Dry and Sensitive Skin
Skin that stings, flakes or reacts to everything is usually describing a barrier problem, not a shortage of water.
Dry and sensitive are used as though they were the same word, and they are not. Dryness is usually a barrier that has stopped holding water in, so the skin feels tight, looks dull, and flakes. Sensitivity is a reaction: stinging, burning, redness, or a flare from a product that used to be fine. You can have one without the other, and plenty of people have both at once. Getting the label right matters, because the first thing to change is not the same in each case. The dry skin pages begin with the barrier.
Your own history does much of the sorting. Is the skin tight and rough, or does it sting and flush? Does it react to a new product within minutes, or is it red most of the day? Did it start after a course of treatment, or has it always been this way? Sensitivity is not a diagnosis. It is a description that several different conditions fit, including a stripped barrier, rosacea, eczema, contact allergy and nerve sensitivity, and the treatment for each of those is different.
The pages below are separated for that reason. Dryness and oiliness sit on one axis, sensitivity and irritation on another, and skin infection can look like both of them from a distance. One page takes the medical dermatology view of chronic skin disease, one is the profile of the dermatologist who reviews this group, and one covers infection, which is the cause people least often consider and the one that changes fastest when it is missed. Read the page that matches your main symptom rather than the whole set, because the advice points in different directions.
Understand the problem
What causes it, how it is assessed, what can be done.
Background and service lines
The medical system behind the cluster.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
How do I tell dry skin from sensitive skin?
Ask what the skin does rather than how it looks. Dryness is a state: tight, rough, flaking, and it responds to moisturising. Sensitivity is a reaction to something, so it stings, burns or flushes, and it can happen on skin that is not dry at all. People often have both, and a barrier that has been stripped produces the two together, which is why the order in which you fix them matters.
Why does my skin sting when I put anything on it?
A barrier that has lost its outer layer lets substances through that would normally be blocked, so almost anything applied can sting. That is different from an allergy, which usually produces itching, redness and sometimes swelling, and different again from rosacea, which flushes. The pattern, the timing and what the skin looks like between reactions is what separates them, and that is assessed rather than guessed.
Can oily skin be sensitive as well?
Yes, and the combination is common. Oiliness and reaction are separate properties, and someone with oily skin can still have a stripped barrier from harsh cleansing or from acne treatment. The trap is treating the oil harder, which makes the sensitivity worse. The oily skin pages and the sensitive skin pages are meant to be read together when both apply, since the advice has to be balanced rather than chosen.
What should I stop using first?
Usually the products that strip the skin rather than the ones that add to it: foaming cleansers, scrubs, toners with alcohol, and any routine with several active ingredients at once. Stop them in a planned order rather than all at once, so that you can tell what made the difference. If the skin improves, that is information. If it does not, that is also information, and it points towards an examination.
When is sensitive skin a medical problem rather than a product problem?
When it does not settle after a simpler routine, when it is one sided or sharply outlined, when it comes with scaling, weeping or pain, or when it interferes with sleep. Rosacea, eczema, contact allergy and skin infection all need a diagnosis before treatment, and none of them is fixed by choosing a better moisturiser. Progression rather than fluctuation is another reason to be examined.
Why does this group include skin infection?
Because infection is repeatedly mistaken for dryness or sensitivity. Fungal infection can flake and itch, and it does not improve with moisturiser. A bacterial infection can look like a flare of something else. The skin infection pages cover the confirmation step, because the treatment for infection is specific and adequate duration matters more than a change of products.
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