Safe, Natural Alternative Ingredients to Hydrate, Moisturize & Protect Skin
There are many healthful plant-based oils that can effectively hydrate and moisturize your skin without exposing you or the environment to any danger. For the best possible results, I always recommend products made with vegetable and nut oils like Coconut, High-Oleic Safflower or Sunflower, Extra Virgin Olive, Almond, or Avocado; and Shea or Cocoa Butter, as their primary base. Each of these oils has its unique characteristics and benefits and they are often combined to enhance or augment a product’s effectiveness. For optimal safety and efficacy, the oils should be certified organic, raw and unprocessed, or subject to minimal processing as the latter can destroy much of the oil’s nutritive value and increase the likelihood of rancidity.
Keep in mind that the oils that most closely resemble our skin’s natural oil (sebum), are the ones that will produce the best results for your skin and your overall health. They also tend to be more stable, with a considerably longer shelf life than most other oils because their chemical structure and composition are different. The two oils that most closely resemble your sebum are Jojoba (pronounced ho-HO-ba) and Virgin Coconut.
Let’s talk about sebum for a minute here so you get a clearer picture of why these oils make superior skin care ingredients. Sebum is secreted by your oil glands (sebaceous glands), which are typically located at the root of every hair, as well as in other places throughout the body. This oil is very important to skin health. It softens and lubricates the skin and hair and prevents the skin from drying and cracking. It also has anti-microbial properties that protect the skin from infection and damage.
Many factors (living in dry or windy climates or higher altitudes are one example) can lead to excessively dry skin, where the sebum you secrete is simply not enough to do the job and additional moisturizers are needed. By the same token, overactive sebaceous glands leading to excessively oily (and acne-prone) skin, can sometimes be a sign of an oil deficiency in the body. As counter-intuitive as that may sound, if your body isn’t getting enough Essential Fatty Acids (EFAs) from food or supplementation, it can respond by over-producing and secreting sebum to counteract the potential harm or damage to your skin that can come from this deficiency.
At the beginning of the month for the next couple of months, I’ll be sharing with you the background, history, specific benefits, and interesting facts about a variety of natural alternative ingredients you can use to safely moisturize and protect your skin.
