Your skin protects your body, providing a vital watertight barrier from the elements and infection. It is a living, breathing organ that needs constant care and attention to maintain a soft, supple, healthy state.
Daily Benefits
Incorporating essential oils into your skin care routine has therapeutic benefits. Antiseptic oils, such as tea tree and lemon, cleanse and heal skin infections, cuts and grazes. Anti-inflammatory essential oils (chamomile and rose) can be added to moisturising creams to relieve sunburn and eczema.
The best way to treat your skin is to add oil to a bath, after which an aromatic body oil will easily penetrate the skin. For the face, use oils in steams (unless you have sensitive skin that's prone to broken capillaries), flower water or in cleansers and moisturisers to provide a fragrant start and finish to the day.
How to Blend Complexion Oils
Blend oils to suit your complexion. Generally, top note oils are suited to oily skin and base notes to dry or mature complexions. The face can be sensitive to oils. so always carry out a patch test and use low dilutions on sensitive skins prone to allergies.
Top Notes
Middle Notes
Base Notes
Normal / Dry / Mature skin
Rosewood
Palmarosa
Orange
Rose
Lavender
Benzoin
Neroli
Frankincense
Myrrh
Sandalwood
Sensitive / Cracked / Scarred skin
Palmarosa
Galbanum
Chamomile
Rose
Lavender
Carrot seed
Myrrh
Sandalwood
Patchouli
Oily / Combination skin prone to spots
Lemon
Tea tree
Lemongrass
Eucalyptus
Bergamot
Geranium
Cypress
Juniper
Petitgrain
Lavender
Cedarwood
Patchouli
Myrrh
Treatments for Good Skin
Essential oils are extremely useful additions to your beauty routine because they can offer you the benefits of their soothing, cleaning and refreshing properties.
Fragrant exfoliating body scrubs
Add a few drops of your favourite essential oil to a sisal mitt or loofah and briskly massage all over in the shower for healthy, glowing skin.
Gentle exfoliation will slough off dead skin exposing new, healthy skin. It has the added benefit of stimulating the body's circulation and promoting lymphatic drainage, helping to eliminate toxins and encouraging new cell production. The addition of a couple of drops of lemon essential oil will cool, refresh and detoxify the skin, while ginger and eucalyptus will stimulate circulation.
Pay special attention to patches of rough skin that develop on knees or elbows, adding a little lavender and rose.
Moisturisers
Moisturising is a vital part of a daily skin care ritual. It rehyrates the skin, keeping it soft and supple. Spending 2-3 minutes massaging in an oil blend will help to stimulate circulation.
Commercial moisturisers often use essential oils and you can use them too - to blend simpler, natural oils that are cheaper. Create a totally personalised product by combining vegetable or nut oils with a blend of essential oils to suit your complexion.
Perfecting the basics
You choice of carrier oil is important. Wheatgerm is beneficial for mature skin, jojoba for greasy skin and apricot for dry. Add essential oils sparingly. Try rose and frankincense to rejuvenate mature skin or lemon and lavender for greasy skin prone to blackheads.
Nourishing facial massage
Include a daily facial massage in your beauty care routine for soft skin. Select oils to suit your complexion and blend with a light carrier oil.
Benefits of massage
Massage improves circulation to the skin, bringing nutrients to the surface and removing waste. It has the added benefits of muscle toning and releasing tension.
- Cleanse and tone first
- Use gentle upward strokes on the cheeks and neck and make tiny circles around the eyes - be careful not to touch them - and the forehead.
Use flower oils such as rose for their exquisite scents.
Aromatherapy Face Mask
Face masks made by combining oils with wholesome ingredients, such as clay, yoghurt or oatmeal, are a natural facelift for a tired complexion. Deeply cleansing, stimulating and nourishing, a weekly mask is a real treat for your skin.
Clay masks are an ideal face mask base for oily or normal skin. Add tea tree for spots or blackheads.
For sensitive complexions, yoghurt, honey and jojoba will nourish the skin.
Try oats for a gentle exfoliating face mask. They blend perfectly with natural flower waters made from essential oils.