Why Oil is Good for Your Skin

Oil releases oil. It is a very strange irony, and hard to wrap the brain around, but it is a fact: it takes oil to remove oil. And with that law of organic chemistry, we’ll jump right into the point of this conversation…

During those pesky, hormonal-laden teen years, I remember our best beauty tip for acne: wash your face with Dial soap (it WAS antibacterial, after all!), scrub it with a handful of salt, then saturate it with alcohol, forsaking oil of ANY kind for fear of breakouts, and wait for the glowing results. ALL the popular kids were doing it!

Of course, not only did this NOT work, but for those poor souls with REAL acne problems, it flared their faces like tomatoes, increasing their self-consciousness and decreasing their social invitations…

What we needed back then was a little bit of knowledge and a whole lot of common sense. Too much oil starts a par-TAY on the face with bacteria, and not enough oil makes the body overproduce oil, which starts a par-TAY on the face with bacteria. (You see where I’m going with this?)

Many people today still perpetuate the myth that if you have oily skin, you must stay away from oil-based facial products. But the opposite is actually true: If you have oily skin, you must use beneficial oils (like jojoba, sunflower, olive) to break down, “emulsify” the oxidized oil that has been secreted by your body on your face.

Imagine with me a brick wall. The surface of the wall is composed of two ingredients: brick and mortar. Your face is very similar to a brick wall- the outer layers of the skin, the Stratum Corneum, are made up of two properties: 25-30 thinner-than-paper layers of dead skin (brick), and a surrounding “lipid layer” (mortar) of oil that used to be healthy when it was underlying, but has come to the surface and hardened, losing any of its moisturizing properties.

These layers of dead skin and oil are meant to be sloughed away, and when they are not, they block the pores, making the skin susceptible to  attacks by the sun and pollutants in the air. All of this, over time, equals dull looking, wrinkled skin. It can also mean acne and other skin problems.

This is where the mystery comes in: In order to effectively and healthfully remove the brick wall, so to speak, you must use the very thing that you are trying to rid your skin of: oil…and an exfoliant for the dead skin.  When you apply a very beneficial and REAL oil (not a synthetic emulsifier or mineral oil- they truly make the problem worse), and massage in a circular motion, you soften the hardened oil that is holding the bricks together, and break down its composition.

Add a gentle exfoliant, like raw sugar (which converts to glycolic acid during the process, a natural alpha hydroxy acid), jojoba beads, or even a wash cloth, and you release the dead skin. You also increase the circulation to the skin, stimulating new, healthy cellular production.This clears out the pores, leaving your skin radiant and glowing.  And most importantly, your skin will be perfectly hydrated. This was the original goal when your skin was overproducing the oil you stripped away every time you scoured your with a harsh cleanser (and avoided moisturizer).

So the next time you are tempted to go back to your old-school ways of cleansing your face, think of a brick wall, and then imagine it covered in zits and wrinkles. That’s what you’ll look like if you keep it up 

Keri Lehmann is a licensed cosmetologist who used her knowledge of skin care to create a line of body care products made with REAL ingredients that the body recognizes and knows what to do with…Savvy Bohème: Welcome to the Most Authentic Moisturizing Event of Your Day.