Beautiful Skin Starts Here

Oily Skin

If you're always patting away shine, retouching your faded makeup, and hiding blemishes, you have oily skin. "Gauge your skin in the middle of the day. If your entire face feels slick, that's the sign," says Fran Cook Bolden, MD, a New York City-based dermatologist. (Many women with "combination skin" fit into this category, and can treat their oily T-zones accordingly.)

Fight your natural inclination to cleanse your skin roughly in hopes that this will help clear its surface. Oily skin actually needs a routine that controls oil while preserving the skin's moisture levels. Pick a gel cleanser and follow with a fine-grained exfoliator. In the morning, use sunblock during the summer, or an oil-free lotion the rest of the year. At night, skip moisturizer in favor of a salicylic acid-based spot treatment if your skin is acne-prone. If your skin feels dry, top it off with an oil-free or glycolic acid-based moisturizer.