Blend Your Own High End Formula For Anti-Aging Skin Care
Sometimes we get lured in to thinking we need to spend big bucks on fancy skin care creams to protect our skin from aging. And while many of these products are wonderful, you can make your own highly effective anti-aging formulas with essential oils and therapeutic carrier oils. Essential oils and their “carrier oils” are well-known to have many therapeutic properties for skin care. Here’s a look at how the oils do their job, and how to easily blend your own highly effective and inexpensive formulas at home.
Aging is really a degradation of the structures within each cell, so that each structure becomes less able to do its job over time. There’s two main biological actions going on all the time in our skin cells that contribute to their aging: inflammation and oxidation. The external factors creating these actions are just what you’d expect: over-exposure to UV radiation (sunlight), exposure to environmental pollution, and exposure to less-than-healthy things you eat and drink.
What happens when UV radiation strikes our skin is that oxidative radicals are formed, which begin to damage our skin until they’re “quenched”. Essential oils are known to be some of the strongest natural antioxidants on the planet. Sea buckthorn oil was examined as a potential agent for Russian astronauts to protect their skin from UV exposure. Myrrh essential oil has one of the highest ORAC values known of any natural substance, and has long been a component of blends for mature skin.
The latest research is now pointing to inflammation, rather than oxidation, as being the greatest factor contributing to aging. While a little temporary inflammation is actually healing, chronic inflammation is not. Inflammation wreaks havoc on the internal structure and activity of our skin cells and, like oxidation, leads to permanent damage. Yet again, essential oils to the rescue! Several oils are used primarily for their ability to halt inflammatory processes in the skin. The two most popular for this application are German chamomile and blue tansy. It is the blue pigmented molecules in both of these that imparts their cooling, anti-inflammatory activity. Several other oils have similar properties, and in our blend we’ll use these in addition to German chamomile.
Essential oils are not applied to the skin at full strength however, no matter how effective they are. Instead, they’re blended at relatively low concentrations into seed and nut oils called “carrier” oils. The carrier oils have important, complementary therapeutic properties of their own. They too contain antioxidants, along with other nutrients and anti-inflammatory essential fatty acids. Carrier oils even when used by themselves keep our skin soft, moisturized and protected. When combined with essential oils, they become real therapeutic medicine.
Now that we’ve got a little background, how do we go about creating our blends? First, gather all your tools and containers. The blends are best mixed and stored in cobalt blue or amber glass bottles, and if the bottles have a dropper top or pump top, it’ll make it easier to dispense the blend when your done. Also, you’ll want to know the volume of your bottle(s) in ounces, as you’ll use them for measuring.
You’ll start by filling each bottle up most of the way with carrier oils, then adding your essential oils drop by drop. Always be sure to leave enough space at the top to add your essential oils. All these measurements are for making one ounce of formula — you can simply multiply the numbers if you’re making two, four, or more ounces.
Your carrier oil base will be made of one-third each virgin coconut (you’ll need to warm this for it to become liquid — it will stay liquid once blended with other oils), evening primrose OR hempseed, and argan OR rosehip seed. We’ve included a couple choices here: both evening primrose and hempseed are high in essential fatty acids that are very nutritive to your skin. Both argan and rosehip seed have been documented to actually reverse the signs of aging in the skin. Whichever you choose, fill your bottle up about 9/10ths of the way with your combination of carrier oils.
To this bottle, add the following: 24 drops sea buckthorn essential oil (also found as CO2 extract — not the “cold-pressed” oil), 7 drops myrrh essential oil (or CO2 extract), 7 drops German chamomile, and 7 drops lavender. For extra care for mature skin, you can optionally add 7 drops frankincense. Put the cap on and invert the bottle several times to mix (it’s better to not shake the bottle, as this can blend oxygen into the oils which can degrade it faster). You’re good to go! Apply this wonderful mixture to your face, and any other part of your body you wish, at least once per day. If your bottle is only one ounce, you can store it anywhere. Larger amounts can be stored in the refrigerator for several months. Be consistent, keep using it, and you’ll really help your skin maintain its youthful qualities.
The author is a great fan of Ananda Aromatherapy, a source for world-class bulgarian rose oil, and educational tools like an essential oil use chart are available on this site.
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It is great to have your own formula for skin care but trusting tested products isn’t so bad too since you can be confident from the side effects.
Great post and I couldn’t agree with you more. Essential Oils are really the way to go for health and beauty. You can’t go wrong if you make sure they are Grade A Therapeutic essential oils.