Our skin care tips for dark and black skin

Skin care for black skin must involve plenty of moisturising. Take your makeup off every evening with a gentle product such as a makeup remover milk or micellar water, or even a makeup remover oil, which is particularly gentle on fragile dark skin. Avoid soaps that will make your skin dry out. Once a week, exfoliate with a gentle, non-abrasive scrub, to rid the skin of the dead cells that give you a dull complexion. Even though black skin tends to have dense dead cells that are difficult to clean away, gentle exfoliation once a week should generally do the trick, even for very oily skin. Finish off with a good dose of moisture. Oils and shea butter are often used in skin care for dark skin, but remember that they just offer oil, no water: the skin isn't hydrated, it's just “oiled”.

The biggest worry for those with black skin is often that the seborrhoea is more active than with lighter skin, so the skin tends to get shiny over the course of the day. Try a hydrating gel that is mattifying while limiting excess sebum production. If the shininess persists despite your daily anti-shine efforts, you will have to rely on makeup. Choose an oil-free mattifying foundation, which will absorb excess sebum like a blotting paper, or a mattifying powder that you can reapply when you need it throughout the day.

Black skin is very rich in melanin, the pigment that colours the skin. In the event of a skin trauma, like a spot, small scar or scratch, the melanin cells will gather in this area and create, in the long term, a patch of skin that is darker than the rest of the skin. To avoid this, protection is the last of our skin care tips. Sun protection is an important part of skin care for black skin: both the sun and pollution cause dark spots and create a grey-looking complexion. All year round, choose a moisturising cream with integrated sun protection.