It would be wonderful if skin would always stay in the pristine condition, it is in the day we are born, but that is just not how it goes. Shortly after that there are always going to be internal and external factors that change the skin’s nature and constitution, although in your preteen years you do have the vitality of youth keeping your skin looking good. But then once teenage years arrive sebaceous glands start going crazy, and all that oil buildup can mean acne. What we are going to look at here is how to tell if you have oily or dry skin.  

For oily skin, the most telltale indicator is if your skin has a ‘shininess’ to it, as this means the oil buildup is significant enough that it is causing light to reflect off the skin. If there is an excessive amount of oil on the skin, you will also be able to see the oil on a tissue or something similar if you wipe it over the skin. And acne can be a sign of oily skin for younger people in the age bracket we talked about to begin with here. We have only been talking about facial skin here, but oily skin can occur on the upper back too.  

The same signs will apply here with how to tell if you have oily or dry skin, or at least oily skin with what we have covered so far. You can look into how to get rid of oily skin if that is a problem for you, but we are not going to swing over and look at dry skin. Something which can be way more disconcerting for people because it can cause the skin to crack if it gets too dry. Dry skin is going to require much more in the way of treatment too, and the environmental conditions that cause it are often hard to avoid.  

A Wintertime Woe  

On this side of it there is not much to misunderstand with how to tell if you have oily or dry skin. Dry skin is going to be very apparent with the way the skin starts to have a whitish, flaky outer layer to it and in some cases the skin may be starting to slough off. Dry skin may also be itchy or more desensitized to touch, and seeing fine lines or cracks in the skin can also be a sign that it is drier than normal. Discoloration ranging from reddish for people with white skin to more gray for people with darker skin is another indicator. 

The prolonged cold of winter can cause dry skin if you are outdoors often, and oppositely a sunburn can also cause skin to become dry, so knowing how to take care of skin in summer is important too. That pretty much touches all the bases with how to tell if you have oily or dry skin, and if you are concerned that either type is a chronic issue with you then you may want to have your doctor make a referral to a dermatologist.