**Collaborative post**
Castor oil is highly beneficial for your skin. Most of us want our skin to look its best and our own products (made from essential oils) are ideal for treating many conditions such as the appearance of acne, getting rid of age spots, and of course for reducing the appearance of wrinkles.
What about Regular Commercial Skin Products?
Apart from these treatments, we also need to be able to carry out other cosmetic improvements for our skin but some concerns with mainstream skincare products are :
- Commercial products tend to strip the oil out of your skin leaving it to try and repair itself by replacing that oil and leading to a cycle of being tight and dry followed by the inevitable oil slick. This means that each time the oil gets stripped away, your skin over-compensates for the lack of moisture by creating even more oil.
- Fragrances in skin products may cause irritation to the skin.
Instead and, in between essential oil treatments, a good quality castor oil (organic cold-pressed) can do some of the heavier work of skincare to detox, to moisturise, and to cleanse.
Detoxification
Castor oil is detoxifying and helps to break up oils on the face that can clog glands and pores. Castor oil contains a compound called undecylenic acid, which can help to disinfect the skin and even kill bacteria that can cause skin conditions such as acne. Detoxification can be easily done by rubbing the oil into the skin each night and then washing off the excess. A simple method is to use a mixture of one part castor oil to one part carrier oil (for example argan oil) for normal skin. Oily skin would be 3 parts to 1, while dryer skin would be 1 part to 3. Clean your face by rubbing the oil mixture all over before massaging in for at least 2 minutes. Allow to sit on the face skin for a further 2 minutes. Remove the oil by soaking a clean washcloth in hot water and covering your face. Press for 10 to 15 seconds until the cloth cools. Rinse the washcloth and repeat the process another 2 to 3 times until the oil and grime has been removed. This detox process will leave your skin soft, nourished and hydrated.
Moisturise
Castor oil can be very moisturising and can even soften dry skin by penetrating deep into the skin while hydrating. One of the things that set castor oil apart from other vegetable-based oils is its very high concentration of fatty acids, making it able to quickly moisturise. Those fatty acids penetrate the skin, lubricating dry patches and helping cells stay hydrated by surrounding them with a protective oily coating and helping to delay any signs of aging. These benefits are often very transparent on the face, where the skin tends to be more sensitive and more exposed to environmental elements like sun and wind. In a similar fashion to the detox method, you can use a mixture of castor oil and another carrier oil to moisturize.
- For dry skin mix 1/4 of castor oil and 3/4 sesame oil.
- For normal skin mix 1/4 of castor oil and 3/4 grapeseed oil (or olive oil).
- For oily skin mix 1/4 of castor oil and 3/4 of jojoba oil.
Gently massage your face in the evening with the oil mix, then put a slightly warm damp washcloth on your face for about a minute and take away the excess oil with a cotton pad.
Cleansing
Finally, castor oil can also help to cleanse the skin of dead skin cells that are clogging the sebaceous glands. Rubbing castor oil on your face helps to pull out impurities in the pores. This can help to decrease breakouts on the skin that are often caused by these clogged glands. For this method, massage castor oil into the skin and then wash it off with warm, soapy water. And there is more…
You can even use your stash of castor oil for thicker eyebrows!
Rub some castor oil into your eyebrows each night before you go to bed to nourish and thicken. It will even stimulate the growth of hair so, if you have made a mistake and over-plucked your eyebrows, help is at hand. After a couple of weeks of regular castor oil massages, your eyebrows will become thicker. You can then shape them again. ** Always be sure to do a skin test before using anything new by applying a few drops on the inside of your arm. While treating your skin in this natural way, don’t neglect to get rid of age spots at the same
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