Aromatherapy Advice

As you can imagine I get a number of people coming into the shop asking me specifically about Bio Oil as there is just so much advertising out there about it. It really is a product promoted as “The Product for scarring”.

Now, I don’t necessarily have a problem with Bio-Oil itself but when I look at the ingredients I find it hard to see why we would ever want to put this on our body !

The first ingredient in it is “Mineral Oil” that is a Bi-Product of petroleum. I have a book called the cosmetic ingredient glossary that defines Mineral Oil as “A heavy film forming oil and a Clear liquid mixture of hydrocarbons and a bi-product of petroleum its unsuitable for lotions or shampoos as mineral oil coats our skin. This ingredient is not designed to stay on our skin. In BioOil’s case though… “We don’t want to wash it off though because of the benefits and healing of our scars”

Mineral Oil acts as a layer that’s difficult to absorb & Clogs the pores which slows the skins’ ability to eliminate toxins. This is such a problem as our skin is one of our biggest illuminative organs in our body.

When our lungs, liver, kidney and our bowel are not able to keep up with their jobs dealing with those toxins and eliminating them, our body compensates and uses our skin as a eliminative organ. Now if we have this clogged up with all of this mineral oil (like what is found in the biooil), how is our skin supposed to do its job ?

Its almost like putting glad wrap on our skin, preventing things from penetrating through it but also prevents it from being able to breath properly.

I also read from a material safety data sheet on mineral oil which says that it is dangerous if swallowed or inhaled. Don’t we put Bio-Oil on our face ? How close is that to our mouth and our nose ? Isn’t it a risk that we may sometimes be breathing that in ?

It also says that Mineral Oil causes irritation to our skin, eyes and respiratory system. In fact it specifically talks about causing breathing problems if we breath it in…. But of course the majority of people are going to put this on there face !

Now if we look at the second ingredient that I can’t even pronounce, I looked it up and found that it is referred to as a ‘penetration enhancer’ The info about this states that it alters the skins structure allowing other chemicals to penetrate deeper into our skin.

So the first ingredient which is the main ingredient in the product is a mineral oil that sits on our skin, so because of that the second ingredient which is the second largest ingredient in the product is added to Bio-Oil so we can actually get it into our skin which just does not sound good at all.

So what I have decided to do is talk about some ways that we can make our own mixtures that are going to be beneficial for our skin and allow it to breath. These are ingredients that you can easily pick up in your health shop or a lot of the ingredients at your supermarket.

Make Your Own Body Oil:

   1. First we need a base; a good base oil is Almond Oil, Nut oils are really good because there high in essential fatty acids. A good Almond Oil would be a cold pressed one and if it’s organic “even better”.

   2. The next ingredient that I would then add to it would be something like Jojoba Oil which is absolutely fantastic for skin problems and makes a wonderful addition to the Almond Oil.

   3. Then the third ingredient that I would add would be Rosehip Oil !

      We hear a lot about Rosehip Oil these days and it has been scientifically proven to specifically help with fine lines, Wrinkles, aging skin, damaged skin and I have had first hand experience from people who have come into my shop. Particularly young people who have got a lot of acne scaring and even within one month of trying Rosehip Oil on their skin, they were getting results. The formula started working towards healing all of those wounds and diminish and lighten all of that scarring. Even within one month the improvements were dramatic.

   4. To our three base oils we could also add some Vitamin E.

      Vitamin E is really fantastic for scarring. If you can’t get a hold of wheat germ oil (which sometimes can have a funny smell to it, some companies do a deodorised type wheat germ oil ) what I would do is get a Vitamin E capsule which most of them are just in a little soft gel. You can get a pin and prick the soft gel and squeeze the Vitamin E oil out and that’s a really good way of getting un-oxidised Vitamin E oil to add into our 3 base ingredients.

   5. Then you can add some essential oils like lavender which would be a great ingredient to add to your own oil mix as it’s great for helping with Scarring.

   6. Geranium would be another really good addition to put in with your base oil unless your pregnant.

   7. Note: Now it’s really important to remember that if we are using essential oils that if you are pregnant then there are a number of oils that you cant use (see the list below) and also there are some oils that are not suitable to use for babies. and the three main ingredients safest to use when making a formulation up for a baby is lavender, camomile and rose oil.

This now should have given you a lot more insight into BioOil and reinforce the importance of checking your labels carefully to make sure that the ingredients you are rubbing on your skin really are worthy of being on your skin in the first place and a few ideas on how to make up your own oils.

Essential oils to avoid during pregnancy:

Anise, Bay, Basil, Camphor, Caraway, Carrot, Cedarwood, Cinnamon, Clary Sage, Clove, Comfrey, Cypress, Fennel, Hyssop, Jasmine, Juniper, Marjoram, Mugwort, Myrrh, Nutmeg, Oregano, Pennyroyal, Peppermint, Rosemary, Sag, Sassafras, Tansy, Thuja, Thyme, Wintergreen, Wormwood, Yarrow and Oils to avoid in first trimester are Chamomile, Frankincense, Geranium, Melissa and Rose.