For most people moisturizers should be not be necessary because
sufficient oil, secreted from the sebaceous glands in the form of sebum
will attract water from within the body. These compounds then react
with an emulsifier which we naturally produce in the skin, cholesterol,
forming a protective film known as the hydrolipid mantle. Cholesterol
isn’t all bad. This oily mantle in the upper layer of the skin, if you
like, our own personally formulated and produced moisturizing film,
works like a team of night club bouncers by allowing water, toxins and
carbon dioxide to leave the body while keeping water and pathogens from
entering the body and infecting the skin.
Cold press plant oils, such as argan oil, oilve and sesame oil have been the most precious of commodities since trade began.
However in a person with a dry skin type, the hydrolipid mantle of the
skin lacks sufficient oil to bind sufficient water to keep the skin
moist. This may be worse in areas of the skin where there are no oil
glands such as on the lips. Without the proper management dry skin can
look dull flaky and cracked, and feel uncomfortable, itchy and tight.
Dry skin is less able to perform its protective functions and as the
structure deteriorates, the skin becomes more prone to sensitivity,
allergic reactions, infections and premature aging. Like you wanted to
hear that bit!
.
Dietary factors almost certainly play a role in the quality of our
skin, as the water and oil present in our skins should originally find
its way in our body as food. Certain vitamins, minerals and oils are
essential for healthy skin. The skin likes it when we eat Vitamins A,
B5, C, E, F; the minerals zinc, copper, sulphur; essential fatty acids;
and various other oily compounds from the plant kingdom.
.
It is best if we can obtain the nutrients through our diet, but if no
balance can be obtained between diet and any environmental factors
which disturb the hydroliphic mantle of the skin – our frequent hand
washing and use of oil stripping detergents, it is necessary to apply
oil from the outside. The ancient civilizations in Egypt, Sumeria,
Babylon, Crete, China, and later the Greeks and Romans always used cold
pressed vegetable oils, but nowadays using oil seems to be the
exception. Oil use continues across Arabia and India, well and pretty
much where ever oil bearing plants and humans are found on the planet.
Luckily, if the diet does not contain sufficient oil, cold pressed
plant oil can supply the skin with crucial oil compounds, helping the
skin to build its natural protective film.
.
Moisturizers were only mass produced at the beginning of the last
century after scientists had begun synthesizing oils with long names in
laboratories, often using base ingredients we would not normally put on
the skin such as petroleum oil, pig fat, lard, fish and whale oil.
Scientists also had to get busy and synthesize emulsifiers and
preservatives too, because most commercial moisturizers, besides
containing synthetic oil and water, will have to contain these too. The
emulsifiers enable the oil and water to bind together, and as soon as
water is added to a cosmetic, preservatives become necessary.
.
Cold pressed plant oils contain their own natural preservatives. Nearly
all of the emulsifiers and preservatives used in commercial cosmetics
are artificial. Moisturizers contain water in order to add water from
the outside of the skin, but the hydolipid mantle while allowing water
and water soluble toxins out of the body, will not let water in. I am
glad about that, because if I went for a long soak in the bath, I might
end up the shape and consistency of a water balloon. The water in
moisturizer evaporates and doesn’t penetrate the skin. The skin uses
water from the inside the body.
.
After the widespread adoption of commercial soap and the more recently
acquired habit of showering or bathing in hot chlorinated water
everyday, the moisturizer industry took off. Many people have
subsequently forgotten about the virtues of oil for reducing dry skin.
Yet all across the world in rural areas, households are equipped with
mill stones and women proudly make their own oil. I am currently
keeping an eye on my olive tree, but it is only three feet tall!
.
Tips for managing a dry skin
.
1/ Exfoliate the layers of dead skin. It is impossible to
moisturize dead, flaky skin. Use exfoliating soap such as savon noir to
make the exfoliation more effective.
2/ Introduce strip washing as the primary washing method, showering or
bathing once a week. The idea here is to retain your natural oils and
to reduce your exposure to chlorine, known to dry skin.
3/ Reduce the temperature of the water used in washing. It is best to
wash the face with cold water. Yes, I thought you’d like that one!
4/ Replace conventional soap with rhassoul clay. Spend longer massaging
very dry areas of skin with clay while washing. This really does make a
huge difference.
5/ Try using a cold pressed natural vegetable oil, also called a
carrier or base oil rather than a moisturizer on the body. Experiment
with different oils until you find one you like. Begin with oils that
you would accept as food ingredients, i.e. ones which are still named
after the plants they are made from. Oils rich in linoleic acid (a
compound found in natural plant oils) are very beneficial for dry skins
and they include safflower oil, sunflower oil, wheat germ oil or argan
oil. A cold pressed plant oil is rich in vitamins, some of which act as powerful antioxidants. Then there are the essential fatty acids
which we can not make in the body. The level of moisturization of the
skin is directly proportional to the levels of essential fatty acids in
the skin. Plant oils also contain unsaturated oils which are anti-microbial helping to prevent common skin infections and components called unsaponifiables, so called because these fats can not be used for making soap. These are the super antioxidants.
