It’s interesting how men’s grooming practices can be so different from city to city! In San Francisco, it’s not properly prepping their beard before a shave leading to dry skin and razor burn. Recently in Chicago I noticed that the most common concern was oily skin.
However, the reason for oily skin in this part of the country wasn’t due to the changes in weather conditions or specific skin-types. Most men suffered from oily-skin because they exfoliated and washed their face too often, and never followed with a moisturizer because they felt that their skin was too oily to need it!
You see, here’s the thing. The practice of using a face cleanser frees the skin of oil and dirt, and exfoliation removes dead skin cells to allow for younger cells to reach the surface. Both practices if done too often (i.e. 3x’s+ a day), will severely dry the skin. Dry skin will then protect itself by going into “overdrive” – overproducing it’s natural oils to remedy the situation, leaving the skin oftentimes too oily and prone to acne.
The truth is that many of these men didn’t have “naturally” oily skin at all! It was just their common practice of over washing their skin, which was made worse by not moisturizing.
So here’s the remedy! Stick with a daily face wash regimen of morning and night, followed by a daily moisturizer. Also, consider a once, but no more than twice, a week exfoliation. This will allow your skin the chance to stay in proper moisture balance or fall back into it, if that’s the case for you.
**Side note: If this sounds like too much to remember. Consider using a daily face wash that contains both a cleanser and an exfoliant like, Multi-Action Face Wash by Lab Series or Face Scrub by Anthony.
