Rosehip Oil Nourishes Your Skin Deeply

Rosehip oil is a rich source of skin nutrition.

It contains the essential fatty acids linolenic acid Omega-3, linoleic acid Omega-6 and Omega-9. Vitamin E. Lycopene. Beta carotene. It contains the natural form of Vitamin A, tretinoin or all-trans-retinoic acid.

Research shows that this natural Vitamin A in particular protects your skin’s collagen and elastin from damage from the ultraviolet wavelengths of natural sunlight. Collagen and elastin are like the steam beams and rods that form the structural support holding your skin cells together. When they get weak from overexposure to sunlight and other stresses, your skin loosens and sags and sinks into wrinkles. Sunlight creates enzymes that destroy that substructure. Vitamin A decreases the activity of those enzymes, preventing premature aging.

This oil is also good for your hair. Rub into your scalp to relieve dandruff and strengthen dry, brittle hair.

It’s also effective at moisturizing your nails. If your nails are dry, cracked or brittle, rub them with a drop of this oil every night before you go to bed, and within a week you’ll see great improvement.

For your skin’s health and beauty, apply this oil to your face and any problem areas every night before you go to bed, so it has all night to soak in, be absorbed and heal and moisturize your complexion.

However, it works best if you apply it several times a day. In the morning you can add it to your makeup, moisturizer or other oils.

Do not apply this oil to active acne. It can help clear up old acne scars.

Store in a cool, dark place such as your refrigerator to prevent it from becoming rancid.

Lycopene and beta carotene are antioxidants, micronutrients that protect your body from damage caused by free radicals, thus helping to protect your skin.

The high amount of lycopene gives rosehip oil its rich, amber color.

It is cold pressed from the seeds of the Rosa moschata or Rosa rubiginosa species of wild rose bushes. It can also be extracted from Rosa canina. That species grows in South Africa and Europe. The musk rose grows in the Himalayan mountains.

Rose hip oil penetrates to the deepest layers of your skin, nourishing it on every level. This action is possible because the molecules of Vitamin A are so small.

Both the Vitamin C and Vitamin A strengthen and thicken your collagen. This helps to reduce wrinkles and fine lines or crow’s feet at the corners of your eyes, as well as prevent new ones from forming.

Vitamin A protects collagen from sunlight photodamage and Vitamin C stimulates the production of new collagen.

Sunlight also causes discoloration and dark spots in skin. This oil’s antioxidants and essential fatty acids help repair the damage, and lower inflammation to soothe your skin. Thus, it’s good for red, itchy, raw skin and sunburn. It may help reduce facial rosacea.

The essential fatty acids reduce scarring and help regenerate skin cells. Therefore, rose hip oil has an anti-aging benefit for your skin. Also, they are emollients. They improve the permeability and flexibility of your skin. They also help promote repair of damaged skin tissue. Good for age spots, stretch marks, hyperpigmentation, dermitis and burns.

It’s especially good for dry skin. Apply to cracked, flaky skin and elbows, knees and cracked heels. And for your lips that are dry in the winter from the drying air in the low humidity. It’s good for eczema and psoriasis.

It’s been used to heal and beautify skin for centuries by various people around the world, including the ancient Egyptians, the Andean Indians of Chile, Mayans and other Native Americans. Some of the rosehips grow in the area of the Andes Mountains. They prefer temperate to cold climates.

It’s now a common ingredient in commercial skin care products.

It moisturizes your skin by forming a microthin layer of oil on your skin. You don’t feel it, but it prevents the moisture within your skin from evaporating into the air. Therefore, it remains where it belongs, within your skin, keeping it healthy and youthful.

Rosehips are the fruit of rose bushes. They’re also called rose haw and rose hep. They are usually red to orange in color. They are good to eat, but usually not raw because they contain fine hairs. They are used to make jellies, jams and marmalades. Also syrup, soup, wine, pie and even bread.

Rosehips are high in Vitamin C. Years ago, almost all Vitamin C supplements claiming to have all natural ingredients instead of plain old ascorbic acid were made from rosehips. They also contain beta carotene, lycopene, lutein and zeaxanthin. all carotenoids.

Give your skin the gift of rosehip oil.

Patchouli Oil Makes You Feel and Look Better

Patchouli oil is good to use when you’re feeling sad and down. Its aroma tells your brain to make you feel good by producing dopamine and serotonin. This property makes it a popular and widely used essential oil.

It also stimulates your produce to produce the sex-related hormones, which are estrogen and testosterone. On your skin, it stimulate the growth of new cells, which repairs age damage, reduces scars and lightens dark spots and hyperpigmentation.

It’s an astringent, so it tightens your skin so you look younger and more beautiful.

The plant grows in Asia, native to Sri Lanka. Centuries ago, European traders valued patchouli so much they traded gold for it, weight for weight. That is, they’d pay an ounce of gold for an ounce of patchouli.

Actually, traders from the Orient brought patchouli leaves with their shipments of silk, because the strong odor of the patchouli repelled the moths which liked to eat the silk. The silk cloth absorbed the patchouli aroma, and so its scent become closely associated with Asian products in the minds of Europeans.

In more recent times, patchouli became famous as the odor hippies would burn at home or in head shops to disguise the smell of marijuana.

Warning: Patchouli probably should not be used by pregnant women. Some say it is safe after the first trimester. Consult your health practitioner.

If you use large amounts of this oil it might cause overstimulation even though it normally has a calming, sedative effect. It can make your skin skin more sensitive to sunlight, as well as result in loss of appetite, so do not use if you suffer from any eating disorders. Also, do not use if you are still recovering from an illness.

Patchouli is popular with the perfume industry, just like jasmine, rose and sandalwood. People claim it’s an aphrodisiac. Maybe that just comes as a natural consequence of how it increases the pleasure hormones in your brain.

It’s one of the more grounding, earthy and centering oils in aromatherapy.

