The Blemish-Prone Skin & Pores Routine
Blemishes · Congestion · Visible pores
The Blemish-Prone
Skin Routine
Oily skin that has been stripped produces more oil, not less. This routine works with sebum regulation rather than declaring war on it, which is slower to start and far more durable.
Skin raw from acids or benzoyl peroxide? Blemish-prone skin arrives here over-treated more often than under-treated. If the surface is stinging, peeling or tight, start with the CALM protocol. Clearing follows tolerance, not the other way round.
Go to CALM →This routine is for you if
Three patterns.
One over-corrected barrier.
Sebum is not the enemy. It is part of the barrier, and skin that has lost its lipid film compensates by producing more of exactly the thing you were trying to remove.
Blackheads, closed comedones and a rough surface rather than active inflammation. Follicles are shedding cells faster than they clear them, so the blockage is a renewal problem before it is an oil one.
Raised, tender lesions in the same places, healing slowly and leaving marks that outlast them. The marks, not the spots, are usually what bothers people most a month later.
Visible oil alongside stinging, tightness or redness. Almost always a barrier stripped by treatment rather than skin that is simply oily. The oil is a symptom of the stripping.
Breakouts starting in your forties? Spots along the jaw and chin appearing for the first time in twenty years are usually hormonal rather than a return of teenage skin, because oestrogen falls before androgens do and the changed ratio shifts oil composition. That needs barrier work alongside the clearing, so see the Hormonal & Menopausal routine. If congestion sits only in the T-zone with dry cheeks, the Combination routine is the better fit.
Morning — five steps
Do less in the morning
than you want to.
The morning routine's job is to leave the barrier intact for twelve hours. Every stripping step before 9am is paid for with oil production by lunchtime.
Sulphate-free and pH-balanced. The squeaky-clean feeling is a stripped acid mantle, and skin responds to it by increasing sebum output within hours. This removes without triggering that response.
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Blemish-prone skin is often dehydrated underneath the oil, and dehydration drives compensatory production. Supporting how skin holds water addresses the cause that most clearing routines skip entirely.
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Supports surface clarity and helps even the tone left behind by healed lesions. Lightweight and non-comedogenic, which is the constraint that matters more here than in any other routine.
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The step most often skipped, and the one that decides whether the rest works. An unmoisturised oily skin produces more oil. A light layer everywhere, including where it shines.
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UV darkens post-inflammatory marks and prolongs them for months. If the marks left behind bother you more than the spots themselves, this is the step that changes that. No white cast, fragrance-free.
View productEvening — four steps
Clearing work belongs
to the night.
Renewal actives go here, at a frequency the barrier can sustain. The most common failure in this routine is not the wrong product but the right one used three times too often.
Removes SPF, pollution and the day's sebum without stripping. If wearing heavy SPF or makeup, a first pass with Everyday Cleansing Oil is appropriate. Oil cleansing does not cause congestion; harsh cleansing does.
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The clearing step. Supports the follicular turnover that congestion depends on, which is why texture responds before oil does. Two to three nights weekly is the ceiling. Daily use produces a stripped barrier and more oil, not faster clearing.
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Introduced once the routine is settled, on non-treatment nights. Supports cellular renewal and recovery, which matters most for how quickly marks fade after a lesion has cleared.
View productA light layer as the final evening step. Skin that has had an active applied needs something over it, and the alternative is waking to a barrier that spent the night unsupported and an oilier morning as a result.
View productIf skin runs dry in patches. Where clearing steps have left specific areas tight, Exo Timeless Night Comfort can be applied to those areas only, rather than across the face. Cacay oil is not recommended on congestion-prone zones.
Works against you
What makes oily skin
oilier.
Nearly every entry here is something marketed as a solution for this exact skin state.
What to expect
Texture first.
Marks last.
Tightness and stinging reduce as the barrier recovers from previous treatment. Oil may briefly seem unchanged or worse. This is the hardest fortnight and the one most people abandon.
Texture smooths and blackheads reduce as follicular turnover normalises. Oil production begins to fall because the barrier is no longer signalling for more.
Breakouts become less frequent and resolve faster when they happen. This is the first point at which the routine can fairly be judged on blemishes rather than on comfort.
Post-inflammatory marks fade on their own timeline, which is months rather than weeks and depends heavily on daily SPF. Nothing accelerates this as much as not picking.
The Clarity Discovery Set
€39The daily foundation of this routine in trial sizes. The daily foundation for clearer-looking skin without irritating your skin. These three trial sizes cleanse, calm visible reactivity and maintain the barrier before a targeted treatment is introduced.
- Gentle Bliss Cleanser · cleanse
- NeuroCalm · calm
- Everyday Day Cream · barrier
Includes €10 store credit towards your next order. Sun cream is not included.
Further reading
The biology
behind the routine.
Browse the Blemish-Prone Skin & Pores collection or take the Skin Quiz for a personalised starting point.
Pigmentation routine →
