How To Treat Oily Skin To Minimise Shine And Congestion

Does your skin have a sheen instead of looking matte or flat? Do you struggle to stop your makeup from sliding around your face, especially on your T-zone? Are you maybe also prone to congestion and blemishes? It sounds like you have oily skin. 

What Is Oily Skin?

Oily skin is a skin type, just like dry, combination and normal. It is characterised by an excess of sebum, an oily substance that keeps the skin soft, supple and most importantly, comfortable. Sebum is made by our sebaceous glands, which can be found all over our bodies. The only place we don’t have them is on the soles of our feet and the palms of our hands, which is why these areas can feel rougher and dryer. The highest concentration of sebaceous glands is on our faces, and more specifically the T-zone, which comprises our forehead, nose and chin. If you have oily skin, you naturally have more of these sebaceous glands, and they work overtime to make more sebum than is needed. 

The upsides of oily skin compared to dry skin are that it looks healthier, and doesn’t come with unwelcome side effects like itching or flaking. The biggest downside of oily skin is that spots form when dead skin cells and oil combine to block a pore, and the more oil you have in the skin, the higher the chances of this happening. 

As a skin expert, many people have asked me over the years how to get rid of oily skin, but this isn’t something that you can simply magic away for good with skincare. Your skin type is determined by your genes, so there isn’t any re-programming that can override this. However, there are plenty of ways to reduce the flow of oil and prevent this excess sebum from contributing to breakouts. 

What Causes Oily Skin?

Aside from your genetics, there are other factors that can fuel oily skin. Hormones are a huge driver of oily skin, as they can encourage the sebaceous glands to produce more sebum. This is most common during puberty (which is where the unkind stereotype of teenagers having greasy skin came from), around the time of your period and before and during menopause. 

Your diet can also play a part too. If you notice that your skin is especially greasy after a weekend of excess or a couple of weeks of grabbing takeaways and pre-made food instead of healthy, rounded meals, then this could be something to address. These diet choices could be connected to a stressful time in your life too, and surges of cortisol (the stress hormone) can also increase oil production. 

Finally, consider the skincare you’re using. When you have oily skin, I find people have a tendency to choose very stripping products that can actually dehydrate the skin and make matters worse. When the skin feels this way, it will try to fix the problem by making even more oil.

How To Treat Oily Skin

Want to know what to do when your skin is oily? Taking these pointers into your routine will help.  

Pay Extra Attention To Cleansing

It might not be the most glamorous, but cleansing is the most important part of your skincare routine. The role of a cleanser is to remove surface oil, daily grime, makeup and SPF from your skin, all of which can block our pores if left to sit there. It’s even more important to cleanse well if you have oily skin, as there is more sebum on the surface and the stickiness of this can attract more pollution particles throughout the day. To avoid congestion in the skin, double cleanse every evening. The first cleanse will whisk away everything on the surface of your complexion, allowing the second one to give your pores a thorough cleanout. Pay extra attention to your T-zone, and don’t forget the creases on each side of your nose (they’re a prime spot for spots). In the morning, just one cleanse will be enough. 

Exfoliate Regularly

Exfoliation breaks down the glue that holds old skin cells to the surface of our skin. To send them on their way before they have a chance to combine with the oil and block a pore, use salicylic acid. This is a beta-hydroxy acid and works on a chemical level to break down these bonds. It’s oil-soluble too, which means it dissolves in oil, and allows it to work brilliantly on this skin type. For best results, use in toner form, after cleansing and before applying your serum. Salicylic acid is a strong ingredient, so you may find that just using it a couple of times a week is enough. If you have sensitive skin, try a salicylic acid cleanser instead. It will be on the skin for less time, allowing it to give you that flash of clarity with less risk of irritation. 

Include A Retinoid

Retinoids are brilliant ingredients and work especially well on oily skin. They’re a family of ingredients, the strongest of which, retinoic acid, is prescription-only and used as a treatment for acne. Its slightly less potent siblings, including retinal and retinol, also work to speed up cell turnover which reduces the risk of blemishes by removing dead skin cells faster. Retinal (known as retinaldehyde too) also has the benefit of antibacterial properties, which really helps when treating spots. Even better, both of these ingredients will help to clear post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation left behind by past spots too. As retinal and retinol are powerful ingredients, incorporate them into your routine slowly. Use once or twice a week to begin with, listening to your skin and only increasing the amount if it is happy. 

Get To Know Niacinamide

Unlike retinoids which take a little more consideration, niacinamide is really easy to incorporate into your routine. It suits all skin types and plays nicely with other ingredients. One of its key benefits is its ability to balance the flow of oil in the skin, which is exactly what oily complexions need. It also calms and soothes, which makes it a great ingredient for pacifying red, angry blemishes too. 

