Guide

Facial types and which suits your skin

A facial chosen for the wrong skin type can leave it tighter, oilier or more irritated than before — knowing your skin type first makes the whole treatment more useful.

Working out your skin type

Skin is broadly grouped into oily, dry, combination and sensitive, and most people already have a rough sense of which applies to them from how their skin behaves through the day.

• Oily — shine returns within a few hours of washing, pores look larger, and breakouts are more frequent, especially around the T-zone.
• Dry — skin feels tight after cleansing, flakes in patches, and rarely looks shiny even by evening.
• Combination — an oily T-zone (forehead, nose, chin) alongside drier cheeks; the most common type, and the easiest to misjudge from one area alone.
• Sensitive — reacts quickly to new products with redness, stinging or itching, regardless of whether the skin is also oily or dry underneath.

What a facial generally does

Most facials follow a similar structure — cleansing, exfoliation, steam or extraction, a mask, and moisturiser — but the products used at each stage, and how firmly extraction is done, change considerably depending on the skin type being treated. An oily-skin facial usually leans on clay or charcoal masks and deeper pore cleansing; a dry-skin facial leans on hydrating masks and gentler exfoliation; a sensitive-skin facial minimises fragrance, heat and active ingredients throughout.

Matching the facial to the skin

For oily or acne-prone skin, a facial built around deep cleansing and oil control tends to help more than a heavily moisturising one, which can leave oily skin feeling worse by evening. For dry skin, the opposite is generally true — a hydrating facial with a richer moisturiser and gentler exfoliation suits it better than anything marketed as "deep cleansing".

Combination skin is the trickiest to get right from a menu alone, since it genuinely needs different treatment in different zones — worth mentioning specifically rather than assuming a single facial type covers the whole face evenly. Sensitive skin is worth flagging before any facial begins, not partway through, since it affects which products are safe to use at all.

Before you book

If you are not sure which category you fall into, or your skin behaves differently depending on the season, it's simplest to describe it and let the choice be made for you rather than guessing from a printed list.