Hi everyone,
My skin used to be dry/combination but recently it became very oily. The only thing I have been doing differently is using retinol on a regular basis for a couple of months now, however, I think the oiliness started earlier. Now I have to use more salicylic acid and even bezoyl peroxide as my pores get clogged quickly. Someone told me it could be due to a broken skin barrier or too many actives and so my skin is trying to compensate for that. I use Vitamin C and azelaic acid in the morning, retinol and salicylic acid (alternating) in the evening. What are your thoughts?
Thank you.
As soon as I read that I thought a broken skin barrier, a sudden change to very oily always has a cause and overuse of actives is often one of them. A common thing that people do is they use more actives to compensate for the extra oil, but instead of helping the problem you're actually going to be creating more damage. Retinol, salicylic acid, azelaic acid, vitamin c and benzoyl peroxide is a huge amount of actives to be using. It's one thing to very slowly work up to using multiple actives (this includes alternating them) but going this quickly is a recipe for trouble. I'm not sure the strength of the products or how long you had been using the other actives, but going slow low and slow is the way - think of skincare as a marathon and not a sprint.
What I think you need is to step away from all actives (all of them) and focus on barrier repair, gentle cleansing, calming ingredients and at least a cream that is rich in ceramides