AI Skin Analysis: Find Your Skin Type and the Routine That Fits

Most skincare mistakes come down to one thing: using products made for a different skin type. Heavy creams on oily skin, harsh foaming washes on dry skin, active ingredients on sensitive skin. Before you buy anything new, it helps to know what type of skin you actually have.

This guide covers the five skin types, a two-minute test you can do at home, a simple routine for each type, and what an AI skin analysis from a selfie can and can’t tell you.

The five skin types

Dermatologists usually classify skin into five types: dry, oily, normal, combination and sensitive.

• Normal: balanced. Not noticeably oily or dry, rarely reactive, with small pores.
• Dry: feels tight, especially after washing, and can look dull or flaky. Fine lines show more easily.
• Oily: shiny by midday, with visible pores and a tendency to breakouts.
• Combination: usually an oily T-zone (forehead, nose and chin) with normal or dry cheeks.
• Sensitive: stings, burns, itches or reddens easily, often in reaction to products.

Sensitive is about how your skin reacts, not how much oil it makes, so you can have sensitive skin that is also dry, oily or combination. Your type isn’t fixed either: it depends on genetics, age, hormones, stress and your environment, which is why it can change with the seasons or a move to a new climate.

Skin type is also different from your Fitzpatrick type, a scale doctors use to describe how your skin reacts to the sun. The two are often confused.

How to find your skin type at home

You only need a mild cleanser and a few blotting papers (or a clean tissue).

1. Wash your face with a gentle cleanser and pat it dry.
2. Don’t apply anything: no toner, serum, moisturizer or sunscreen.
3. Wait 30 minutes, without touching your face.
4. Press a blotting paper on your forehead, nose and chin, then a fresh one on each cheek, and hold them up to the light.

Then read the result:

• Oil on every paper: oily skin.
• Little or no oil, and your face feels tight or looks flaky: dry skin.
• Oil from the T-zone only: combination skin.
• A little oil, and your skin feels comfortable: normal skin.
• Stinging, redness or itching after washing: sensitive skin, on top of one of the above.

Do the test on an ordinary day. Right after a workout, a long flight or a new product, your skin won’t behave like it usually does.

The basics every skin type needs

Whatever your type, the foundation is the same, and it’s simpler than most routines on social media.

• Cleanse gently. The American Academy of Dermatology recommends a gentle, non-abrasive cleanser without alcohol, applied with your fingertips and lukewarm water, no more than twice a day and after sweating.
• Don’t scrub. Rough scrubs and washcloths irritate skin; dermatologists advise you to resist the urge to scrub.
• Moisturize while your skin is still slightly damp, with a texture that suits your type (more on that below).
• Wear sunscreen every day. Look for broad-spectrum protection, SPF 30 or higher, and water resistance. In the UK, the NHS also advises at least 4-star UVA protection.
• Patch-test new products. Apply a small amount to a quarter-sized spot on the inside of your arm twice a day for seven to ten days before putting it on your face.

A simple routine for each skin type

Oily skin

Use a gentle foaming cleanser and look for products labelled “oil free” and “noncomedogenic”. Still moisturize: skipping it doesn’t make skin less oily. A lightweight gel or a moisturizer with sunscreen works well, and blotting papers take care of midday shine without disturbing makeup.

Dry skin

Keep showers to five to ten minutes in warm, not hot, water, and apply a fragrance-free moisturizer right after you pat dry. Creams and ointments hold in moisture better than lotions. Look for “fragrance-free” on the label; “unscented” doesn’t always mean the same thing.

Combination skin

The AAD’s advice is to moisturize the dry spots and skip the oily areas. In practice that means a light moisturizer all over and a richer one on your cheeks, or two products used in different zones.

Sensitive skin

Keep your routine short and fragrance-free, and introduce one new product at a time with a proper patch test. Strong acids, scrubs and heavily fragranced products are the usual triggers. If your skin reacts to almost everything, a dermatologist can help work out why.

Normal skin

Wash daily, moisturize morning and night, and wear sunscreen during the day. Normal skin is the type most likely to be thrown off by an overcomplicated routine, so add new products slowly.

How AI skin analysis works

An AI skin analysis looks at a photo of your face and scores what a camera can see: texture, pores, redness, uneven tone, dark spots, shine and the under-eye area. Its big advantage over a mirror is consistency. It looks at the same things the same way every time, which makes it useful for tracking whether a routine is working.

How accurate is it? Research on automatic grading of selfies found it broadly agreed with experts’ assessments and was only weakly affected by lighting or expression (the study was run by researchers from a cosmetics company). An independent test by the consumer group Which? found an AI skin analyser gave consistent results when lighting and distance were kept identical, but results shifted in dim light, and the tool struggled to detect dark spots on deeper skin tones.

The lesson is the same as for any measurement: control the conditions, and compare like with like.

How to take a photo for a reliable skin scan

1. Remove all makeup, and scan before applying any skincare.
2. Face a window in daylight, out of direct sun. Overhead lights and flash exaggerate texture and shine.
3. Hold the camera at eye level, an arm’s length away or further, with your face straight on.
4. Wipe your camera lens; a smudge looks like blur on your skin.
5. Turn off beauty mode and filters, which smooth out exactly what you want to see.
6. Scan at about the same time of day each time, not right after exercise, and compare results within the same app.

How True Eve looks at your skin

In True Eve, skin is part of your face scan rather than a separate test. You get a skin quality score next to your other feature scores, so you can see whether skin is lifting or lowering your overall rating. When skin is one of your priorities, your daily routine includes skin tasks such as a double cleanse and barrier repair, and rescans show how your score changes over time. It is a cosmetic check to help you track progress, not a diagnosis.

What an AI skin analysis can’t do

• It can’t diagnose conditions such as acne types, rosacea, eczema or infections.
• It can’t check moles. Smartphone apps cannot be relied on to detect all cases of melanoma or other skin cancers.
• It can’t measure hydration, oil production or sensitivity the way a clinical device can.
• It only sees what the light shows, which is why the same face can score differently in different light.

See a dermatologist for anything medical: a mole or spot that is new, changing, bleeding or itchy, acne that isn’t improving after a couple of months of consistent care, or a rash that won’t settle. For everything else, a consistent routine and a few weeks of patience do most of the work. If skin is part of a bigger goal, our guide to how to glow up puts it in context.

Frequently asked questions

Try it with True Eve

Scan your face to see your skin quality score next to your other features, with skin tasks built into your daily routine.

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