When our skin is balanced, it produces natural oil, essential for self-purification and age delay. Conventional skincare avoiding essential oils disrupts this balance, leading to issues like clogged pores and acne. Embracing beneficial lipids can heal and detoxify, trapping moisture for a healthy glow. Understanding the difference between carrier oils and essential oils is crucial for selecting skin care wisely, especially considering the impact of essential oils on skin.
Tragically, conventional skin care that avoids oils promotes sebaceous gland and oil dysregulation. If you have clogged pores and acne then your skin especially needs oils to heal and detox. The use of the beneficial lipids below will trap existing water in the skin and this alone is often enough to create a detox healing effect. The main reason that oils have received a bad reputation is that they are misunderstood much like our skin.
In addition, it is critical to understand the difference between carrier oils and essential oils. The vast majority of essential oils are non-beneficially astringent or downright irritants. Knowing the few essential oils that are friendly to facial skin can revolutionize the way you select skin care products forever.
The Best Natural Carrier Oils For Skin
- Shea Butter: Dense with a neutral smell.
- Cocoa Butter: Dense and smells like chocolate, yum!
- Animal Tallow: Penetrates deeply, mimics our own natural oil & low allergy risk.
- Evening Primrose: Has a very balancing effect.
- Buckthorn: Has a very balancing effect.
- Castor: Affordable & low allergy risk.
- Borage: Has a very balancing effect.
- Coconut: Widely available, affordable & simple.
- Almond: Makes a great body massage oil base.
- Jojoba: Mimics our own natural oils, will not go rancid & low allergy risk.
- Olive: Widely available, affordable, simple & low allergy risk.
The Best Essential Oils For Skin
- Rose: Has a hydrating effect & smells like heaven.
- Blue Chamomile: Strong anti-inflammatory effect.
- Carrot Seed: Has nourishing properties.
- Sandalwood: Has a balancing effect when used in tiny amounts.
- Frankincense: Has a balancing effect when used in tiny amounts.
How Carrier Oils Are Used In Skin Care vs Essential Oils
Carrier oils are often referred to as base oils as they are the body of the product consisting of being the main ingredient. Essential oils are highly potent and only used in very small amounts and contain volatile distilled essences that are not oily at all. The overuse of essential oils is a common holistic skincare misstep as less is more when it comes to essential oils. Often natural companies default to using these in excess because they smell so good but they are extremely irritating and much too astringent for facial skin.
These many wonderful carrier oils have been avoided over the years along with employing the astringent qualities of countless essential oils only to exasperate clogged pores and acne or at best offer a temporary solution.
Aging skin requires the optimization of hydration levels to delay wrinkles and maintain sun resilience. The biggest enemy to aging skin, aside from sun overexposure, are medical spas that are still trying to use trauma to curb aging symptoms.
Benefits Of Oils In Skin Care
Carrier oils create a physical barrier that prevents water loss for our skin. The withholding of carrier oils creates skin that is insufferably dehydrated no matter what else is being used. Chronically dehydrated skin develops wrinkles sooner, acquires blackheads and milia, is more likely to develop acne, sunburns more easily, loses collagen faster, and generally experiences accelerated aging.
Carrier oils are foundational to restoring our skin’s inborn self-purifying and age-delaying state as they increase water levels. This simple act can often catalyze a detox healing phase as our skin wants to be able to release the gunk that builds up when in a chronically dehydrated state. The real inquiry becomes…do you want to detox for the deepest healing possible for your skin or do you want to contribute to the “storage unit” effect that is happening with your skin? Often, this perfect healing response is confused with clogged pores and the healing process is routinely shut down out of lack of skin understanding.
After all, our skin is a living release organ that requires the right ratio of water and oil to detox and thrive.
Final Thoughts On Oils For Skin Care
The journey to truly understanding and caring for our skin is one of relearning and embracing its natural balance. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our skin’s natural oils are not the enemy but rather essential allies in maintaining its health and vitality.
By incorporating the right carrier oils, such as shea butter, evening primrose, and jojoba, along with select essential oils like rose and blue chamomile, we can provide our skin with the hydration it needs. Understanding the role of carrier oils as one of the foundations of skin care, and using essential oils sparingly for their potent benefits, allows us to tap into the inherent wisdom of our skin’s biology.
Let us embrace this knowledge and empower ourselves to nurture our skin’s natural detoxification and age-delaying processes, unlocking its full potential for radiant health and beauty.

About the author
I took many wrong turns when I started learning about skin at 19. The more I spent on skincare, equipment, and training, the further I felt from actually helping skin. I was frustrated with only being able to offer temporary and superficial solutions at best. What emerged from the disappointment and turmoil, I now call, The Regenerative Skin Process. Skin Harmonics is a dedicated medical fusion holistic skincare clinic that provides a root cause approach delivering lifetime skin health through medical grade skin care products, new learning, and Deep Pore Cleansing Facials.