It’s a skin tonic, toning and strengthing skin. It also normalizes the skin’s production of sebum. When your skin produces too much sebum or natural oil, that can lead to acne. When it doesn’t produce enough, your skin is dry. Therefore, it’s good for dry, flaking, scaling and chapped skin, including for people with sensitive or mature skin.

It helps to prevent wrinkles as well and speed up the healing of skin wounds, because it’s a cytophylactic. That means it stimulates the generation of new body cells.

It’s anti-inflammatory, calming your angry, irritated, red, rash and enflamed skin conditions.

It has antiseptic properties as well, making it a good oil to apply to minor wounds, cuts, sores, abrasion, scrapes and any other skin damage to protect against infection. It’s also anti-fungal, so it’s good to apply on athlete’s foot, jock itch and ringworm.

It’s reportedly good for sores, psoriasis, dermititis and eczema.

Because of its powerful aroma, it’s effective as an insect repellent, driving away mosquitoes.

Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin) is a member of the labiatae family. The word comes from the Tamil language patchai.

Patchouli oil comes from steam distilling the leaves. In some places people eat the leaves. And you can make an herbal tea from the leaves.

It contains: Alpha Patchoulene, Beta Patchoulene, Alpha Guaiene, Alpha Bulnesene, Caryophyllene, Norpatchoulenol, Patchouli Alcohol, Seychellene and Pogostol.

It blends well with such other essential oils as: Clary Sage, Bergamot, Lavender, Geranium and Myrrh.

Because Patchouli is an essential oil, you should not apply it to your skin directly. Put two drops into a teaspoon of a carrier oil such as olive, coconut or moringa, and mix well.

It is a thick oil, from light yellow to dark brown in color.

You can put a few drops into water in a diffuser and spray it around the world. That will make you and everybody else feel relaxed and happy.

For a great, relaxing bath, add a few drops to the hot water before you chill out in the tub.

 

Moringa Oil Contains Many Powerful Antioxidants for Your Skin

Moringa oil is also extremely healthy and beneficial as a skin care beauty oil even as the plant itself is becoming a well-known superfood in the nutritional supplement field.

It goes back to ancient Eygpt. They left vases of the oil of moringa in their tombs for the dead to use in the afterlife. Medicinal texts surviving from ancient Greece and Roman extol moringa for its health benefits.

The oil contains the plant hormones cytokinins, which delay tissue aging and destruction, a direct anti-aging benefit. They help restore health to damaged skin.

Cytokinins are beneficial biochemical plant hormones. They stimulate the production of new cells to regenerate your skin. They also delay cell death and protect against the oxidation of cells by free radicals.

The most powerful cytokinin is zeatin. Moringa contains a thousand times more zeatin than any other food. And four times as much chlorophyll as wheat grass.

It’s also rich, 72%, in the Omega-9 oleic acid, which acts as humectant by putting a very thin film over your skin to seal in moisture. That prevents it from escaping into the air. Therefore, it helps relieve dry, flaky, scaly, itching, scrunchy scratchy skin, plus dermitis, psoriasis and ezema. It’s also anti-inflammatory, so it soothes red, inflamed, raw and irritated epidermis. That also makes it a spot treatment for acne. And its regenerating ability helps to heal acne scars.

This oil also contains behenic acid, which works on both skin and hair to keep them smoothy and soft. Behenic acid is also called docosanoic acid. It’s a long-chain saturated fatty acid.

Plus essential fatty acids, mostly monounsaturated, Vitamin A and Vitamin C.

Besides containing lots of oleic acid, the oil of moringa has linoleic acid a polyunsaturated fatty acid, palmitic, stearic, myristic, Vitamin E, palmitoleic acid and phytosterin.

It’s rich in copper and calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorous and zinc, important nutrients for your skin.

Free radicals are the villains in your body that cause wear and tear to your body’s tissues, causing them to age. In skin, free radicals destroy its connective structure, the collagen and elastin, causing wrinkles and skin sagging, including underarm sagging skin and face and jowl sagging. Therefore, Moringa helps protect your skin and reverse the damage.

Other antioxidants in it are: rutin, beta-sitosterol, kaempferol, quercetin, chlorogenic acid, moringine, moringinine, niaziminin, rhamnetin and caffeoylquinic acid.

Moringa seed oil contains antiseptic properties, making it good to apply to cuts, scratches, abrasions, minor wounds, bruises, sunburn, rashes, burns, insect bites and punctures, to help guard you against infection. The antiinflammatory oleic oil soothes the damage, reducing the pain and making you feel better, and helping the damaged area to heal instead of signal more pain.

This oil clears up blackheads, whiteheads and spots. It tightens skin pores.

It has anti-fungal properties, making it excellent for athlete’s foot, jock itch and ringworm.

Because of the high percentage of oleic acid, moringa is similar to olive oil, but is much lighter, and close to clear. It’s carrier oil which your skin absorbs deeply, but it doesn’t leave behind a greasy feel. You can use it to dilute essential oils which you wish to apply to your skin, although moringa is very healthy and beautifying on its own.

Its Vitamin C helps reduce fine line such as crow’s feet at the corners of the eye and wrinkles because it strengthens collagen. Vitamin E is especially important because it protects your skin from photodamage. That’s what happens when your skin gets exposed to direct sunlight, so the ultraviolet rays hit it. That is the biggest single stress on your skin, and so the biggest cause of skin appearance aging. But skin fortified with the antioxidant Vitamin E is much better able to resist the damaging effects of sunlight.

The oil is tremendously stable, with a shelf life of 5 years, far longer than other beauty oils. It’s the most stable oil in nature. It doesn’t go rancid. That indicates it is highly resistant to spoiling, which is caused by oxidation. That’s due to the high concentration of antioxidants in it. Once applied to your skin, those antioxidants help your skin resist free radical damage. And because of this property, it’s used a lot as an additive in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries. It’s especially being added to moisturizers, because it softens skin and reduces puffiness, including under the eyes.

