One of the most common myths is that people with oily skin should avoid applying oils onto their skin because it would lead to congestion, unmanageable skin, and more oily skin. But that’s just it—it’s a myth.
We’ve all heard different skin myths from friends, family, and even viral videos on social media. One of the most common myths is that people with oily skin should avoid applying oils onto their skin because it would lead to congestion, unmanageable skin, and more oily skin. But that’s just it—it’s a myth. Luckily, wespoke to Youth to the People’s Director of Field Sales of Education, Jacob Tomas del Rosario, to answer the million dollar question in detail: should oily skin types use an oil?
The short answer is yes, applying oil in actuality helps decrease the overproduction of oil in the skin, but let’s dive in a little.
First things first: What is oily skin?
“Oily skin can be identified by what you were biologically given from your mother and father, from your birth parents, your lineage,” del Rosario says. “So, that will typically set up your skin with a proclivity to be either sebaceous active (sebaceous glands are the glands in your skin that produce oil) or sebaceous inactive (which is going to be like a drier skin type or someone that doesn't produce a lot of oil).”
Del Rosario explains that at Youth To The People, face mapping or dividing up the skin into key areas or “zones” helps the team identify what skin type someone has.
“If you think of those four zones as the center of the face, the brows, both cheeks, and the chin, think of it like a diamond,” del Rosario says. “If you have an extended visible pore size in all four zones, that's a diamond shape, so you would be more biologically set up to be an oily skin type. But, if your zones are the cheek areas—left and right—and one or the other zone, like the forehead or the chin (which creates a triangle or inverted triangle shape), that would be more of a combination/oily skin type.”
Fact: Oily skin needs hydration.
Now that we’ve covered that, let’s talk about hydration. Hydration is essential to protecting the skin’s moisture barrier, but being dehydrated also plays a role in the production (or overproduction) of oils in our skin.
“If you're not providing water to the skin (think hydration where hydro=water) and your skin is thirsty, your skin’s first primary reaction is going to speed up oil production because it just needs some sort of conditioning,” says del Rosario. “There’s this vicious cycle of ‘Oh, I’m not going to hydrate because I’m oily,’ so therefore your skin’s reaction immediately is to amp up the sebaceous activity and produce oil to comfort and soothe itself.”
Del Rosario notes that oils are an excellent component to an oily skin type routine, in part because keeping the skin properly moisturized will help the skin to avoid over-producing oil itself. His go-to product is Youth To The People’s Superberry Hydrate + Glow Dream Oil because of its flash-absorbing and super antioxidant-enriched properties.
“It immediately permeates the skin but doesn’t leave any lingering evidence of greasiness or oiliness unless you start to really layer that on,” says del Rosario. “It's super antioxidant-dense, has really great plant-based nutrients, and omega fatty acids from berries that help encourage that protection of the lipid barrier, reinforce that lipid barrier and help to protect the skin as well.”
He recommends applying 2-3 drops of the Dream Oil when the weather is a little colder or if your skin needs a boost. For max hydration, can add a few drops of the Dream Oil into a dime-sized dollop of the Superfood Air-Whip Moisture Cream, which is primes the skin with hyaluronic acid that floods the skin with water, Blend the two products together with your hands to warm them up, and then apply to the skin.
Oils as cleansers
Oils can serve as a cleanser to remove residue, makeup, excess buildup, and dead skin cells. Double cleansing with the Superberry Dream Cleansing Balm followed by the Superfood Cleanser can really help you deeply cleanse without harshly stripping the skin.
“Oil attracts oil, which helps capture any of that buildup on the skin,” says del Rosario. “Once you massage the balm into the oily skin (which converts it into an oil), you add a little bit of water and watch it turn milky.” The milky consistency lifts debris from the skin without overly drying the skin.
If you’re a bit unsure about your skin type or what products work best on oily skin, book a skin session to get personalized recommendations from expert Youth To The People skin specialists. You can also check out YTTP’s recommended list of products for oily skin here.
Written by Jasely Molina for Youth To The People