The Ultimate Guide for Combination Skin Care

Whether you’re just now discovering your combination skin or you’ve been trying to achieve a balanced complexion for years, it’s okay to be confused, frustrated, or resigned to never knowing how you should care for your face. At Epicuren Discovery, we recognize that not every product out there is tailor-made for your unique skin type, which is why we craft our formulas with proven ingredients for all skin types.

Let’s dive into what people with combination skin can benefit from their best skincare routine.

What is Combination Skin?

People with combination skin have a unique challenge to face: parts of their faces are naturally dry, while others are naturally oily. This typically plays out with the “T-zone” from the forehead down to the nose and chin being the source of most facial oil (sebum) and the cheeks and under-eye areas being bone dry. However, these conditions can be flipped and still be called combination skin.

Combination skin can be blemish prone but also sensitive to dry environments at the same time. This makes taking care of it on a daily basis a hassle, often driving people to buy multiple specialty products they apply only to certain regions of the face. When products advertise their benefits for “all skin types” it often doesn’t address the complex needs of people with combination skin, but treating different areas of your face as different types of skin often doesn’t work either. The problem may be in the formulas themselves, rather than how you’re using them.

What Causes Combination Skin?

There are a wide variety of factors that can contribute to combination skin, the most undeniable one being genetics. Some people are just born with combination skin, although it can definitely be made worse or caused by hormone fluctuations, seasonal changes, stress, medications, and sun damage. Although there may not be a “cure” for your combination skin, no matter how bad it is, you can find the right products and techniques to achieve beautiful clear skin that isn’t dry and irritated.

Best and Worst Ingredients for Combination Skin

It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that some ingredients in skincare products are more helpful for people trying to manage combination skin than others. When researching new or more potent products, it’s important to familiarize yourself with what will likely help and what will likely hurt your chances of achieving beautiful, healthy combination skin.

Ideal Ingredients for Combination Skin

There are a few near-universal quality ingredients for those looking for the best skincare routine out there, no matter their skin type. Things like antioxidants and essential oils have benefits for all skin types, including combination skin. Ingredients to look for include:

Vitamin C: High-quality skincare products often include this potent antioxidant as a way to protect skin against environmental stressors while also brightening your appearance.
Rosehip oil: This naturally derived essential oil has a myriad of benefits from moisturizing to naturally helping balance the production of oil throughout the face.
Aloe vera: Best known for its soothing properties, aloe vera is also a gentle moisturizer that the dry parts of your face will love soaking up.
Squalane: This ingredient helps balance the oils in your skin, signaling to some parts to produce more and others to calm down.

Harmful Ingredients

In general, people with combination skin should stay away from harsh ingredients that can irritate and overly dry out any part of their face, as well as from synthetic perfumes. Ingredients people with combination skin should absolutely avoid include:

Mineral oil: This substance included in some commercial skincare products will clog your oily pores like nothing else.
Synthetic fragrances: There’s no benefit for artificial scents to be used in products that are designed for the delicate skin of the face. Many aromatic compounds used in beauty products can irritate skin or cause other adverse reactions.
Parabens: These preservatives are designed not for the skin, but for the shelf. Plastering your skin with parabens means you’re slathering industrial-strength preservatives over your pores, which isn’t exactly the best strategy for helping skin stay healthy.

The Best Combination Skincare Routine

People with combination skin may have the most complicated skincare routine of all the skin types. The better you know your skin, the more tailored your routine can be. Here’s an outline of how you can structure your morning, evening, and weekly routine to give your skin the best chance of staying bright and clear.

Cleanse

The foundation of any good skincare routine is a high-quality, gentle cleanser. This prepares the skin and evens out the discrepancies between the oily and dry parts of your face in anticipation of products that will really soak in well.

Exfoliate

For combination skin, exfoliation is only for the excessively oily parts of the skin. Use our potent products with care, as too much exfoliation can overly dry out the wrong parts of your skin.

Tone

A toner designed for your specific priority, whether hydration or cleansing, can provide a boost to your skincare routine.

Serum

Providing additional or complementary benefits to a good toner, serums can help tackle additional concerns, such as fine lines and wrinkles and age spots.

Hydrate

As people with combination skin are well aware, a decent moisturizer is hard to find. Epicuren Discovery’s pharmaceutical-grade moisturizers are designed with all skin types in mind, helping provide balance moisture throughout the face. For those with especially dry skin around the eyes, we also recommend our eye cream for added moisture in this sensitive area.

Detoxify

Nearly everyone benefits from detoxifying the skin on a regular basis with a purposefully crafted purifying face mask.

Protect

Perhaps the most important step in anyone’s skincare routine is applying a good, effective SPF product to help protect the skin from the leading cause of skin damage: the sun.

Professional Combination Skincare Products

If you’re interested in leveling up your skincare routine with products designed by a team with decades of pharmaceutical research experience, you’re in the right place. Explore Epicuren Discovery’s combination skincare collection or take our Skin Quiz to find products that are right for your unique skin type and goals.