Don’t Skip Your Moisturiser

Oily skin still needs moisturiser. It has lots of oil, but not necessarily enough water, so using a moisturiser will help to add and seal this into the skin. Carrying out the rest of your skincare routine and skipping moisturiser is a bit like enjoying a three-course dinner without a drink. It will be more beneficial, and more enjoyable when hydration is involved. Just use sparingly, and make sure the formula is suited to your skin type. 

Avoid Harsh Products

It’s confusing, I know, but products designed for oily skin aren’t always the best option. Many of these are very harsh and can strip skin of too much oil as well as moisture. This can upset the balance of the skin, and cause it to make even more oil in retaliation. If you’re noticing that your skin feels tight or uncomfortably tingles during or after using a specific product, swap it out for something gentler and kinder to your skin. 

Choose Non-Comedogenic Skincare

Ever seen the word non-comedogenic on your skincare? It’s a marketing term which means that the product has been formulated not to block pores. It’s not a guarantee, as brands don’t need to put their products through a specific test to claim this, but is a good indication that it will suit blemish-prone or congested complexions. The kinds of ingredients that can block pores are things like oils and butters – both of which are best avoided if you have oily skin. 

Does Oily Skin Age Better?

Good news for anyone with oily skin, there is truth in the beauty myth that oily skin ages better. As oily skin has more sebaceous glands, it is slightly thicker than other skin types, which means you’re less likely to have very visible fine lines. This excess oil also works as a natural moisturiser which helps to care for and maintain the skin. There’s also the fact that skin appears healthier and more radiant when it has a sheen-like finish rather than a matte one. 

Additionally, dryness in the skin can lead to inflammation, which releases the stress hormone cortisol and contributes towards the breakdown of important proteins like collagen and elastin that give the skin its bounce and spring. Oily skin doesn’t experience this kind of inflammation by default, which takes this worry off its list.

However, having oily skin won’t protect you from UV rays, which are the biggest cause of premature ageing. Without sufficient sun protection (that means wearing a daily broad-spectrum sunscreen with at least SPF30, avoiding the hottest hours of the day and staying in the shade where possible) you’ll still experience its side effects. Sun exposure leads to hyperpigmentation, which can range from age spots to melasma, as well as an accelerated breakdown in collagen and elastin, leading to wrinkles and sagging in the skin. 

Does Oily Skin Cause Acne?

The easy answer is that oily skin doesn’t cause acne. The more complicated answer is that although it doesn’t kickstart acne, oily skin can drive it, and you’re more likely to get acne if you have oily skin. Acne is a skin condition that causes spots such as blackheads and whiteheads. In more extreme cases, you may also experience pustules, nodules and cysts too. All of these spots happen when oil and dead skin cells combine to block a pore, but how deeply this blockage occurs in the skin, and how inflamed the area is, will determine the type of blemish it presents as. 

A good way to visualise the formation of spots is to think of the oil as traffic, and the dead skin cells as a lane closure due to roadworks. If you reduce the oil, and therefore the traffic, there won’t be enough cars on the road to cause a jam, despite the fact that there’s a lane closed. Similarly, if you remove the dead skin cells through exfoliation, then the excess oil (or rush hour surge of traffic) will be able to flow freely without obstruction. 

Does Oily Skin Need Moisturiser?

Moisturiser has two key roles in our skincare routine. The first is to hydrate and (as you might have guessed by the name) moisturise the skin. The second is to act as a barrier that shields skin from the elements and seals in moisture. This is why you might also hear moisturisers referred to as barrier creams. Although oily skin has more sebum than it needs, it can still be lacking in water and therefore dehydrated. 

It is almost impossible to remove oil from the skin without taking water with it, and if you’re trying to treat oily skin simply by reducing oil, it will quickly become dehydrated. This can not only leave skin feeling uncomfortable and tight, with fine lines becoming more prominent but it can also trigger the production of even more oil. Making sure you’re treating your skin with kindness by using a moisturiser, as well as following a good cleansing routine, will ensure your oily skin stays balanced and healthy. 

That doesn’t mean you need to finish your routine with an ultra-nourishing, duvet-like moisturiser though. Oily skin doesn’t typically need as much hydration as dry skin, so a lightweight moisturiser with a fresh gel texture will be enough to seal in this much-needed water morning and night. 

Thank You For Reading

I hope you enjoyed this blog, the most important thing to remember is don’t ignore any tingle as it could be the skin is trying to tell you it’s not happy.

Stay tuned for more blogs and follow me on social media for latest launches and more skin school.

Bye for now,

Fiona x

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