Besides helping to beautify skin and hair, this oil is good for condition rough, dry, peeling lips in the cold, dry air and low humidity of winter weather.

For your hair, this oil also works well as a moisturizer, coating the strands to seal in their natural moisture so they continue to look young and healthy. It’s good for weak, dull listless tired hair. For your scalp, it reduces dandruff, itching and flaking. It nourishes your hair follicles, and repairs split ends.

Moringa also works well on dry, dull, cracked finger nails.

Late at night before you go to bed, apply a few drops of moringa oil to your face and any problem areas of skin on your body. To add lots of luster and body to your hair, comb a few drops of the oil through all your hair. Rubs a few drops into your finger nails and toe nails. Then go to bed. Within a few days you’ll notice a great difference in your appearance. You face will glow and your will shine.

Or you can do the same routine, just adding the oil to your usual moisturizer. It will improve the performance of any other cream or oil you are using.

The moringa tree grows throughout South and Southeast Asia, northern South America, the Caribbean region, Central America, some Pacific islands and parts of Africa. It apparently originated in the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. The name comes from the Tamil word murungai for drumstick.

It is the only genus in Moringaceae, the flowering plant family. That genus contains thirteen species, from small plants to large tree. However, moringa oleifera is the most common, and is the species this post is about.

Moringa oil is cold pressed from the seeds of the moringa tree. They yield a 38-40% oil, which is edible as well as a nourishing beauty oil for your skin. It’s also called ben oil, because it contains so much behenic acid. However, only the oil pressed from moringa oleifera tree is called ben oil. You can get oil from other species of moringa, but it’s not the same.

It’s also known as the drumstick tree, the ben oil tree, the benzoil tree and the horseradish tree. Its small leaves are extremely nutrious, and good to add to salads, soups or any dish you can throw in a leafy vegetable. Basically you can eat them like spinach.

Also, they can be dried and crushed into powder. Such powders are being sold as a superfood.

The leaves contain: Vitamin B complex, beta-carotene,vitamin C, manganese and vitamin K. And nine times as much protein as yogurt. The leaves also contain a lot of polyphenols and chlorogenic acid, which slows the absorption of sugar by your cells. And isothiocyanates which, together with the polyphenols and flavenoids, have anti-inflammatory effects.

The tree grows quickly, and is resistant to drought, though it also grows in many tropical areas of Asia where it gets plenty of rain. It grows to 2 to 40 feet high. The trunk has a whitish-gray color, and the flowers are white. The leaves have a sort of rounded trifoil look.

India produces the most moringa, harvesting from 1.1 to 1.3 million tonnes of the fruit.

The seed pods, which resemble drumsticks and are therefore the tree got that name, can also be cooked and eaten.

The oil is even used as a lubricant for small mechanical devices such as watches.

It has the quality of enfleurage. It absorbs aromas of other oils added to it, whether essential oils or herbs, spices, seeds, nuts and chemicals. Therefore, it’s a good base for making perfume. That’s one thing ancient people used it for thousands of years ago, and it’s still being used in perfumes.

Moringa is attracting a rising interest in the developed world as a superfood. People are buying the dried and crushed powder to add to smoothies. In the developing world, where most moringa grows, and where many people are poor and hungry, development agencies are using it to relieve malnutrition.

The Ayurvedic system of healing of India uses moringa for 300 different ailments.

 

Mongongo Oil Gives Your Hair Life and Body With Its Rich Nutrition

Mongongo oil (also known as Manketti oil) provides your hair with the nutrients it needs to have the full, thick body and special glow you want others to see.

If your hair is limp, weak, worn-out and tired, it’s hungry, probably starved for the nutrition it needs to look healthy and happy.

Manketti comes from Latin, and Mongongo is what the Kalahari Desert San people call it.

Your hair also needs simple moisture. Mongongo’s polysaturated fatty acids form a waterproof seal around your strands, sealing in their natural moisture, acting as a humectant. By bonding with the cells on the surface of your hairs, the oil also smooths the surface and adds gloss and shine.

This oil contains eleostearic acid, which absorbs the ultraviolet light in sunlight. And it contains linoleic acid, which helps it remain strong and shiny.

Mongongo can also be used to moisturize and protect your skin, nails and lips. However, unlike most beauty oils, it’s primarily for your hair, secondarily for other areas.

It repairs split ends and broken strands, tames frizzy hair, smoothes the surface, strengthens and softens hair. By strengthening and moisturizing your hair, you help it retain waves and curls.

This oil is also good for your scalp. It stops itching and reduces dandruff.

The Mongongo (or Manketti) tree grows in arid and semi-arid conditions throughout Southern Africa, such as in the sandy soil of the Kalahari Desert. Including areas that have a wide range of temperatures, from sub-freezing to scorching heat. Countries include: northern Namibia, southern Angola, Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi. It’s quite hardy, as it must be to survive such an environment, including periodic droughts.

The tree (Schinziophyton rautanenii) produces a fruit which is a tasty and nutritious favorite for the local people and also for elephants. The fruit is reddish-brown and egg-shaped. The nuts are inside the fruit, and must be extracted. A labor-saving way to do this is simply to remove the seeds from elephant dung. Elephants eat the fruit, digest it, and then their digestive systems get rid of the hard nuts. The hard nut shells must be broken open to extract the kernels, which are the nuts containing Mongongo oil.

The nuts are over 57% fat, and contain the minerals: calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, phosphorus, sodium, potassium and zinc. And various kinds of Vitamin B: riboflavin, eleostearic Acid and thiamine. The oil comes from cold pressing the nuts.

