin because it’s light and won’t clog the pores. Check to see that there’s a good percentage of Vitamin E, which is an important component of face oil for any skin type. 

In more general considerations, use a product from a company well-known for its quality. Check out reviews and ensure that they have science-backed claims using legitimate research. They also shouldn’t make any false claims about curing any skin condition or being able to reverse aging.

Using Face Oil

You should use face oil in the morning and evening after thoroughly cleaning your face with a gentle cleanser formulated for your skin type. After this, use a small amount of oil – about three to five drops – and thoroughly rub it into your skin, ensuring it is fully absorbed.

For people with oily skin, face oil is often a sufficient moisturizer, but if you so choose, use a minute dab of face cream, particularly on any dry areas you might have. Of course, no matter how dark your skin is, always use sunscreen whenever you are outdoors for an extended period: people of all colors can get skin cancer, and it’s often underdiagnosed in African Americans. 

It’s natural to be hesitant about face oil if you already have oily skin, but it can provide amazing benefits to people of all skin types. Choose a quality brand, use it sparingly, and see your skin become remarkably radiant in no time!

 

Feature Photo by Ben Scott on Unsplash