Natural oils are the best gift you can give your hair and skin. It’s a fantastic way to be sure you know exactly what you’re using and you can choose whichever best suits your needs. Here are some of my favourite butters and oils and their benefits:
- Shea Butter a.k.a mother nature's conditioner - Shea butter is my number 1 all time favourite butter in the whole wide world, I get a pimple, shea butter, I get a burn, shea butter, my skin is dry...you get the point. My personal feelings aside, Shea Butter is one of the best natural oils out there. Shea butter is very thick and solid at room temperature but has a buttery rich consistency, it is usually yellow in colour when raw and ivory or white in colour when unrefined, refined, and ultra-refined. Shea butter is naturally rich in vitamins A, E and F, it offers UV protection and it provides extraordinary moisturizing properties, but shea butter does more than moisturize, it delivers key anti-inflammatory and anti-aging components right into the skin. Shea butter also has numerous hair benefits, including repairing damaged hair, soothing dry and itchy scalp, treating split ends and breakage and many more.
- Cocoa Butter: Cocoa butter is probably my second favourite butter, partly because it smells absolutely delicious but also because, like Shea butter, its beauty benefits are numerous. Due to its high concentration of antioxidant compounds, including oleic acid, palmitic acid, and stearic acid, it helps to neutralize free radicals throughout the body, particularly in the skin. Cocoa butter reduces the appearance of wrinkles, removes scars, moisturizes skin (and scalp), prevents skin dryness and peeling, soothes burns and rashes and reduces inflammation. It has also been widely advertised to reduce the appearance of stretch marks.
- Coconut oil: Coconut oil recently got into the limelight and has been hailed as a solution to almost anything that ails you. Clearly it isn’t but it isn’t all hype. Coconut oil is packed full of health and beauty benefits. It is highly effective on bruises because it speeds up the healing process of damaged tissues, it helps in treating various skin problems, including psoriasis, dermatitis, eczema, and other skin infections, it delays the appearance of wrinkles and sagging of skin due to its antioxidant properties. Coconut oil helps in a healthy growth of your hair and gives a shine to those strands, it is highly effective in reducing protein loss, which if unchecked can lead to various unhealthy qualities in your hair and it is an excellent conditioner and helps the re-growth process of damaged hair. It also provides the essential proteins required for nourishing and healing damaged hair.
- Jojoba Oil: (pronounced ho-ho-ba). Jojoba oil is rich in important vitamins and minerals, including vitamins E and B-complex, zinc, copper, selenium, chromium, and iodine. It is light, non-sticky, odorless, suits all skin types and has a long shelf life. A major benefit is that it plays the role of sebum and moisturizes our skin and hair when our body stops doing it naturally. Jojoba oil removes sticky buildup or excess oil, too; it keeps your oil levels balanced, which makes it a strong natural treatment for eczema as well as home remedy for acne, plus well suited for other dry-skin conditions. Jojoba oil moisturizes our skin, prevents irritations, or scaly and rough patches and doesn’t clog pores. Jojoba oil is rich in iodine, which fights harmful bacteria growth that leads to breakouts and the antioxidants present in jojoba oil soothe fine lines, wrinkles and naturally slow down other signs of aging. Jojoba oil cleanses your scalp, adds shine to your hair, conditions Hair, is excellent for dry scalp and treats oily scalp.
- Argan Oil: Often called ‘liquid gold’ is extremely rich in beneficial nutrients including fatty acids, vitamin A and vitamin E. Its properties make it particularly beneficial for the hair and skin. Argan oil is also packed with antioxidants, omega-6 fatty acids and linoleic acid. Research shows that when applied to skin, argan oil benefits include easing inflammation while moisturizing the skin, when applied externally, trocopherol from the vitamin E helps to boost cell production while promoting healthy skin and hair. Some benefits include: treating Dermatitis, serves as an acne remedy, razor bumps and burn treatment, overnight deep conditioning treatment, nail & cuticle treatment, heals dry, cracked feet, protects your hair from heat styling and repairs split ends.
- Sweet Almond Oil: This amazing oil is particularly high in vitamin E and also rich in vitamin K and essential B-complex vitamins such as riboflavin, niacin, thiamin, pantothenic acid, vitamin B6, and folate. It has high levels of omega-6 fatty acids which is excellent for strengthening hair from the roots and for supple skin. Sweet almond oil is an excellent skin lightener, so it’s a useful tool to help even skin tone and help with hyperpigmentation and other skin coloration disorders. The rejuvenating quality of vitamin E can help boost the health of your hair follicles, and increase the luster and volume of your hair. The antioxidant potential of vitamin E, certain fatty acids, and other active ingredients in almond oil neutralizes free radicals before they can cause issues like skin elasticity, wrinkles, and age spots and works amazingly to reduce puffy eyes, dark circles and crow’s feet. Sweet almond oil cures dandruff by deeply moisturizing and removing dead skin cells on the scalp and relieves inflammatory conditions by quickly stimulating the healing process and alleviating the allergic response in that part of the skin. Almond oil serves as a wonderful makeup remover as it effectively opens up the pores and ensures that all traces of makeup are gone.
- Castor oil: If you’ve ever googled how to grow your hair, I can almost guarantee that castor oil came up in the results. Castor oil has natural antibacterial and antifungal properties and is high in Vitamin E, minerals, proteins, and Omega 6 and 9 beneficial fatty acids. Its unusually high ricinoleic acid ratio makes it beneficial to skin and hair. Castor oil can be used on the scalp to help prevent and remedy hair loss as its antibacterial and antifungal properties make it beneficial against follliculitus, dandruff and scalp infections and its ricinoleic acid content helps increase circulation to the scalp and improve hair growth. Ricinoleic acid is also said to help balance scalp pH which can also help replenish the scalp’s natural oils and undo some of the damage of harsh chemical hair products. The antioxidants in castor oil also support the keratin in hair and help make hair stronger, smoother and less frizzy. Castor oil is a wonderful way to grow out your edges, get fuller eyebrows and could even help you get longer lashes over time. Castor oil is also beneficial to your skin. It is great for sport treatments for skin problems including acne, skin tags and warts, it’s a great moisturizer, although it’s best to dilute with a lighter oil as it has a very thick and sticky consistency. Another type of castor oil you may find is Jamaican Black Castor Oil. The main difference is, with JBCO, the nut is roasted and the ash is then added into the oil that has been pressed out which causes it to have the darker black tint as well as a smoked roasted scent. Some swear by this version of castor oil but I have never used it and I have seen wonderful results using the regular cold pressed castor oil.
This is by no means a conclusive lists of natural oils or of the benefits of each oil listed, I focused on the ones I like to use and just on their beauty benefits. Most of these oils have lots of health benefits as well so it could be worth looking deeper into if it's of interest to you.
Please keep in mind that when buying any of these products, make sure you look for raw/unrefined and cold pressed (castor oil) as these are the purest forms and will contain the highest benefits as they haven’t been manipulated very much from their natural states.
All our products contain one or more of these ingredients, so if you're looking for skin care or hair care products that your body would thank you for, or even just a wonderful lip balm, look no further than AdeBeauty
Here's to loving the beauty's we are and the beauty nature gives!