Whatever your skin type, there are Tatcha products for you: The Water Cream for oily skin, The Dewy Skin Cream for dry skin, The Indigo Calming Cream for sensitive skin, and essentials for normal and mature skin, too.
Tatcha began with founder Vicky Tsai’s own skin. Years of long hours and constant travel in a finance career left her face red, cracked, and reactive, as she describes in her book Pure Skin. On a trip to Japan, a friend introduced her to blotting papers, which geisha used along with camellia oil, or tsubaki, to keep their skin luminous and healthy between performances. In Kyoto, she learned to mix rice powder and camellia oil into an exfoliating treatment, and her skin began to heal.
Tatcha was founded to share these Japanese botanicals in gentle, effective formulas. No two faces are the same, so the collection has grown to suit every skin type: Dry, normal, oily, sensitive, and mature.
What are the basics of skincare?
Every face, regardless of skin type, needs three basic products: A cleanser, a moisturizer, and a sunscreen.
Skin is the largest organ in the human body, and its chief function is to act as a barrier that keeps moisture in and irritants out. Protecting that barrier is the main goal of skincare. A cleanser removes dirt and makeup, a moisturizer helps seal the barrier, and a sunscreen protects against overexposure to ultraviolet rays. The American Academy of Dermatology lists gentle face washing and daily sunscreen among the habits that benefit just about everyone.
Three products might be all you really need. Depending on your skin’s needs, you may also want products that balance its oil and water content or add nourishment with active ingredients. Figuring out your unique skin type can help you get closer to the skincare routine that’s best for you.
What’s my skin type?
Most skin types describe how much oil your skin produces: Dry, oily, or somewhere in between, which is often called normal or combination. Sensitive and mature skin are two more types that can overlap with any of them. A dermatologist can confirm yours, but if you’d like to figure it out on your own first, we recommend two simple tests.
The bare-face method
Wash your face gently, pat it dry, and leave it bare. After 30 minutes, check your cheeks, chin, nose, and forehead for shine, then check again after another 30 minutes. If your skin feels tight, it’s likely dry. If you see shine on your nose and forehead, it’s likely combination. If your cheeks are shiny too, it’s likely oily.
The blotting paper method
This one is quicker and only requires blotting paper. At midday, gently pat a sheet on different areas of your face, then hold it up to the light. If the sheet picked up little to no oil, your skin is likely dry. If it shows oil from your forehead and nose, your skin is likely combination. If the sheet is saturated, your skin is likely oily.
These two tests cover dry, oily, and combination skin, but there are two other types you’ll probably recognize if you have them. Sensitive skin reacts more often than other skin types to triggers like weather or irritating products, usually with redness or irritation. Mature skin shows visible signs of aging, from wrinkles to hyperpigmentation.
Which Tatcha products are best for my skin type?
Once you know your skin type, building a routine gets easier: You keep the same basic steps and tailor each one to what your skin needs. Here are our top picks for each skin type.
For normal and combination skin
The term “normal” is a bit of a misnomer here—skin that happens to be oily is just as normal an occurrence as skin that isn’t. But for the sake of the term, normal faces aren’t prone to an excess nor a dearth of face oil, but they also don’t often tend towards dryness. This skin type isn’t exempt from these conditions, but they occur less often.
Normal skin needs what every skin type needs: A cleanser, a moisturizer, and of course, a sunscreen. Overexposure to ultraviolet radiation not only can damage the skin and cause premature aging, but it’s also the number one risk factor for skin cancer. The Silk Sunscreen SPF 50 is suited for all skin types: A zinc oxide filter reflects the sun’s rays, while niacinamide and hyaluronic acid work in tandem to hydrate skin. It’s not just clutch for normal skin types, but for all skin types.
For oily skin
When we talk about “oil” in the context of skin, we’re usually talking about sebum, the waxy substance our skin naturally produces. Sebum is secreted by glands tucked within hair follicles, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and it helps fortify the skin barrier. When the skin produces too much, it can cause acne. Oily skin produces excess sebum across the face, while combination skin produces it mainly in the forehead, nose, and chin, with drier cheeks. Both share the same goal: Keep oil in check without stripping skin.