The nut contains a lot of Vitamin E to preserve it through the heat of the day and the cold of night. Each nut contains 650 mg of Vitamin E. Most of that is in the form of g-tocopherol, the most heat-resistant. For your skin, Vitamin E is an antioxidant good for protecting your skin from photodamage caused by exposure to the ultraviolet radiation in direct sunlight. Vitamin E also gives oils a long shelf life, because it continues to preserve the oil from rancidity.

It contains the saturated fatty acids: palmitic acid and stearic acid. And the monosaturated fatty acid: oleic acid.

As an anti-inflammatory as well as a moisturizer, this oil relieves flaky, red, itchy, irritated skin. Manketti oil relieves boils, acne, sunburn, fungal infections and and rash. It softens skin and reduces wrinkles. It makes skin stronger and more elastic, but does not clog pores. It makes a great massage oil. It helps other nutrition to penetrate more deeply into your skin. Plus, it encourages skin regeneration to heal wounded or damaged cells.

Plus, it contains high levels of the antioxidant Vitamin C.

You can and should add Manketti oil to your nighttime routine. Just comb a few drops through your air before you go to bed at night, and you’ll wake up with healthier, stronger and shinier hair.

The tree grows 7 to 20 meters high, and is in the family Euphorbiaceae. Its branches spread out wide. The wood is pale yellow, and lightweight like balsa.

It does not bear fruit for at least its first twenty-five years. People go up to 25 kilometers (15 miles) into the forest to collect it. They eat the fruit, and also the yellow kernels, either raw or roasted. Archeological evidence show the San people have been eating Manketti nuts for at least 7,000 years.

The Mongongo oil is a rich yellow or lime green color. The San and other people have traditionally used it on their hair and skin. The hard, outer shells of the nuts, when broken, are thrown to divine fortunes.

Local people have traditionally used the oil for cooking as well as on their skins and hair. It has been imported to Europe to use in margarine. It’s also used in soaps, cosmetics, hair products and varnishes.

Mongongo is a tree nut. Therefore, if you have a tree nut allergy, check with your doctor before applying it to your skin or hair.

 

Argan Oil is Liquid Gold for Your Skin’s Health and Beauty

Argan oil itself is a powerful beauty serum full of antioxidant power, can be combined with other oils such as Bergamot oil, an essential oil, to create a blend that makes your skin smooth, healthy and beautiful.

In the past fifteen years, this oil — once difficult to obtain outside Morocco — has become increasingly popular as an ingredient in cosmetics in Europe and North America. It is also increasingly popular and fashionable to use it directly as a carrier beauty oil, alone or combined with other oils, including essential oils such as Bergamot.

Because of its high antioxidant contents, this oil can be more resistant to oxidation damage than olive oil.

The Berber people where it grows have used the oil on their skin for hundreds perhaps thousands of years.

It contains: 44% Oleic acid, 30% Alpha-linolenic acid, 12% Palmitic acid, 6% Stearidonic acid, 5% Linoleic acid, and 3% Myristic acid.

Also: tocopherols (vitamin E), phenols, carotenes, squalene and fatty acids. Main phenols are caffeic acid, oleuropein, vanillic acid, tyrosol, catechol, resorcinol, epicatechin and catechin.

It’s highly moisturing, so it helps with dry skin, flaking, eczema, and peeling scaly patches. It contains a high volume of Vitamin E, which helps it protect skin against photodamage caused by the ultraviolet A and B spectrums in sunlight, UVA and UVB.

It also helps to regular acne by normalizing skin’s natural production of sebum (oil or wax from sebaceous glands). It is not greasy.

The antioxidants also help to regenerate and rejuvenate damaged skin cells, and reduce inflammation. Thus soothing red, cracked, inflamed, itchy, rough and sore areas.

The nutritional contents also help strengthen and regenerate your skin’s collagen and elastin. Those are your skin’s structural support. When age and free radicals damage it, your skin is weakened, developing wrinkles and fine lines, including crow’s feet at the corners of your eyes. Dealing with that makes your skin stronger, more elastic and supple. It smoothes out those wrinkles.

By increasing skin elasticity, using during pregnancy may help reduce or prevent stretch marks. Rub a little into your breasts, stomach, bottom and thighs during your pregnancy.

It regulates your skin’s pH balance, protecting it from damage. It also diminishes scars.

A good habit to get into is to apply a few drops of the oil to the t area of your face and any problems areas every night just before you go to bed, so it can soak into your skin work its magic while you sleep.

Also, comb a few drops into your hair at the same time. It moisturizes dry, curly, frizzy hair, making it more manageable.

Rub a little bit onto your finger and toe nails and cuticles also every night. This helps moisturize dry and cracked nails.

Also apply to cracked heels and lips, especially during the low humidity and dry skin of winter air.

It is made from the kernels of the argan tree. This tree — Argania spinosa — is the only species within the genus argania, from the word for the tree in the Berber language of Shiha.

Argan is native to the western Mediterranean area, particularly the Sous valley and Tindouf in Algeria. These locations are semidesert, and that’s the climate argan likes. It’s also grown in the Negev area of Israel.

The branches began growing close to the ground, and then spread out wide to catch lots of sunlight. This provides shade under which to grow other pasture grasses.

They grow eight to ten meters high. The trunks are gnarled and thorny. They can live up to two hundred years.

The roots grow deep, no doubt to reach the most water possible. This helps the land resist desertification, encroachment by the surrounding Sahara Desert, and soil erosion.

The fruit takes over a year to ripen. It’s small, from two to four centimeters long and from one and a half to three centimeters wide. A thick peel surrounds a pulpy pericarp, which contains the hard nut, which contains two or three seeds. The oil is in the seeds.

Traditionally, the tree is used for timber and forage for goats as well as a source of the oil. Goats are a common domesticated animals, and they climb up the trees to eat the top leaves. Goats also eat the fruits, and the seeds may be collected from their manure.

Over the past one hundred years the arganeraie forests have lost half their area due to charcoal-making and overgrazing. Over 8,000 hectares have been designated a UNESCO biosphere reserve.

