How to find your skin type

Wash your face with a gentle cleanser, pat dry, and wait one hour with nothing on your skin. What your face does in that hour is your skin type — no quiz required.

The bare-face test

Cleanse, wait 60 minutes, then check: shine everywhere, tightness, shine only in the T-zone, or nothing at all? Read the results below.

The 5 skin types

Oily: shine across the whole face within the hour, larger-looking pores, makeup slides by afternoon. Needs: gel or foaming cleanser, lightweight hydrating layers, niacinamide-friendly routines. What it doesn't need: harsh stripping — over-drying triggers more oil.
Dry: tight, sometimes flaky or rough, pores look small. Needs: cream cleanser, richer moisturizer, facial oils, gentle everything.
Combination: oily T-zone (forehead, nose, chin), normal-to-dry cheeks. The most common type. Needs: balanced routine, possibly different moisturizer weights for different zones.
Sensitive: reacts — redness, stinging, flushing — to new products, fragrance, temperature swings. Needs: minimal ingredient lists, fragrance-free, patch-test everything.
Balanced: comfortable all over, no extremes. Needs: maintenance — gentle cleanse, light moisture, daily SPF. Don't fix what isn't broken.

Skin type isn't permanent

Seasons, hormones, age and climate shift it — oily in a humid summer can read combination in a dry winter. Re-check with the bare-face test when your routine stops working the way it used to.

Get a zone-by-zone read

Skin type is the starting point. BeU's AI skin analysis checks your face zone by zone — breakouts, pores, dark spots, redness, texture, dark circles, fine lines — and builds the routine around what it finds.

Questions women ask

Can you have more than one skin type?

Yes — that's combination skin, the most common pattern: oily T-zone with normal or dry cheeks. Treat zones differently rather than forcing one routine.

Is sensitive skin a real skin type?

Dermatologists debate the label, but reactive skin is real: if products consistently sting or flush you, shop like it's a type — fragrance-free, minimal, patch-tested.

Does oily skin age slower?

There's some truth to it — oil keeps skin supple — but SPF matters far more than skin type for how skin ages.

My skin type changed. Is that normal?

Completely. Age, hormones, seasons and climate all shift it. Re-test with the bare-face method whenever your routine stops performing.