Oily T-zone dry cheeks

How To Treat an Oily T-Zone with Dry Cheeks

The thing with combination skin like an oily T-zone with dry cheeks is that it can be so frustrating. Products that cure your shiny nose often strip your cheeks, while rich creams for your cheeks often cause breakouts across your forehead and chin. There are many different strategies to help your skin zones learn how to get along. Let’s discuss 5 popular strategies so you can choose which one works best for you.

Strategy 1: Zone Mapping

Okay, strategy number one is:

Treat your different skin zones like two different people. 

That means to have two separate skincare routines, one which you apply to your T-zone and another that you apply to your cheeks. You buy different products for each zone, and you carefully slather each product on its designated zone. 

Many people with combination skin like this swear by this method. And it makes sense, if you think about it. If each part of your face is behaving differently, let them each get their own treatment. If you follow this strategy, you’ll apply oil-control products and an oil-free moisturizer to your T-zone, while your cheeks get richer moisturizers with ceramides and hydrating masks. 

Strategy 2: Universal Balancing

Lots of people hear about zone mapping and go like, no way that sounds like such a pain. No patience to apply so many products every day. So instead, they opt for the universal balancing strategy. Here, the goal is: find one product that will serve both zones equally without causing any issues for either one.

If you’re doing this, you’ll be looking for super gentle cleansers that can remove the excess oil from your T-zone but won’t strip your cheeks. You’ll want moisturizers heavy on water-based hydration to keep your cheeks moisturized without adding oil to your T-zone. 

Universal balancing makes your skincare shopping into more of a juggling act, but it simplifies your actual daily skincare routine.

Strategy 3: Baseline + Booster

So what if you’re not really interested in totally separate routines but you find using all the same products across your face is not cutting it for one of your zones. That’s where the baseline+ booster strategy comes into play. This is where you combine the first two strategies, starting off with a baseline universal balancing routine, and then using one or two targeted products for each skin type.

Like this, you avoid creating two entirely different product routines, but still manage to deeply target the different zones on your skin. For this strategy, you’ll use a super gentle cleanser and water-based moisturizer on your entire face. Then, you’ll do a highly targeted treatment (BHA or Niacinamide) on just your T-zone, and a highly targeted treatment (rich ceramides or oils) only on your cheeks.

Baseline+booster is a smart move, because it’s not too complex to do every day, but is still very specific to your skin type.

Strategy 4: The AM/PM Differentiation

This strategy is cool because it leans into another practical differentiation to help you tackle your double-acting skin. That’s the morning/night routine. Because your end goal for your morning routine and your end goal for your evening routine is so different, you can use totally different products in the AM and the PM, catering to each of your skin zones at the different times of day.

In the AM, your main goal is to control shine and get to a matte, but still hydrated look that will be comfortable throughout the day. In the PM, you want to dissolve the day’s buildup in your T-zone while giving back moisture to your cheeks. It’s morning protection and shine control, night repair and deep treatment.

So in the morning, you’ll use a mild cleanser, a weightless moisturizer, plus a matte sunscreen to keep the shine out of your T-zone. In the evening, you’ll do a deeper, though still gentle, cleanse, and you’ll apply one targeted product to each zone (BHA for the T-zone, ceramides for your cheeks, for example.) You don’t need to worry about your skin looking greasy through the night, so you can just let each skin zone repair itself as you sleep.

Strategy 5: Application Techniques

This last strategy is all about how you apply your products instead of which products to use when. You do it by having the same skincare products for your entire face, but instead of applying it evenly across the skin zones, you carefully apply more or less based on that zone’s level of need.

For example, when you apply moisturizer, you’ll massage about 70% of the total amount into your cheeks. Then, you take the other 30% and carefully dot and press it into your T-zone. This gives you the moisture where you need it most without overloading the rest of your face. 

Another application technique is used for blotting the oil out of your T-zone. This removes the shine without drying out your already dry cheeks. Use blotting papers made of wood pulp or linen only on your T-zone, lifting off the excess sebum mechanically without needing to touch your dry cheeks at all.

Now the call is yours. What strategy do you think will work best for your combination skin type?