Life is made up of little battles we all fight every day. We stave off hunger by eating enough, we stave off sleepiness by making sure we get those vital 8 hours a day and we scrub our faces and apply creams and elixirs to keep our skin healthy. But for millions of men and women out there, there is a completely separate battle that is waged in bathrooms and in showers all around the world very day.

Oily skin was once thought to be strictly the domain of the teenager. A sure sign of the entry into teenagehood was the blooming of that first pimple and the onslaught of oily skin that followed. Gone were the days of flawless childhood skin. But for many, the battle never ended. What causes oily skin and what can we do to finally get an advantage in this battle?

First of all, let us take a look at what oily skin really is. Your body secretes a substance known as sebum. Sebum is your bodies natural oil that your skin needs to remain healthy. It is when your body creates too much, or not enough sebum that you begin to have problems. It is this sebum that gets into the pours on your skin, along with dirt, that creates pimples and blackheads.

The hardest part, however, when it comes to treating excess sebum is that what is a trigger for one person may not be for others. Everyone has heard that chocolate and fried foods are sure to lead to pimples and oily skin, but that is not the case with everyone. And what can be just as bad is if you go too far and remove the sebum your skin needs to be healthy.

Some treatments rip all of the oil from your skin so that your skin dries out and is just as unhealthy as if you hadn’t done anything at all. But we can find a happy medium that will leave your skin healthy and in great shape.

How can you tell if you have oily skin? Diagnosis is pretty easy in most cases. You will notice an oiliness or slickness to the skin, especially around the nose and face area. In the mornings or if several hours since your last cleanse has passed, you will notice a reemergence of this oily feeling. You will most likely also have enlarged pours and in most cases you will have some sort of skin blemish like pimples or blackheads. It is possible, however, to have very oily skin and no pimples at all.

For most people, the amount of sebum you produce decreases with age, but not for everyone. Most adults find that their skin “levels out” somewhat once they reach 19-20 years old and that while their skin may be somewhat oily or dry, it is nothing like what they experienced as a teenager. For some people, however, the extremes experienced during adolescence continue into adulthood.

So, how do you get oily skin? There are several factors that influence the kind of skin you have. The biggest factor is heredity. If your brothers and sisters or your parents have one kind of skin (combination, dry or oily), chances are, you will be stuck with the same thing.

But it is not completely up to genetic chance. Your diet plays a huge role in the type of skin you have, as well. If you can manage a balanced diet high in fiber, fruits, veggies, lean meats and low in processed foods and saturated fats, you can be pretty confident that your skin will becomes more “normal”.