Now that local people have an economic incentive to preserve the trees, it’s hoped they will choose over sustainable harvesting of the oil over cutting down the trees. Often, rights to the fruit are government by local traditions and law.

In Morocco, much of the work producing argan oil is done by women’s cooperatives.

The collected fruit are dried in the sun.

The most labor-intensive task is extracting the seeds from the fruit. The discarded pulp is used to feed animals. The kernals can be stored and used to make argan oil for up to twenty years later.

The hard nuts are cracked by hand between two stones. The seeds may be removed and roasted. However, if the oil is destined to be sold for cosmetic use, it’s not roasted.

After roasting, the seeds are grown in a stone rotary quern with a little water, which turns them into a brown paste. Workers squeeze the paste by hand to extract the oil. The remaining paste is fed to cattle. This hand pressed oil is good for three to six months.

The oil is left stationary for two weeks to allow the sediment to settle to the bottom.

It takes one woman three days to produce just one liter of this oil.

People eat the oil by dipping bread into it, and on coucous and salads. One dip, called amlou, is made from peanuts and almonds, and sometimes sweetened with honey.

The oil is good for all skin types, including sensitive, dry and acne-prone. That’s why it’s often called “liquid gold” or “gold of Morocco.”

You can also add it to facial toner. And to your facial mask. To make your face glow, add a few drops to your foundation, bronzer or tinted moisturizer.

Add a few drops to your hair conditioner, and leave on your hair a long time. Add a few drops to your bath or body oil.

Of course, no one oil — or anything else — is a perfect, total solutions to health and beauty issues.

Therefore, sometimes you see Argan oil added to other oils, including Bergamot essential oil.

Ylang Ylang Oil for Romance and Normalized Skin Oil

Ylang Ylang oil (Cananga Odorata) is good for all kinds of skin, because it normalizes your skin’s production of sebum, the natural oil or wax.

This makes it great for sensitive, dry, oily and combination skins.

If your sebaceous glands are producing too much sebum (which can lead to acne), this essential oil encourages them to ramp it down. If your skin is too dry and needs more, this oil gooses those glands to produce more.

Ylang Ylang is a great essential oil to add to your bath water when you’re tense or your muscles are sore, and you need to relax in a long, hot bath.

This oil is associated with peace of mind, relaxation, and romance. And on the feelings of arousal that follow physical relaxation, peace of mind and romance, leading some to call it an aphrodisiac.

According to none other than the pioneering anthropologist Margaret Mead, the Samoan Islanders she studied used it as an aphrodisiac.

In Indonesia greenish yellow Ylang Ylang flowers are scattered across the beds of newly married couples.

And it’s used in many perfumes fragrances, including Chanel No. 5.

It’s also good for your hair. Just rub some into your scalp to encourage thicker, fuller and healthier hair.

Ylang Ylang grows in the Southeast Asia and South Pacific area rain forests.

Chief components of Ylang Ylang essential oil include: benzyl acetate, benzyl benzoate linalool, caryophyllene, geranyl acetate, methyl benzoate, p-cresyl methyl ether and sesquiterpenes.

It’s pronounced “ee-lang ee-lang.” When you smell it, you have to smile with delight.

It is made through the complete unfractionated steam distillation of the essential oil from the flower. According to when the distillates are obtained, there are different grades: Extra, 1, 2, 3. Ylang Ylang Extra has the highest amount of esters.

In aromatherapy it is used as a steam facial. It’s light yellow in color.

It is an essential oil meaning you should not put it on your skin directly. Dilute it first by adding two drops of it to a teaspoon of some carrier oil, such as olive, coconut or jojoba. Some say to mix it half and half with coconut oil to make a great hair conditioner.

It blends well with bergamot, grapefruit, lavender and sandalwood essential oils.

By relaxing you, this oil may help people lower blood pressure.

The flower grows on the ylang ylang or cananga tree, also known as fragrant cananga, Macassar-oil plant, or perfume tree. It’s in the custard apple family Annonaceae.

It grows around fifteen feet per year, up to about forty feet high. It grows clusters of black fruit which are eaten by birds.

Its has antimicrobial properties that help it fight skin infections, and act as an anti-inflammatory to reduce skin irritation and redness.

Its components include: benzyl acetate (28 percent),6 linalool (9 percent), methyl benzoate (6 percent), P-cresyl methyl ether (10 percent), and 3-methyl-2-butenyl acetate (5 percent).

To relax and uplift your mood, add a few drops of Ylang Ylang oil to water in a diffuser, then spray it into the air around you. You’ll feel better as soon as your smell its aroma.

According to one source, this oil should not be used by pregnant or nursing women, or by children under the age of six.

Get your bottle of Ylang Ylang Oil on Amazon today.

Palo Santo Oil from Holy Wood to Calm and Relax You

Palo Santo oil supplies your skin rich lots of great nutrition, giving it the raw materials it needs to regenerate problem areas or damaged skin.

Therefore, it can help with such conditions as: brown spots, bags under the eyes, wrinkles, scars, sun damage, and age hyperpigmentation.

Palo Santo (Bursera graveolens) is an essential oil. Therefore, it is for external use only, not for internal consumption. Also, it is too strong to apply directly onto your skin. Mix two drops of it into a teaspoon of a carrier oil, such as coconut, olive, or jojoba oils.

The name means “Holy Wood” or “Sacred Wood” in Spanish. It was named by the conquistadores. The Incans and various shamans in the dry areas close to the Pacific in South America used it, including to ground and clear the energy fields of their bodies.

It helps to calm and relax you, to put you into a good mood. Use a diffuser to spray it around you just before you meditate.

One prominent ingredient is limonene, which is a natural purifier. This makes it good to diffuse into the air of your home during the winter months when you and your family are more exposed and vulnerable to respiratory infections.

