Types of cleansers

Generally, there are 6 different types of cleansers:
- Cleansing Oil
- Cleansing Cream
- Cleansing Milk
- Cleansing Gel
- Cleansing Foam
- Cleansing soap (traditional bar soap)

The different types of cleansers are usually for a different degree of cleansing, for different skin type and condition. *DISCLAIMER: What i am going to mention is the general content and its function. I do not speak for any brands and their function as with technology, many brands may claim that their items achieve a different results. You got to try to know whether it is suitable for your face!*

Cleansing Oil, usually used for make up removing. This type of cleanser is very necessary if you put on any form of make up or foundation. The oil-base will help dissolve your make up so that they do not clot your pores. However, cleansing oil itself is not enough to keep your face clean.

Cleansing Cream is very rich compared to the other types of cleansers. Recommended for dry skin. If oily skin type people use this, might cause congestion or even outbreak.

Cleansing Milk is usually used after cleansing oil, to help remove both the make up and the oil. Recommended for sensitive skin type and dehydrated skin condition.

Cleansing Gel is for people with oily skin type and dehydrated skin condition. It cleanses deeply and remove the oil but yet it is not too drying.

Cleansing Foam. Foaming cleansers are often the most drying to the skin. Recommended for very oily skin and problem skin with uneven skin tone.

Cleansing bar soap are considered similar to foaming cleansers due to the foaming reaction as it interacts with water before putting onto the face.

Some people like the moist feeling from the cream and the milk cleansers, while some prefer the clean feeling from the gel and the foam cleansers. No matter which type of cleanser suit you best, you should not be feeling dry or tight after cleansing your face. Tightness and dryness shows the lack of hydration in your skin and prolonged usage can cause fine lines and eventually (over long period) will form wrinkles.

After cleansing, whats next?

Understanding Your Skin

First of all, we need to understand our skin, in order to know what is the problem we are having and how different products actually helps, or make our current skin conditions worse.

After finding for quite some time, i manage to find a easier to understand image of our skin (above).

Basically in simple terms, 

Epidermis is our skin. 

Dermis is where our capillaries and nerves endings are.

Hypodermis is our main blood vessels, fats tissues and muscles are located.

Our Epidermis, the skin, is further divided into 5 different kinds of layers.

Many people think that our surrounding and whats happening externally is causing our skin problems. But actually what is happening from the inside is as bad as what is going on  on the outside of our skin.

before i go on explaining more about how these layers works and how they plan an important role. we need to understand our skin type vs our skin condition.

Skin type refers to the oil level of our skin:

- Oily (usually appears to have uneven skin tone and excess oil)

- Normal (perfect skin condition)

- Dry (also known as matured skin. Usually starts as we loss the radiance on our skin and slowly fine lines will begin to appear)

Skin condition refers to the water level of our skin:

- Hydrated

- Dehydrated (Most people are having problems with dehydrated skin from a young age due to wrong diagnosing and misunderstanding of skin type and skin conditions)

The most common problems i see among the youths are, very oily skin type and dehydrated skin condition. Many people mix up skin type and skin condition thinking that, if their skin is oily they need to use products that are very drying so that their skin will not be oily.

This result in worsening the condition as the skin continue to produce excessive oil but the skin got even more dehydrated, causing the excessive oil to be stuck under the thick layers of Stratum Corneum. Resulting in very congested skin with bumps, acne and constant outbreak due to hormonal changes or stress.

This is lesson #1 on understanding our skin. After you identify your skin type and skin condition, next week i will talk more about the kind of cleansers you should be using.

Is it important to cleanse your face? Find out why do some people say that "it's better not to cleanse your face"?