How to pick face oils based on skin type part 2

Today, I wanna go over some key face oils that you can incorporate into your daily routine based on the skin concerns you have. There is another video I have made about how to pick quality oils based on their extraction method so you can get the most for your bucks. If you haven’t watched it already, I encourage you to do so. That way, you have a full understanding.

Alright, this was a bit tough to categorize into dry, oily and combination skin types. So what I did was to categorize them by the mostly discussed skin concerns I hear about such as compromised skin barrier, acne prone skin, uneven skintone, dry skin and fine lines.

With that, the first category is Damaged skin or compromised skin barrier:

When you have compromised stratum corneum, it could be challenging to find products that don’t aggravate your situation. Compromised skin is a lot more sensitive than skin with intact barrier. So oils that help heal compromised skin are:

Sunflower oil, moringa, avocado, squalene, jojoba and cranberry.

Sunflower seed oil is extracted from the seeds of the sunflower plant. It contains long chain fatty acids such as linoleic, linolenic, oleic and stearic which are great emollients. Research demonstrates that natural oils with higher linoleic to oleic acid ratio are more effective for lipid barrier repair. In a head to head study where olive oil was compared with sunflower seed oil, olive oil was shown to damage the skin's barrier while the sunflower was found to enhance it. This is due to the high linoleic (up to 70%) content of sunflower seed oil. This high proportion of linoleic acid makes sunflower effective in improving the stratum corneum even for compromised skin conditions such as atopic dermatitis. 

The Uses of sunflower oil include:

• Enhance stratum corneum integrity
• Prevent transepidermal water loss (TEWL)
• Reduce erythema (redness) and
• Accelerate wound healing

Moringa is native to South Asia, where it grows in the Himalayan foothills but is widely cultivated across the tropics. Nine species occur in the eastern regions of Ethiopia, northern Kenya, and Somalia, of which eight are endemic to Africa.

All parts of this plant, from root to seeds, are used for various purposes due to its rich phytochemistry dating back to 150 B.C. Moringa contains more than 40 known antioxidants, carotene, vitamin C, vitamin B, vitamin A, carotenoids, and gallic acid. It also contains minerals such as Calcium, Copper, Iron, Potassium, Magnesium, Manganese and Zinc.

Traditionally, it is heavily used as a food supplement, as an alternative medicine and skin revitalizer.

Skin uses:

• Reduce transepidermal water loss
• Reduce fine lines
• Smooth skin texture
• Free-radical scavenger
• Control sebum production
• Overall skin vitality

Avocado fruit tree is believed to have originated from Mexico and Central America.

Some of the phytochemical present in avocado include β-carotene, tocopherol (vitamin E), ascorbic acid (vitamin C), thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, pyridoxine, and folic acid. 

Avocado  oil is cold pressed from the fleshy fruit pulp. It contains high concentrations of lipids that help to condition and soften skin. 

Uses:

• Wound healing
• Moisturizing
• Heals chapped and cracked skin

Squalane is the hydrogenated form of squalene. Squalene is naturally found in the lipid layers of the skin, compromising about 13% of the sebum. It is a precursor of metabolic intermediates in the physiological synthesis of sterols. What does that mean? It helps to make chholestrol that the skin loves and needs to maintain its integrity.

Squalane is a proven antioxidant, anti-aging, hydrating and softening oil. Its light consistency helps it to easily absorb in to the skin for a smooth & silky results.

It can be derived from sugarcane or olives. The olive derived is superior in quality than the commonly found sugarcane derived version squalene and not as widely available as the sugarcane version. If you are interested in this, Askalite has the olive derived one on this website.

Squalane Uses: 

• Antioxidant
• Enhances skin elasticity
• Helps with fine lines
• Deeply hydrates
• Softens and smooths skin surface

Jojoba is an always green woody bush native to the deserts of North and Central America but it is cultivated in other countries such as in Argentina, Chile, India, Tunisia, the Palestinian territories and Egypt as well. Traditionally, Native Americans and Mexicans used extracts from crushed jojoba seeds to treat eczema, sunburn, wounds, hair loss, headache and sores.

The oil is produced from jojoba seeds and widely used in the pharmaceutical as well as cosmetics industry. Jojoba is almost glycerin-free and comprises around 50% wax esters, quite uncommon for a natural oil. For this reason, it is often referred to as liquid wax rather than oil. This is also a feature that makes it a close match to natural sebum composition. Compromised skin conditions can benefit from it due to these characteristics. 

Other important compounds found in jojoba oil include γ-gamma-tocopherol and α-alpha-tocopherol. Both of these help to mop free radicals. 

Skin uses:

• Skin repair
• Restore compromised skin barrier (from psoriasis, AD, rosacea, seborrheic dermatitis)
• Improve acne and wounds
• Excellent occlusive/Prevents transepidermal water loss (TEWL)

Cranberry is a well studied berry packed with antioxidants, fatty acids and polyphenolic derivatives. It has about 67% polyunsaturated and 8% saturated fatty acid composition. The linoleic acid proportion is between 38-45% and its alpha-linolenic acid ranges between 22-30%. It also has balanced omega 3, omega 6 and omega 9 composition which makes it unique.  

