Oily Face and Oily Skin

Oily skin comes in many different forms from a mild oily face with visible pores to an extremely oily face yet patchy and dry at the same time. An oily face looks shiny, pores are enlarged and skin is thick and dull colored.

Often a chronically oily skin has coarse pores and pimples and other embarrassing blemishes. It is prone to blackheads. In this type of skin, the oil producing sebaceous glands are overactive and produce more oil than is needed to lubricate and protect the skin against pathogens. The oil oozes and gives the skin a greasy shine.

From the time we’re born, our skin goes through a series of changes. Small children don’t need much more than soap and sunscreen. Teens need to add cleansers and products designed for their skin and wash more often due to both oil and sweat. By the time we’re in our 20s, the oil production has probably slowed down, but for some of us it’s still there.

As we get older, our skin typically continues to get drier. Even a person who had oily skin at one point may end up with dry skin. That’s because the skin just doesn’t hold in moisture as well when it ages. It eventually becomes dry, dull and less flexible. This is when you really have to take care to keep it moisturized and use products that stimulate the production of the water holding molecules within your skin, instead of smearing heavier oil based products on your skin.

What helps is to protect the skin surface and to help the skin heal from within, by providing at the site of lesions or damaged skin ingredients that help your skin remain hydrated and help it to repair itself from within and thoroughly.
Our skin is in part made of water-holding sugar and protein molecules, the complex proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) or carbohydrate molecular chains.

The major organic (i.e. carbon-containing) components of human cells are proteins, lipids, various carbohydrates and carbohydrate-containing molecules, and the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). The carbohydrate-containing molecules are complex polysaccharides; those in which carbohydrates are attached to proteins or lipids are called glycoconjugates. There are three major classes of glycoconjugates: glycoproteins, proteoglycans, and glycolipids.

Glyco means “sweet” and refers to monosaccharides, polysaccharides or sugars. The role of carbohydrates (sugars) in energy production has been long understood. However, their additional, crucial role in orchestrating the healthy structure and function of the body is a relatively new discovery that is the subject of a new bourgeoning field of science called the “sweet science of glycobiology”.

The polysaccharide content of the skin is responsible for skin hydration and water binding within the skin as well as for skin repair and skin renewal.

Moisturizers for an Oily Face

The moisturizers and emollients you find at the cosmetic aisle in a drugstore or department store are not the best choice, as they do not promote the proliferation of water holding molecules and delay the healing of irritated and damaged skin. They can even make the situation worse by inhibiting natural skin repair and increasing skin damage in ways similar to skin irritants.

Most if not all the popular cleansers for oily skin, and moisturizers and emollients currently sold by the major skin care brands contain high concentrations of detergents and detergent-like chemicals that have the effect of stripping the skin of its natural lipids, despite many years of sound evidence that such detergents degrade the skin’s natural protective function and damage the skin.

Lipids and fats in the skin provide the epidermal barrier to transcutaneous water loss. These lipids in the upper skin area called the stratum corneum are arranged in layers called lamellae. The lower skin layers contain more typical fats such as triglycerides and phospholipids while the upper layers have more ceramides, cholesterol and free fatty acids.

Most remedies for oily skin an skin products for dry skin either keep water from evaporating from the skin, or they attract water to it.

Products intended to seal water in include ingredients like lanolin, petrolatum, mineral oil and vitamin E but do not make things better either. Moisturizers that are supposed to attract water to the skin often include ingredients like hyaluronic acid, glycerin and lactic acid but they are not enough to trigger skin repair from within. Most cosmetic moisturizers loosen the skin’s protective barrier and hydrate (wet) the skin proteins but have the long-term effect of damaging the skin.

Also, many of the dyes and optical diffusers used in makeup to give the appearance of healthy skin are chemicals that are damaging to the skin.

If your skin is oily beware of foundations that are cream or oil-based. Even if they’re noncomodegenic, they could be distributing more oil to your skin than it needs. Powder or mineral foundations won’t deposit oils, and they may also have the effect of absorbing some of the existing oil on your face. You can even find foundations that are also mattifiers, meaning that they create a matte, or non-shiny, effect and absorb oil. There are separate mattifying products as well, which may also contain sunscreen (a must for any type of skin).

Often, we’re so desperate to get rid of our oily skin that we use harsh cleansers and astringents. They can leave your skin feeling tight and dry, which is certainly the opposite of oily, but it’s not a good idea. Not only can your skin end up flaky, your oil glands might start producing even more oil to help compensate for the dryness.

The essential concern when cleansing oily skin is to remove excess surface sebum without total removal of the skin lipids. Severe degreasing can lead to an increase in sebum secretion, which defeats the aim of the cleansing.

To remove excess surface oil we designed a product that is free of oils: ALPHA-BETA HYDROXY ACID FACIAL CLEANSER. It contains a low proportion of glycolic, lactic and salicylic acid and gets rid of excess oil on the surface of the skin, exfoliates clogged pores and gets rid of debris or dirt on the surface and inside the follicles, while also contributing to control acne bacteria.

The second is our BIOSKINCLEAR that works for oily skin when applied after the facial cleanser.

BIOSKINCLEAR for oily skin acts as a skin conditioner and accomplishes several functions: 1) unclogs pores and takes away blemishes by the action of the enzymes that it contains, 2) regulates the natural balance of oil secretion from within the follicles, 3) prevents inflammation by the action of the immune serum that is the base of its formulation, 4) nourishes the skin with oligo-elements, 5) restores the capacity of the skin to hold in water by promoting the production of all the molecules in healthy skin, including the glycosaminoglycans in the skin matrix which are able to hold in water – true moisturizing and 6) is an acne treatment gel for skin that is oily and is affected by mild or moderate acne and for oily skin affected by rosacea.

Directions: Wet face with water, squeeze a few drops into the palm of hand. Work on face. Avoid eye area. Rinse with lukewarm water.