The skin is a complex organ just like your heart, lungs or brain and needs to be maintained well like the rest of your body. One of the simplest ways of maintaining your skin is to keep it clean and hydrated. Different parts of your body have different types of skin. Therefore, you require different products to clean and hydrate or moisturize your skin. The face is one of the oily areas and oily skin is associated with pimples. Oil is produced by a gland in the skin called sebaceous gland. This gland produces more oil when hormones act on it. Since hormones are more in teenagers and youth, they have more oily skin and pimples. But not everyone has oily skin on the whole face. Women tend to have more oily skin in the center of the face called T-zone and dry skin on the sides of the face called U-zone. Different types of facewashes are available in the market today to address different types of skin.
1. Oily skin cleansers
These are meant for people who have oily skin and pimples. Even simple soaps have good oil cleansing capacity.
2. Moderate to oily skin cleansers
These are meant for people with mildly oily skin who's skin gets dry with normal soaps and cleansers. These are also a good choice for people with mixed skin ie. oily skin in T-zone and dry skin in the U-zone.
3. Sensitive skin cleansers
These are meant for people who have dry skin, allergies, who have undergone procedures like laser etc. Sensitive skin syndrome is also recognized as an entity which is gaining precedence lately. There are several products made for sensitive skin which do not cause dryness or irritation.
4. pH 5.5
A pH is a number that denotes whether a substance is acidic or basic. pH less than 7 means a substance is acidic. The skin has a pH of 5.5 which means it is slightly acidic. This helps the skin to defend our body against microbes like bacteria and fungi. Most of the older soaps and cleansers have high pH (more than 7), and may alter the pH of the skin. Therefore using cleansers with pH 5.5 are recommended for people with sensitive skin, dry skin or other skin problems like eczemas.
5. Additives (Look for composition or ingredients)
There are many additives like plant extracts(neem extract, tea tree oil, chamomile extract, menthol etc.), Fragrance (which gives a good and cosmetically acceptable smell to the product) and preservatives.
Those who have infections and pimples can choose products with plant extracts like tea tree oil or neem which have antibacterial, antifungal and anti-inflammatory effects.
Those who have sensitive skin or allergies should choose fragrance-free products as the fragrance is a common cause of allergies.
Preservatives are used to prevent bacteria, fungi and other microbes from contaminating the products. One such group of preservatives are called parabens. Parabens were found to be harmful and paraben free products are available for use now.
Now that you are armed with the knowledge to choose your facewash, happy shopping!