Its calming effect can help with meditation, and also calming. Spray it into the air before a session of work, when it helps you concentrate and be more creativity. It’s uplifting, and leads to spiritual fulfillment.

It’s effective to use just through palm inhalation. You just put a drop or two on your palms, rub them together, hold them close to your nose, then sniff it in.

It mixes well with frankincense, sandalwood, cedarwood, black pepper, clary sage, cypress, douglas fir, lemon balm, myrhh, and vetiver. It’s also good for using in a diffuser.

Add a few drops to a cold compress to help relieve and relax any part of the body.

You can also add a few drops to a vaporizor or other steaming water to spread the aroma in a way that will help soothe and relax and purify your lungs.

Add some of it to massage oil to relieve stress in your body.

You can also add a few drops to your bath water to relax your muscle.

The palo santo trees live between eighty and ninety years old.

The oil is extracted from the dead heartwood of the tree trunk by steam distillation or vapor distillation. The oil is extracted from the dead wood, but only when it’s been dead for at least two years. Therefore, it is wildcrafted from dead trees and dead branches that have fallen to the ground.

Somehow, wood that has died naturally undergoes a transformation that creates the essential oil. But if the tree or the branch have been killed by simply being chopped down or off, that transformation does not happen. Also, some sources say it requires not two years, but four to ten years before the essential oil extracted has the full range of physical and spiritual properties.

This helps ensure the demand for this oil does not result in overharvesting. If you kill or destroy a tree today, you still cannot get the oil for at least another two years, discouraging the fast money.

In Ecuador, the main country where it’s grown, it’s against the law to kill palo santo trees, and the harvesting of the dead trees is regulated. It also grows in Peru and the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Northern Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia, the Brazilian Mato Grosso, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Colombia, and on the Galápagos Islands.

The government of Peru also forbids the cutting of live trees, and governs the collection of sticks and branches off the ground.

Only a few companies have the legal right to touch these trees.

The oil has a thin consistency, and is yellow to light brown in color.

It is not only anti-inflammatory, but antiseptic and antibacterial.

Do not use if you are pregnant or nursing.

In Ecuador, people have also used it to repel mosquitoes by burning the wood. It also kills ticks.

Shaman burn sticks of it to clear energy and protect against evil spirits.

Besides limonene, it contains various other terpines, such as alpha terpine. Menthofuran, carvone, germacrene D, muurolene and pulegone.

The fruit of this tree a small black seed covered by a red pulp in a green capsule with two halves. When ripe, the two halves of the capsule fall off. That leaves behind the fruit.

Because it relaxes you, applying palo santo to your skin prior to bedtime can help you go to sleep more easily. Or just put a few drops on your pillow.

You can also use it as an insect repellent. Just use a diffuser to spray it into the air around you when you’re sitting outside on a nice summer evening on your patio or deck.

In 2004 scientists at the University of Shizuoka School of Pharmaceutical Sciences in Japan found other phytochemicals in palo santo. They say these are capable of fighting ancerous cell mutations. 4-aryltetralin-type lignans called burseranin and other isolated triterpenes (lupeol and epi-lupeol) come from the stems of the plants.

These compounds demonstrated inhibitory activity against human cancer and fibrosarcoma cells. Including Triter-pene lupeol compounds.

It is used as an ingredient in cosmetics, as INCI “Bursera graveolens wood oil.” Chemical Abstract Services number 959130-05-3.

Therefore, it is good for skin infections and acne.

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Tamanu Oil: Your Skin’s Tropical Paradise All-Round Youth and Beauty First Aid Kit

Tamanu oil is cold pressed from the nuts of the Calophyllum inophyllum tree, the most common, or the ati tree (Calophyllum tacamahaca) which grow in the South Pacific and Southeast Asia.

(The oil from both come from tree nuts. If you are allergic to tree nuts, you should avoid Tamanu.)

The tree can grow inland, but it prefers sandy and salty soil, so it flourishes close to the ocean.

This oil comes from some of the world’s most beautiful tropical paradises. But here’s the thing about tropical paradises: they’re hot. The ocean is full of corrosive salt water, and this gets taken up into the air. A lot of ocean breezes blow into your face. The sunlight is intense, including the ultraviolet UVB band of radiation, which causes photodamage to your skin. And you expose a lot more of your skin to sunlight by swimming in the ocean and hanging out on the beach, perhaps sunbathing.

Therefore, such environments are tough on your complexions.

So, how do Polynesian women keep their skins looking so smooth, brown and beautiful?

Tamanu.

The oil contains many powerful components which support skin repair, regeneration and health.

In a sense, this is not per se a beauty oil, it’s a healthy skin oil. And, of course, healthy skin is beautiful skin.

In Fiji, it is known as dolno, which translates into English as “no pain.”

The components of this oil from the ati nut include:

Three classes of lipids: neutral lipids, glycolipids and phospholipids

Calophyllic acid

Lactone, an antibiotic

Calophyllolide, which is non-steroidal and anti-inflammatory

Coumarins, which are also anti-inflammatory

Xanthones

Friedelin

Inophyllums B and P

Terpenic essences

Benzoic and oxibenzoic acids

Glycerides

Saturated fatty acids

4-phenylcoumarins

Many of these components are not found in any other beauty oil. They are unique to Tamanu oil.

This oil transforms scars, psoriasis, age spots, blemishes, bags under the eye, acne, dryness, scaly patches, skin eruptions and diaper rash.

Other conditions it can benefit include: wrinkles, blisters, toenail fungus, stretch marks, age spots, dermitis, body and foot odorj, diabetic sores, eczema, herpes sores, neuritis and neuralgia, anal fissures, rheumatism, sciatica, shingles, oozing wounds, chapped lips, and sunburn.

It also supports the growth of new skin, making it great for cuts, scratches, scrapes, abrasions, wounds, stings, bites, and burns.

This oil is relatively thick, but it goes into your skin without leaving behind any oily residue.

