Oil-Absorbing Ingredients for Oily and Combination Skin
When you have oily skin or oily areas on certain parts of your face, you’ll do just about anything to keep it under control. However, there’s always a right way and a wrong way to control oil, and the wrong way—like using denatured alcohol to degrease skin—will only make matters worse. For people with oily skin in Singapore, your skin condition is likely to be affected by the changing temperatures and weather conditions of the island. Thus, good skincare products can be an essential preventive measure. To help you find the right products for your skin more effectively, we’ve done the work and gathered some of the best ingredients for oily skin that help get oiliness under control so you’ll attain a lasting matte complexion.
How Oil-Absorbing Ingredients Work
How do oil-absorbing ingredients work? Whether the absorbent ingredient is a type of clay, a powder, starch, or charcoal, all of them work in a similar way by attracting the oil on the skin’s surface and from just inside the pore lining.
Absorbent ingredients used in skincare products have the ability to hold on to the oil they absorb so it doesn’t make skin look shiny and can be rinsed away. Absorbent ingredients can do this because their surface area is large enough or porous enough to keep oil from escaping. In essence, if you have oily or combination skin, oil-absorbing ingredients can be your skin’s saving grace!
Here’s a brief rundown on the most effective oil-absorbing ingredients used in skincare products, including clay masks and other oil-control products.
The Best Oil-Absorbing Ingredients for Oily Skin
Clays are perhaps the best-known and most commonly used oil-absorbing ingredients, especially in masks for oily skin. Different types of clays show up in skincare products, often with misleading claims that they can heal skin, purge toxins, or hydrate skin.
What’s true is that clays are excellent at absorbing oils, but their absorbent nature means they are not hydrating. Clay masks sometimes contain hydrating ingredients, but they’re there to help offset the drying effects of the clays, which means you get their oil-absorbing benefits without a dry, tight feeling after you rinse.
Here are some prominent examples of clay minerals and types used in skincare products for oily skin and other skin types:
- Kaolin is a white clay also known as China clay. Its smaller particle size relative to other clays gives it mild to moderate absorbent properties.
- Bentonite has strong absorbent properties due to its low moisture content, which can be helpful for very oily skin. The main component of bentonite is montmorillonite.
- Montmorillonite is a type of clay mineral named for where it was originally mined, in this case, Montmorillonite, France. Sometimes referred to as French green clay, it can also naturally contain another clay known as fuller’s earth.
Charcoal
Charcoal deserves special mention for its unique skincare properties. Charcoal’s surface area relative to its size gives it a tremendous capacity to absorb excess oil and other pore-clogging substances, although its action against toxins (as in poisons) doesn’t work when it’s applied topically rather than ingested during emergencies.
Part of what makes charcoal—which consists primarily of the element carbon—so intriguing for oily or combination skin is its sponge-like action. Its natural texture resembles a highly concentrated sponge, with numerous “holes,” each with a substantial capacity to attract and trap substances it comes into contact with, including oil and water.
Charcoal is sometimes claimed to be able to cleanse the skin, but it doesn’t have cleansing properties in the sense of traditional cleansers. However, because charcoal can absorb oil and the surface debris that’s mixed with it, you can see how some people might think of it as being cleansing or otherwise purifying.
Other Ingredients
Other absorbent ingredients you’ll see in oil-absorbing products marketed for oily to combination skin include talc (which is actually an absorbent mineral that includes the element magnesium), aluminIum starch octentylsuccinate, rice starch, cornstarch, silica, and nylon-12. Often used in skincare formulas that also contain one or more clays and charcoal, these ingredients also help enhance the application, texture, and how a product dries on the skin.
Do you want to learn more about other skincare ingredients? Head over to our blog for more skincare advice.
Discover suitable products for other skin concerns like breakouts or enlarged pores to improve your overall skin condition.
References for this information
- Environmental Geochemistry and Health, February 2017, ePublication
- Encyclopedia of Toxicology, September 2014, pages 779–781
- Clinical and Experimental Dermatology, March 2012, pages 164–168
- International Geology Review, July 2010, pages 745–770
