Skin Care For The Wise Woman: Choosing And Using Therapeutic Essential Oils For Beauty

Have you seen the prices for the high-end skin care lines these days? With promises of wrinkle reduction, youthful skin and the like? The thing is, most of these products contain important, therapeutic plant extracts that are readily available to you. And those ones with unpronounceable names? Because they can't patent plant extracts, they have to make ingredients with unpronounceable names -- but choose the right plant extract, the one(s) that's right for your skin, and you'll get amazing results. (My partner keeps telling me I look healthier, but the only thing I've been doing differently is using a personal formula with many of the extracts in this article!) Here's how to make your own, easily, quickly, and at a far more reasonable price than the latest from those laboratories in France...

Essential Oils: The Best Skin Care Botanicals

Essential oils seem to have a bad rap -- either their some New Age hokey medicine, or something your friend in an MLM is constantly getting you to sign up for to buy. The truth is that essential oils are a particularly concentrated form of natural botanical extract. The science shows these oils to be remarkable healers, with all sorts of actions directly related to healing and maintaining healthy skin. Even more importantly for skin care, they're readily absorbed into skin cells, offering all their therapeutic properties directly to the dermis. To make a skin care recipe, one simply need choose the essential oils with the desired therapeutic actions, and mix them with "base" oils. And don't be afraid of the word "oils" -- as the base oils have incredible therapeutic effects as well, and are readily absorbed, pleasant feeling, and downright healthy for the skin too!

Woman's Oil of Beauty: Rose Essential Oil

Again and again, in every natural skin care recipe book, one finds one oil more highly regarded than any other -- Rose Otto, the steam distilled variety of Rose (it is also found as an Absolute, which is more appropriate for natural perfumes). Rose Otto has a host of therapeutic skin care properties: it hydrates without being greasy, it's gently antiseptic, soothing to damaged skin, can heal broken capillaries, and supports the skin's natural metabolism. It is also the most important oil for women for its heart opening, anti-depressant action -- considered the "oil of the highest vibration" used in aroma-therapeutics. While a bit pricey, it's very potent; only a few drops are needed in any recipe.

Super Healing Calendula

Calendula oil has been used for hundreds of years for all sorts of skin care uses. Its exceptionally soothing, with the traditional use being for infant's skin care. The flowers have been hard to work with however, limiting the uses of this magnificent medicinal plant. A new extraction technique now offers us a Calendula oil concentrate, often labeled Calendula CO2. This new extract is highly antioxidant, powerfully wound-healing, and one of the most effective soothers of irritated or damaged skin available on Earth.

Additional Therapeutic Oils for Every Skin's Needs

One or more of these three oils are excellent companion oils to the Rose and Calendula. Rosemary "Verbenone" is a skin-care specialty oil, distilled from a particular variety of Rosemary herb. Long used in all sorts of body care preparations, Rosemary is thought to work by stimulating cellular metabolism (increasing the amount of nutrients getting into our skin cells), speeding the creation of new cells, and enhancing our skin's vitality. Helichrysum is even more potently regenerative -- often used in wound healing, Helichrysum will also increase new skin cell production, while drawing waste products from skin tissues. And lets not forget Lavender, the Grand-Daddy of skin-care medicine. Lavender is regenerative, antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, and aids skin conditions where stress may be an underlying factor.

A final two essential oils with significant therapeutic action in skin care: Green Myrtle and Sandalwood. Both of these oils are considered highly balancing, bringing oils back to a healthy middle ground. Sandalwood is excellent for both oily AND dry skin, adding a pleasing, grounding, earthy aroma to your formula (it is quite popular in men's skin care too). Myrtle is astringent, tightening, antiseptic, and has a fresh, bright, herbaceous aroma with a lemony-twist.

The Base of Every Formula: Therapeutic Carrier Oils

While the essential oils are often considered the "active ingredients", its important to consider the "carrier oils" are exceptionally therapeutic as well. For these recipes, we highly recommend the use of two very well-regarded tropical nut oils: Coconut and Kukui. Coconut has a very long history (thousands of years, actually) in skin care, mentioned often in Ayurvedic medicine. It is antimicrobial and hydrating (spanning the needs from the acne prone to the chronically dry). Kukui has similar properties, and remains liquid at room temperature -- allowing easy mixing and application of your custom recipe. These two oils have been used by peoples of tropical climes to care for the skin of the young and old, successfully, for so long -- and now you too can reap their benefits.

Rosehip Seed: A Woman's Beauty Gift from the Mountains of Chile

Cold pressed from the seeds of wild roses, grown high and arid regions of South America, comes Rosehip Seed Oil, Rosa Mosqueta. A study done in 1983 at the University of Santiago, Chile, revealed the exceptionally therapeutic activity of this oil for smoothing the skin in every respect: it reduces wrinkles, smooths skin color, significantly slows further skin aging, reduces scar appearance and more. Rosehip seed should NOT be used by those currently susceptible to acne breakouts, as its ability to increase skin-cell turnover can exacerbate this particular situation. For everyone else, mixing Rosehip seed and the tropical nut oils creates an incredible synergy of effects. So lets mix up some of this beauty magic!

Get Yourself Started With These Ingredients and Instructions

Gather your ingredients: 1 glass bottle 30 or 60ml (1 or 2 ounces), preferably colored glass (helps protect the oils) with an eyedropper (makes it easy to dispense your formula later). ALL recipes are for EACH FLUID OUNCE, so you'll want to know the size of our bottle to make measuring easier. A funnel might make things easier as well. And of course your selected base oils and essential oils (note for purchasing oils -- the recipe calls for drops, and essential oils are sold in milliliters -- there are 25 drops per milliliter).

Mixing instructions: Add the required number of drops of each essential oil to your empty bottle. If making 2 ounces, double the amounts, 4 ounces, 4 times, etc. With a funnel, add approximate amounts of your carrier oil -- if using all three carrier oils, for example, just fill the bottle about a third of the way with each oil. Don't overfill, as you won't be able to get the eyedropper in (if using one) without spilling! Gently invert the bottle several times and let set for a bit. The aroma will not really be brilliant until the following day, but you can use the mixture right away. The formulas are designed for using one to 3 times per day. On to the recipes:

Brilliant Beauty Recipes for All Skin Types:

For dry skin with smile lines: Rose Otto 8 drops, Lavender 12 drops, Calendula CO2 6 drops, based in equal parts Coconut, Kukui oil and Rosehip seed oils.

For mature skin with scars and smile lines: Rose Otto 6 drops, Lavender 8 drops, Helichrysum 6 drops, Rosemary V. 6 drops, based in equal parts Coconut, Kukui oil and Rosehip seed oils.

For irritated or sensitive skin: Rosemary Verbenone 8 drops, Lavender 6 drops, Calendula 6 drops, Sandalwood 6 drops, in equal parts of all three base oils.

For oily, acne-prone or combination skin: Myrtle 10 drops, Lavender 8, drops, Rosemary V., 6 drops, in equal parts of Kukui and Coconut oils.

And there you have it: incredibly effective "mature skin" care blends for every woman. Once you make one of these yourself, and realize you may have just made yourself the best skin care formula EVER, you can experiment a little with one or more of the hundreds of essential oils available. Each has unique therapeutic properties that are highly compatible to our skin. Here's to your happy, healthy glow!

The author is a consultant for Ananda Aromatherapy, found at www.anandaapothecary.com. Find more resources are available on aromatherapy and essential oil blends through the website.