According to ethnobotanist Chris Kilham, tamanu is one of the most effective ways to help your skin grow new cells to repair and replace damaged tissue.

Medical science terms this process cicatrization. And this oil may be the most potent cicatrizing powerhouse found in nature.

It’s been used by the people of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific for hundreds — probably thousands — of years.

It has these properties: Antioxidant, Anti-bacterial and Anti-inflammatory.

Early in the twentieth century, tamanu had a brief surge of fame in the Western world. A French nun named Sister Marie Suzanna used tamanu to treat the leprosy symptoms. That included leprous neuritis, the painful inflammation of the nerves which that disease causes in victims of it.

This oil is also good for your hair, especially if it’s dry, tangled, limp, frizzy or lifeless. Apply a few drops to it and to your scalp. It’s probably best late at night before you go to bed, because the oil does have a strong aroma.

For skin conditions, apply the oil to problem skin two or three times per day, more for serious problem areas.

In 1918 researchers with French Pharmacopoeia began investigating tamanu. This team tested the oil on many different skin conditions. They were impressed by its cicatrizing effects.

In one case tamanu helped cure a woman with a severe case of a gangrenous ulcer that responded to no other treatment, and which therefore was close to forcing doctors to amputate the woman’s leg.

Eventually, the woman retained her leg, and had only a smooth scar to show she once had life-threatening gangrene.

Some scientific studies on tamanu are more modern. Japanese scientists at Meijo University found some chemical compounds in it inhibit the production of skin tumors. Canadian scientists at the Université de Sherbrooke found tamanu contains two chemicals that are HIV transcriptase inhibitors.

You can apply Tamanu oil directly to your skin or mix it 50/50 with coconut or some other tropical oil.

The actual tamanu nut is large and golden colored. The oil is dark green.

The tree produces small, white flowers twice a year, and then the round, green fruit grow from the flower and turns yellow. The kernel with the nut is inside the fruit. The fruit is inedible.

Other terms for this, in English and other languages: beauty leaf oil, calophyllum inophyllum seed oil, calophyllum inophyllum oil, kamani oil, calophyllum oil, calophyllum inophyllum essential oil, dilo oil, foraha oil, Alexandrian laurel oil, poon oil, nyamplung oil, domba oil, honne oil (as biodiesel), undi oil, pinnai oil, fetau oil, punnai oil, daok oil, pinnay oil, kamanu oil, bitaog oil, tamanu nut oil, punna oil, takamaka oil (ambiguous), laurelwood oil (ambiguous), tacamahac oil (ambiguous), punnaga oil, feta?u oil, palo maria oil, ballnut tree oil, ballnut oil, btaches oil, beach calophyllum oil, or mù u oil).

The fatty acids in this oil are: Linoleic acid 38%, Oleic acid 34%, Stearic acid 13%, and Palmitic acid 12%.

This tamanu nut oil is also being used as a biofuel, transformed by transesterification. In World War II, this biofuel was used to generate electricity to power radios.

The Calophyllum inophyllum tree is a large evergreen, part of the Mangosteen family. Also called Alexandrian laurel, balltree, beach calophyllum, beach touriga, beautyleaf, Borneo-mahogany, Indian doomba oiltree, Indian-laurel, laurelwood, red poon, satin touriga, and tacamahac-tree.

It can be found in East Africa, southern coastal India to Malesia and Australia.

When ripe, the fruit falls from the tree. The people collect them and place them out on racks to cure for six to eight weeks. Then they are placed in the cold machine to be crushed to release the oil.

It takes the nuts from one tree to produce five liters.

The shelf life of this oil is long, at least two years, but can be as long as five years.

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Marula Oil Contains 60% More Antioxidants than Argan Oil

Marula oil is great for your hair.

Make it a part of your daily routine to comb a few drops of this oil into your hair just before going to bed at night. Within a few days you’ll find it moisturized, shining again with the natural sheen of good health. It’ll untangled frizzy hair and add a full body to thin, limp hair. Plus, it heals split ends. It’s smooth and manageable again.

It also nourishes your scalp and hair follicles.

This oil is good for all types of skin: combination, dry, oily, mature, reactive and sensitive. While you’re applying some to your hair, rub several drops into your facial skin or any problem areas.

Then add a few drops to your dry, brittle cracked nails and your cuticles.

Within a few days, your hair will be glossy and youthful again, your skin moisturized and shining with health, and your nails smooth, solid and shiny again.

This oil is cold pressed from the kernels or nuts of the marula tree (Sclerocarya birrea), of the Anacardiaceae family, which is the mango family, which grows in southern Africa. That tree has been a food source for the local people for hundreds or thousands of years. The fruit contains four times as much Vitamin C as oranges.

Scientists found kernels of marula fruit in the Pomongwe Cave of Zimbabwe with artifacts dating to the pre-Middle Stone Age.

Because they grow in dry, arrid areas, the trees are drought resistant.

The tree grows wild, and so the people collect only the fruit that has fallen from the tree. This keeps the industry sustainable. The people can eat the fruit by turning it into jam, but still profit from selling the kernels which contain the oil that is being sold to the worldwide beauty oil market. Plus, the broken shells are burned like charcoal. Breaking up the kernels to extract the nut has traditionally been done by women.

Because the stands of marula trees are so economically beneficial in so many different ways, the local people have an economic incentive to protect them and the land where they grow, instead of selling them to be just cut down.

In South Africa the trees are protected by law.

They can grow from thirty to sixty feet tall. One tree can product a thousand pounds of fruit.

Local people use the wood to carve bowls, stools and canoes.

They use the inner bark to make rope and brown dye

Allegedly, the people use the bark to treat dysentery, rheumatism, insect bites, allergies, and malaria.

They use the leaves to soothe spider bites and burns, so they may contain some of the same compounds as the anti-inflammatory oil.