Uses:

• Wound healing
• Skin recovery
• Antioxidant

Now moving on to the next category which is uneven skintone or hyperpigmentation, we find oils such as rosehip, Abyssinian oil and sunflower backed by research to help in this department. I have already covered sunflower in the Compromised skin category so we will look at rosehip and Abyssinian oil closely.

Rose hips are pseudo-fruits found on the Rosa plant. The hips have been used traditionally for medicinal purposes because of the bioactive compounds that are known to have a high level of antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. 

Now like I talked about in my other video, not all rosehip oils are created equal. So when buying rosehip, you wanna make sure it says Cold-pressed, Rosehip seed oil. Also, if you are trying to get premium rosehip oil that is cold-pressed exclusively from the seeds of the hips, check out this website. The oil contains 40-56% linoleic acid (omega-6), 20-30% α-linoleic acid (omega-3) and 14-20% oleic acid. It is also rich in phenols, vitamins B, C, E and carotenoids.  

Uses

• Moisturize and soften
• Sooth inflammation
• Help with uneven skin-tone
• Wound healing

Crambe abyssinica is a native plant from Ethiopia. You know I am Ethiopian so I get excited when talking about ingredients that originated from there. Well, according to archeology, it’s a place where humankind originated from so I’ll leave it at that.

Back to oils: Oil is extracted from the Crambe seeds either through mechanical pressing or using organic solvents. Like I said, you want cold pressed oils whenever you can afford it because they retain the phytochemical composition of this the plants.

Abyssinian oil is comprised of monounsaturated fatty acids and antioxidants like phytosterols, tocopherols, carotenoids and chlorophyll. 

Uses:

• Absorbs without a greasy feel to soften skin
• Helps to smooth and refine the skin.
• Antioxidant

Next we will look at dry skin. In this category, we find Jojoba, sunflower, rosehip, meadowfoam, rice bran, marula, moringa, pomegranate, Abyssinian and cranberry to be superior in conditioning and softening dry skin. Askalite has an elixir that has exactly all of these in one product which you can check out on this website. Also, the website has ingredients gallery where you can read about each and every ingredient in great detail. Hope you appreciate that.

For fine lines and UVA/UVB protection, the berry oils are in general fantastic. Just make sure you buy cold-pressed oils so you are getting the good plant chemicals that can do that for you. So, pomegranate, cranberry, blueberry are wonderful. But also, moringa, argan, rice bran, meadowfoam and Abyssinian are potent antioxidants. One thing to remember is, if you moisturize and use antioxidant oils, you are also softening and protecting the skin from TEWL. If you are reducing TEWL then you are inevitability getting supple skin with less fine lines. So these things aren’t mutually exclusive and have a very blurry line.

Now for acne prone skin, you will remember that oils with a higher HLB value tend to be non-comodogenic if you have watched part 1 of this video series. So you want to reach for oils such as argan oil and squalane. But Research shows jojoba and Abyssinian oil are excellent alternatives due to the unique chemical structure these two have. Other options are rosehip, marula and the powerful moringa. Oh and also tee tree oil which is an essential oil. Tee tree oil is pretty concentrated and I’d not recommend applying it directly to your skin but when incorporated in skincare products, it shows a good antimicrobial as well as against open and closed comedones. In fact there is a study done in Australia that compares 5% tea tree oil with 5% benzylperoxide. Benzyperoxide is an effective ingredient used to clear acne so it’s the gold standard of acne treatment. So, in that study, tea tree was competitive and showed effectiveness and even with less side effects. The study does say that the tea tree was slower to work but that’s about it. So, for all the haters of essential oils, sorry to tell ya, but tea tree DOES work. Honestly, I actually don’t understand where this hate towards natural ingredients is coming from. If you ask me or anyone in the pharmaceutical industry actually working in drug development, they will tell you there would be no pharmaceutical industry without plants. Like plants are where pharmaceutical companies where born. For anyone questioning if plants work, please look where opioids came from. There was nothing synthetic until 1911, so to discount the vastness of nature is something I’ll never understand. Oh, and no-it’s not old school to believe in natural origin treatments because many of the anticancer as well as other drugs in pipelines right now are inspired or directly mimicking what’s already in nature. Ok! I could go on and on about this so let’s stop here and see how to use natural oils.

Because oils are thick generally, unless you’re talking about squalane or argan, you really want to apply them right after you wash your face while it is still damp. That allows for your skin to absorb it. Applying on dry skin does condition the top layers of your skin but won’t be as effective. If you are using them as part of your routine like if you have lotion, emulsion, serum, cream, gel that you want to continue using, make sure the oil is the last step in that process. As a rule of thumb, always apply your skin products from lightest to thickest. Although oil is liquid, it’s still 100% lipophilic so it’s all the way to the right in the spectrum of thin and thick phases of skincare products. So for example, lets say you love your essence and can’t imagine a day without using it. Then you want to apply your essence first and follow by your oil. Applying essence or serum or even cream over an oily skin is a complete waste of products. Some people like to mix their oils with their lotion/serum/cream which is perfectly fine. Uh, I think that is it.

I hope you found this video helpful. Do hit thumbs up and let me know if you liked it. For more information, head over to www.askaliteformula.com and check out the ingredients list where you can learn more about each and every oil I mentioned today.