Start with a clarifying cleanser like The Matcha Foam Cleanse, a gel that whisks into a fine foam to decongest pores and reduce excess oil without stripping skin. Then choose a moisturizer that hydrates without adding shine. Tatcha’s The Water Cream is an oil-free gel-cream with Japanese coix seed to smooth texture and refine pores, plus wild rose and heartleaf to visibly tighten pores. For combination skin, its lightweight texture hydrates the drier cheeks without weighing down the oilier zones. One plastic surgeon recommended The Water Cream to Allure magazine specifically for oily skin: “I love the transformation when you apply this hydrating, oil-free water cream.”
For dry skin
Dry skin produces less sebum than other skin types and loses water from its outer layer, so it has a harder time holding on to moisture. More than normal or oily skin, it can feel uncomfortable at times, even painful. Symptoms of dry skin can include tightness, roughness, itchiness, flaking, and cracking. Causes range from age and genetics to dry climates, indoor heating, harsh soaps, and over-washing.
The goal for dry skin is to replenish moisture and support the skin barrier that holds it in. Between cleansing and moisturizing, a face mist can add a layer of hydration. Luminous Dewy Skin Mist is a fine mist with hyaluronic acid, red algae, and squalane that you can use before makeup or spritz over it during the day. Lighter products like serums or The Essence can also be patted onto skin for an extra layer of hydration.
A rich cream will benefit dry skin most of all. The Dewy Skin Cream is ideal for dry skin and anyone who wants a moisture boost: Hyaluronic acid and red algae hydrate and visibly plump fine lines, while biomimetic squalane seals in moisture to keep skin hydrated longer.
For sensitive skin
Sensitive skin is a trickier skin type. Despite its prevalence (some studies suggest that around half of adults report sensitive skin), it is more complicated than oily or dry skin.
Sensitive skin is characterized by “epidermal dysfunction,” or a higher rate of skin reactions compared to other skin types. These reactions range from dryness to redness to rashes, and they’re often triggered by weather, pollution, sun exposure, or skincare products.
Adding new products is riskier for sensitive skin than for other skin types, so it helps to think less about products and more about ingredients. Plenty of ingredients have been shown to calm reactive skin, and some, like Japanese indigo, are medicinal botanicals with long histories of use. (During the Edo period in Japan, samurai wore a layer of indigo-dyed cotton beneath their armor to help heal injuries.) Indigo contains tryptanthrin, which helps flush away toxins and irritants, and indirubin, which supports the skin’s natural barrier function. Tatcha uses Japanese indigo in its fragrance-free sensitive skin formulas, including the buttery-soft Indigo Cleansing Balm, which removes makeup without stripping moisture, and The Indigo Calming Cream, which pairs indigo with colloidal oatmeal, an FDA-designated skin protectant, to relieve redness and itchiness. The cream is endorsed by the National Eczema Association.
For mature skin
Unlike any other skin type, mature skin happens to every one of us eventually, and it can be oily, dry, combination, or sensitive at the same time. In your late 30s and early 40s, the signs of aging begin to appear: Skin loses volume and elasticity, and wrinkles and age spots emerge.
In Japan, aging is viewed as a gift rather than something to dread, and the goal is healthy-looking skin at any age. Everyday habits matter as much as products: Not smoking, limiting stress, and eating a nourishing diet. Daily sunscreen matters more as you age, since your risk of skin cancer increases.
Choose a cleanser that doesn’t tug on your skin or dry it out. Tatcha’s two-in-one The Camellia Cleansing Oil melts away makeup and sunscreen while moisturizing with antioxidant-rich Japanese camellia oil. Since skin holds on to moisture less easily as it ages, a rich cream helps: The Ageless Enriching Renewal Cream includes peony to diminish the look of fine lines and wrinkles and gardenia fruit extract to address the loss of elasticity.
The eye area and neck often show aging first and are easy to overlook. The Ageless Revitalizing Eye Cream pairs peony and honeysuckle extracts to improve the look of elasticity, lines, and wrinkles, and the Ageless Revitalizing Neck Cream visibly firms skin over time and smooths the look of lines and crepiness on the neck and décolletage.
The skincare market is huge, with plenty of options for every single skin benefit you could think of. By identifying your skin type, you can narrow them down to the ones that work for you.