The oil has traditionally been used as a cooking oil, in cosmetics, to preserve meat and to treat leather (by the Venda).

The fruit is light yellow and plum-sized.

It forms an important part of the diet of people in the Inhambane Province in Mozambique, Owambo in north central Namibia, Northern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa and the Zvishavane district of Zimbabwe. Also the Bantu and the San people (or Saan), or Basarwa, most well-known as the Bush people of the Kalahari Desert.

The Tsonga women of South Africa and Mozambique have traditionally used it to moisturize their skin. They use it as a baby massage oil.

It contains a large amount of monounsaturated fatty acids. 70 to 78% Oleic acid or Omega-9.

Plus, it does have some polyunsaturated fatty acids: Omega-6 Linoleic acid (4.0-7.0%) and Omega-3 Alpha-linolenic acid (0.1-0.7%).

Plus, it has saturated fatty acids: Palmitic acid (9-12%), Stearic acid (5.0-8.0%), and Arachidonic acid (0.3-0.7%).

It contains these antioxidants: tocopherols, sterols, tochotrienol, phenolic compounds and flavonoids. Plus procyanidin, galattotannin and catechins.

And Vitamin C and essential amino acids.

So these antioxidants and the essential fatty acids comprise an anti-aging potion for your hair, skin and nails.

Marula oil has a clear to light yellow color, which absorbs very quickly into your skin without leaving behind any oily residue. Just a thin sheen that prevents your skin from drying out and restores your skin’s glowing health. This decreases transepidermal water loss (TEWL), increasing your skin’s smoothness.

Plus, because the oil is small and light, it goes deeply into skin taking its antioxidants and essential fatty acids with it, to nourish all your skin.

The antioxidants in this oil help protect your skin from age damage, dry humidity, air pollution and photodamage to your skin from exposure to the ultraviolet radiation in direct sunlight. They also help your skin regenerate damage that has already occurred, such as age spots, brown spots, liver spots, and scarring.

The antioxidants also protect the collagen and elastin in your skin, which comprise your skin’s infrastructure, the support mechanism. When those thin and weaken, your skin sags and wrinkles. The antioxidants strengthen the collagen and elastin, which tightens and firms your skin, making it more elastic.

It is noncomedogenic, meaning it will not clog your skin creating blackheads or whiteheads.

It has antimicrobial properties to protect your skin from bacteria, helping to remove existing blemishes.

Despite being an oil, marula should not be a problem for acne sufferers. It is one of those oils that encourage the skin to normalize the production of its natural wax or oil, the sebum. By applying the right oil, your skin realizes it doesn’t need to overproduce the oil, relieving the acne.

It is also anti-inflammatory, so it’s good for soothing your skin and relieving rashes, redness, and other irritations.

It rejuvenates your skin cells, reducing fine lines, wrinkles, crow’s feet at the corners of your eyes, redness and blotchiness.

You can also use this oil to prime your skin before applying makeup. It is pH balanced.

Because this oil is so rich with antioxidants and essential fatty acids, it’s highly stable, with a high resistance to oxidation. Ten times more stable than olive oil.

It’s also used to product a cream liqueur in South Africa.

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Passion Fruit Seed Oil, High in Omega-6 Linoleic Acid

Passion Fruit Seed oil (Passiflora edulis or Passiflora incarnata) is also known as Maracuja oil.

It’s high in Omega-6 linoleic acid, an essential fatty acid. That’s the most dominant EFA in this oil. This is good for dry skin with flaky, peeling, scaly patches, especially in winter when humidity is low.

And it’s a good moisturizer (emollient) for your skin, which helps keep it thicker and younger looking.

It also has antioxidant properties, which help protect skin from ultraviolet rays in sunshine and other stresses such as air pollution and cigarette smoke. This can also help your skin regenerate from age damage, such as brown spots and scarring.

It’s a light oil which easily and quickly penetrates into your skin without leaving behind an oily or greasy feel. However, it does create a light seal which helps prevent water from evaporating through your skin, and thereby helps keep your skin moisturized. It is viscous and colored yellow to light orange.

The oil contains carotenoids, including lycopene, antioxidants which help protect your skin’s collagen and elastin, which helps keep it strong and elastic, and helps reduce wrinkles and fine lines such as crow’s feet at the corners of your eyes. Also, hyperpigmentation and aging damage.

Besides linolenic acid and carotenoids, it contains phenols and flavenoids. It contains Vitamin A, and is antibacterial. This makes it good for acne-prone skin.

It also has anti-inflammatory properties, so it soothes your skin when it has angry, red, inflamed, itchy rashes, especially poison ivy or poison oak.

Passion fruit is also good for hair, especially dry, listless, limp hair. It reduces dandruff and repairs split ends.

Components: Linoleic Acid (omega 6) 77.0%; Oleic Acid (omega 9) 10-22%; Palmitic Acid 5-18%; Stearic Acid 1-3%; and Alpha-Linolenic Acid <1.5%.

Passion Fruit Seed oil is also good for acne-prone and sensitive skins because it helps reduce your skin’s production of sebum, the natural oil and wax it produces, sometimes to excess. That promotes a drier feel to your skin.

It is cold pressed from the seeds of various varieties of the Passion flower plant or passion fruit. It grows in the Amazon rain forest, in northern Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay, and was used by the ancient Aztecs.

It’s a vine species. The fruit is round, filled with seeds, and known as a pepo. When ripe, it’s yellow or dark purple. The fruit is good to both eat and juice. The flower is white, and the national flower of Paraguay.

Passion flower is good for relaxing people even if they have anxiety, and inducing sleep. Put a few drops on your pillow just before you go to bed.

Its shelf life is two years.

It makes for a good massage oil.

There are varieties known as Golden Passion Fruit and Purple Passion Fruit. The fruits are rich in polyphenols, which are healthy phytochemicals found in plants. The peel and juice can contain prunasin and other cyanogenic glycosides.

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