You don’t have any flaking skin or dry patches and your face often looks oily, yet your Skin Trust Club report determined your skin type as dry. 

Or, maybe, your skin feels dehydrated, but it turns out you have oily skin. At this point, you’re likely thinking “that can’t be right!”.

Well, you’re not alone. In fact, 63% of Skin Trust Club users determine their skin type incorrectly – and it’s often down to your skin misleading you into thinking it’s a certain type when it’s not.

Experiencing dry and oily skin, or balanced yet inflamed skin, can be confusing to understand but it’s actually very common. But, it’s not because of your skin type.

One culprit that can lead to skin inconsistency is using the wrong skincare products. When paired incorrectly, they can become harmful instead of helpful.

Tracey Ryan, Skin Trust Club’s Skincare Scientific Advisor, says: “The inconsistency in how your skin feels versus what classification you get in our microbiome test can often be a result of using the wrong skincare products.

“For example, you may feel that your skin type is dry but we have told you that it’s oily. Using unsuitable skincare products can often irritate your skin and leave it feeling tight and dry. 

Irritation from incorrect skincare products can also lead to redness of the skin and inflammation. Although your skin microbiome may be balanced, you could still experience sensitivities and redness to topical products.

The health of your skin can be another factor that is leading to simultaneously dry and oily skin. 

Tracey says: “Oily skin could actually be dehydrated because you have a damaged skin barrier.

“When the skin barrier is compromised, it can lead to trans epidermal water loss, otherwise known as TEWL. As a result, your oily skin will produce more sebum to provide the skin with moisture, but you are still losing hydration due to TEWL.

“Attempting to solve the issue by overloading dry skin with too many heavy, greasy products can further lead to skin that feels congested and oily. 

“That’s because the issue is not dry skin, but dehydration. This can increase the chance that they will sit on the skin and clog pores instead of addressing hydration issues.”

It’s important to restore hydration while catering to oily skin with lightweight, non-clogging formulas.

Although it’s important to be aware of factors that could be leading to skin inconsistency, it’s equally as important to understand the nature of your skin.

Your skin microbiome has many  “microenvironments”. These mini climates can therefore dictate how your skin appears.

For instance, your armpit typically has a moist environment and microbiome, while your forearm and elbow will have a dry environment and ecosystem.

This also applies to the face. The glabella – otherwise known as the forehead – has a microenvironment that makes it more sebaceous. For this reason, the forehead is often always slightly oilier than the rest of your face. [1]

Being aware of your skin’s microenvironments will allow you to further understand how your skin can be oily and dry at the same time.

 It’s always good to keep in mind that your forehead will always be a slightly oilier level, but this does not, therefore, mean that you have an oily skin type.

As we now know, our skin can often trick us into thinking we are a specific skin type. 

But, just because your face may look oily does not necessarily mean it is. As previously mentioned, this could be a cover-up in order to help rehydrate and moisturise your skin.

That’s why, testing your skin relies on your invisible yet crucial bacterial friends. Understanding the microbe communities that live in and on your skin, as well as how abundant they are, can reveal what type of environment your skin has.

This will then ensure that your skincare routine is based on your skin microbiome. 

After all, this clever network of microbes that’s been with you since birth, has one main objective: to look after your skin.

Learn more about your skin microbiome and meet the bacteria living in yours with our skin test. Order here.

Your skin microbiome report has upgraded!

You now have access to a personalised ingredients library to see what’s compatible with your microbiome, new research-backed information on your microbes, regular skin types and more. You can even learn about the scalp microbiome!

Update the app to find out more, here: iPHONE/ANDROID.