Speed Your Skin’s Healing Process with Essential Oils
Essential oils have a long history of use in natural skin care --These wonderful phytochemicals provide a great breadth of natural medicinal components well-known for healing damaged skin, as well as reducing the appearance of old scars from trauma and surgical wounds, acne and other incidents. Recipes Essential oil blends for these applications are gentle, safe for regular use, and have a wonderful aroma to boot. The blends are easy to make, and simple to customize for your particular needs.
Choosing the Essential Oils
There are a few primary oils used in skin repair; additional oils may be added to your liking (to improve aroma, or add further skin-supportive properties), but here, we'll concentrate just on the commonly used oils for skin damage. First, and possibly most important, is Helichrysum Italicum, also known as Everlasting. This oil with a lovely earthy aroma is distilled from the brightly-colored, daisy-like flowers of a strongly aromatic herb native to the Mediterranean region. Helichrysum is one of the most highly regarded oils in aromatherapy for it's broad range of healing properties for body tissues. It is strongly anti-inflammatory, and has a high concentration of regenerative diketones found only in this oil. It is a bit more expensive due to it's low yield in processing, but produces it's wonderful effects in very small doses.
Helichrysum: The Most Powerful Healer
Helichrysum essential oil is the cornerstone for many blends for healing the skin, and is the only one truly necessary for supporting currently healing skin damage - it should be used at appropriate concentrations with Rosehip Seed, Tamanu and Hazelnut oils, as mentioned later in this article. As noted by well-known aromatherapist Kurt Schnaubelt, "The triple unsaturated fatty acids (of Rosehip Seed oil) strengthen the cell membranes and, combined with the regnerative qualities of Everlasting oil (Helichrysum), heal wounds with minimal or no scarring".
Wound Healing Properties of Lavender
As noted above, Lavender oil is often used for skin healing. In a 50/50 blend with Tea Tree oil, it is commonly used on small cuts and scrapes to sooth and prevent infection. Lavender has anti-inflammatory properties along with tissue regenerating effects, albeit a bit more mild than Helichrysum. It does, however, have the important added benefit of a well-liked aroma that can ease anxiety for many people.
Sage for Old Scars
Next up is the essential oil distilled from the leaves of common Sage, or Salvia officinalis. Sage is used in low concentrations in very specific conditions - where the scars are old and require a little extra phytochemical power to heal. Sage oil can bring circulation to the area, and can assist the scarred area of the skin to regenerate, particularly in concert with other oils. Sage can be used in stretch mark formulas, but should only be employed post-partum because of the high thujone content of the oil.
Rosemary Stimulates Healing
Rosemary is an essential oil with a wonderful aroma that is used in many skin care blends. The Verbenone chemotype is called for here as, like Helichrysum and Lavender, contains regenerating ketones (the Cineol type does not). Rosemary will also stimulate cellular metabolism, improving the nutrition and waste cycling of skin cells.
Nutritive Essential Oils Speed Healing
Other essential oils can offer important nutrients that may speed the healing process. Most importantly, they offer carotenoids and carotenes -- natural vitamin-A-like compounds needed for increasing the strength of the healing tissue. Vitamin A is considered absolutely critical to normal skin development, and indispensable during wound healing. Carotenoids are also strong antioxidants, which can 'mop up' free radicals at the site of an injury. Two essential oils can be chosen from: Sea Buckthorn and Carrot Root. These are both found as Supercritical Carbon Dioxide extracts with deep colors, indicating the high levels of nutrients.
Antiseptics For Clean Healing
For wounds that are currently healing, a small amount of an antimicrobial oil can help the process. It can prevent redness and irritation that is the result of your body dealing with bacteria at the sight of the injury. Between 8 and 40 drops of Tea Tree per ounce of your complete formula can be added if you feel a stronger antiseptic action is necessary (Lavender and Rosemary do have moderate antimicrobial properties). A second formula without Tea Tree can be used once the wound is completely sealed.
Proper Dilution with Carrier Oils
All these oils but Lavender should be diluted in a carrier before use (Lavender CAN be used directly on the skin, but will be used in diluted form in the following blends). Many studies have shown the great efficacy of essential oils at low concentrations - so in Aromatherapy, 'less is more' is a general rule. Two highly regarded carrier or 'base' oils used for skin treatment are Rosehip seed, cold-pressed from a plant native to the mountain regions of South America, and Hazelnut oil, which is suitable for all skin types. These oils will help the essential oils absorb into the skin, and can provide their own nutritive properties. Rosehip seed contains a wealth of fatty acids, plus a compound similar in action to the pharmaceutical preparation 'Retin A'. without the drying side effects. Hazelnut oil has mild astringent properties, and will not leave the skin feeling greasy. It is appropriate even for acne prone skin (where Rosehip seed is not!). Other useful healing carrier oils are Tamanu Nut -- recently making waves as an excellent carrier for healing nearly all types of skin conditions -- and Evening Primrose, which offers nutritive and anti-inflammatory fatty acids.
Putting It Together: The Recipes
And now for a few recipes - a few simple mixtures can cover several skin-healing conditions, both for recent wounds and older scarred tissue. For the support of recent wounds, use one ounce Tamanu and one ounce Rosehip seed oils. To this, add 25 drops each of Helichrysum and Lavender essential oils, plus up to 75 drops of your choice of either Sea Buckthorn or Carrot Root - apply twice a day once the wound can get moist (wait until there is no chance of bleeding). For the improvement of appearance of old scars, keloid scars and acne scars, try the same base oils, replacing the Lavender with Sage essential oil. Use Hazelnut instead of Rosehip seed if you are still prone to an acne outbreak. Apply regularly for 3 to 6 months for best results. For the post-partum reduction of stretch marks, again to the same base oil formula, add 25 drops Sage essential oil and 25 drops Rosemary verbenone. Use this formula again for several months for best results.
So there is a few effective combinations of natural botanical ingredients that can support certain skin care conditions. Many, many more skin care formulas are available when blending essential oils - with many oils able to aid with very particular situations. If needed, a little research should go a long way in helping you find what you need. And as always with aromatherapy oils, go slowly, pay attention to your body's reactions and remember that increasing concentrations of the essential oils will not make a more effective blend. Be safe and enjoy.
The author is a co-founder of Ananda Aromatherapy Essential Oils. More information on the therapeutic use of aromatherapy can be found on their website.