6/ If you must use a formulated moisturizer, choose one which contains
natural oils over synthetic oils. Synthetic oils have really long
unpronounceable names and don’t sound very appetizing. Avoid skin
products containing petroleum, mineral oil, liquid paraffin, Parafinnum
liquidum, these are all the same thing. Petroleum oil is cheap
ingredient, a by product of the petrol refining industry. The skin can
not assimilate petroleum oil. This oil is widespread in baby products
(baby oil), moisturizers, lip moisturizers and it is even fed to cats
to help with fur ball problems. Brushing the cat is the kindest way to
help it make fur balls. Petroleum oil produces a temporary moisturising
effect, however prolonged contact is implicated in destroying the
natural oily barrier of the skin, in destroying the vitamins needed by
the skin, and guess what, in causing dryness and rashes. I think I had
one once around my mouth. Petroleum oil can be contaminated with
polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are potential
human carcinogens. If you really can’t contemplate the switch from
moisturizer to oil, then try making your own moisturizer with a plant
oil! Keep anything oily in glass bottle or jar, as oils will leach
plastic.
7/ Moisturize face, neck and hands with a well absorbing oil as often
as necessary. Argan oil is the finest and fastest absorbing oil of
which I know and the highest in antioxidants. Clicking here will give you a chance to read more about argan oil and to purchase some.
New moisturizers are hitting the shops everyday, often with dubious,
untraceable and partially tested ingredients. Humans have had thousands
of years to work out which how best to hydrate the skin with oils.
Among the Phoenicians, the sea traders from the Bronze Age, (active
from about 3200 years ago) there was a booming trade through the
Moroccan port of Essaouira in precious argan oil and urns of olive and
sesame oil were rowed and sailed all over the Mediterranean.
8/ Investigate how dietary improvements such a Palaeolithic, raw food,
macro-biotic, vegetarian, vegan or alkaline diets can provide nutrients
essential for healthy skin. Or just eat your normal diet with oily fish
twice a week, walnuts and other foods rich in healthy oils being sure
to obtain the right balance of omega fats. Reducing exposure to
alcohol, smoking, sugar and refined foods will help. It would help me
too!
9/ Protect your hands from water, detergents and soaps. Once the
natural sebum is stripped it takes the skin between 5 and 8 hours to
naturally restore the hydrolipic balance. Luckily, the skin has the
good sense to accept cold pressed plant oils when they are applied
externally and put them to good use. Become an expert in using your
chosen oil. Work out the minimum you need and when best to apply it.
For example if you apply to much moisturizer or oil on the face at
night, then the skin will have trouble getting rid of water and the
skin under the eyes will appear puffy in the morning, inversely if you
apply less than you need, then the skin will still feel taught in the
morning. It’s a question of finding the right balance and only you can
work it out. Most people prefer a fine (very free flowing oil) which
can be rapidly absorbed by the skin and one which agrees well with the
facial skin, whether using make up or not.
10/ Before putting anything on your skin or anyone else’s skin, get out
your magnifying glass and read the label. If it contains a long list of
chemical ingredients think twice before using it. Nearly one half of
the emulsifiers used in conventional cosmetics have caused skin
reactions, and many of the preservatives used in conventional
moisturizers have been reported as carcinogens. Be aware that chemical
products don’t just pollute the bodies of humans, but they also end up
in the water sources and indirectly contaminate the planet. Vegetable
oils will quite happily biodegrade.
.
What is clear is that before the use of moisturizer, oil was used for
skin care. Millstones, necessary for oil production appeared during the
Neolithic period, when agriculture took off about 9000 years ago. Oil
rich seeds might need milling for eight hours before a single litre of
oil is expressed. Oil production, even involving a millstone is a very
labour intensive. Hand milling was the in thing until machine presses
were invented several hundred years ago, and still much oil production
around the world is conducted at the household level using a stone
mill. Oils could in theory be made with a more basic pestle and mortar
type tool kit, but again, it would have been even more work, so if oils
were produced before the Neolithic, then it must have been in very
small quantities for more or less immediate use. Earlier than this, it
would seem more likely that the whole of the oil bearing seed of the
plant part would have been pulverized and used rubbed on the skin, but
it could be a little inconvenient for some of us today if we do not
have our own gathering range. Primates extract their own plant oils
directly by rubbing their skin against the plant source. Certainly
through much of the Ice Age, the population must also have made use of
animal fat such as goose fat, as much as for insulation and water
proofing as well as for keeping the skin supple. While this would
impose difficulties for the majority of us city dwellers, we can be
grateful that cold pressed plant oil also comes in bottles.
Further resources
The Cosmetics Safety Data Base provides a search feature on the toxicity of common cosmetics ingredients.
Smeh, Nikolaus, 1994, Health Risks in Today’s Cosmetics: The handbook for a lifetime of healthy skin and hair, Alliance, VA
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Global responsible investment research specialist EIRIS, Centre for Australian Ethical Research (CAER)
Brief Histories of Almost Anything is the sort of book you keep coming back to again and again. It contains fifty articles (or ‘savvy slices of our global past’) covering a huge range of subjects from A Short History of Food to A Brief History of Megalomania, from The Rich History of Pan-Africanism to Britain’s ‘Adventures’ In Ireland. Each article, written by past and present co-editors of New Internationalist magazine, aims to give a whistle-stop introduction to its subject. Whilst there were one or two that didn’t particularly grab my attention, for example A Short History of Architecture wasn’t really up my street, most of the chapters were fascinating and either introduced me to completely new subjects or gave me a fresh perspective on more familiar ground.