[Misc] How do you know when you're over-treating instead of under-treating?

I feel like this is one of the hardest things to figure out in skincare. When your skin starts breaking out or looking textured, the instinct is usually to treat more. Add an exfoliant, increase actives, switch products. But sometimes the issue isn't that you're under-treating. It's that you're overdoing it. I've learned that barrier stress doesn't always look dramatic at first. It can show up as skin feeling tight but still oily, random small breakouts in places you normally don't get them, products suddenly stinging that never used to, makeup sitting weird, or texture looking worse even though you're exfoliating. And it's easy to label all of that as purging, especially when you're using actives. But true purging usually follows a pattern and improves over time. Barrier damage just lingers or gets worse. For me, the early warning sign was when my skin stopped feeling comfortable. Not irritated enough to panic, but not calm either.