Over washing your face

Do you have oily or combination skin? Not sure, then read our guide on dealing with combination skin.   It’s a constant battle to find balance for your skin and prevent breakouts.  If you do have oily patches, then constantly washing is absolutely not the answer and will cause your glands to produce more oil causing breakouts. There is no one solution to combination skin, you will have to find your own routine. Commonly, people with oily skin will OVER wash their faces to get rid of the oil, which only causes your skin to dry out and produce more oil to compensate.  So the oil production is not a function of cleanliness and you shouldn't wash your face more than twice a day. Generally the oil glands around your chin, forehead, and nose are more active than other areas of the face.  Some products can contain irritants that cause your oil glands to be more active, clogging pores and worsening the situation.  You need to find products that provide balance to your skin, soothe it and moisturize it.

Touching your breakouts

You will never make a breakout better by touching it. You will only make it worse, so keep telling yourself that. If you absolutely feel it needs to be addressed then find a professional facialist or dermatologist who you trust.  It’s really not worth the scaring and extra healing not to mention risk of infection.

Using a harsh exfoliant

Exfoliation 2-3 times a week is great and highly recommended. However, depending on how sensitive your skin is you should choose wisely.  The more sensitive your skin, the more granular and gentle your exfoliant should be.  Rice powder exfoliants are great for sensitive skin (the Dermalogica one is our favourite). For a harsher scrub, try and St. Yves exfoliant or the LUSH charcoal scrub.

Constantly changing your routine

You aren’t doing yourself any favors when you constantly swap products for something new and promising. You should give your products time to work and allow your skin to adjust and balance itself.  If you do want to try something new, incorporate one thing at a time (don’t change everything at once).  Usually, we would recommend giving skincare products at least a month before making any judgments (unless you have a bad reaction to something in which case you should immediately discontinue).

Leaving your makeup on too long

This is nothing new.  You need to take your makeup off or all your hard work towards having clear skin will be useless.  Adding to this, it’s important that you take your make up off PROPERLY.  We recommend using an oil cleanser and then a foaming cleanser.  Or use a cleanser and then a makeup wipe (you’ll notice there’s a lot of residue/makeup left you might not have otherwise removed).