Leave The Cooking Oils In The Kitchen

There seems to be an influx lately in people using straight oil (particularly coconut oil) in place of a moisturizer. Coconut oil has been shown to have all kinds of awesome benefits for the body: It's good for your brain health, it can help you lose weight, can help prevent infections, lower your risk for heart disease, and improves moisture content in skin and hair. 

So here's the thing you may not know: Skin care products should never be "one size fits all". Coconut oil is actually extremely comedogenic (pore clogging) and should not be used on oily or acne prone skin. Using coconut oil on these skin types can actually make skin conditions even worse, cause even more inflammation in the skin and create a perfect breeding ground for acne. 

So those of you with dry skin are thinking "I don't get breakouts and I use coconut oil all the time, so I'm good right?" True, for you it won't necessarily cause breakouts but over time, especially for those of you who are starting to notice your skin is aging, I bet it still doesn't feel as smooth and hydrated as it once did. Am I right? This is because the oil cannot penetrate beyond the epidermis (surface layers of the skin) due to it's large molecular structure. This means you're really only "moisturizing", or as we Estheticians like to call it, "lubricating" those surface layers, which is mostly just keratinized (dead) skin cells anyways! Oils also create an occlusive layer on the skin meaning it traps whatever moisture is in the skin, but it also doesn't let anything out. This means your skin cannot breathe so to speak and cannot perform it's natural functions. Again, this results in inflammation and a compromised skin barrier. Another thing that we are noticing in the treatment room, is that the skin doesn't seem to be able to effectively perform it's natural exfoliation process either, so the skin has a rough texture due to that layer of keratinized cells sitting, sort of "stuck" on the surface of the skin. As we age, our skin is already becoming less effective at exfoliating itself which is why exfoliating products are so important! (Hint: Try the Strawberry Rhubarb Dermafoliant from Eminence Organics for gentle exfoliation.)

Going back to my point about skin care products taking a "one size fits all" approach.... There is a reason why professional skin care products have several ingredients in them, and those ingredients are processed to be "chirally correct", meaning they can actually be effective on the skin (the same reason you can't just rub a carrot on your face and expect the vitamins from the carrot to be transferred to the skin). The skin has several different needs in order to function perfectly, and as we age, those needs increase. Using one single "ingredient" cannot possibly give your skin all the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, fatty acids, ceramides etc etc etc that it needs! Using one single ingredient you may get the benefits of that one ingredient but your skin will still be malnourished. It's like if you ate broccoli all day everyday. We all know broccoli is awesome for you, but you need carbohydrates and protein and all that other good stuff too! So like I said earlier, if coconut oil can lock in moisture, we first need ingredients that are going to penetrate the dermis (deeper layers of the skin) and provide long term hydration for the skin. Ingredients that can penetrate the dermis is where corrective, results-oriented skin care begins. 

So if you're looking for effective, results oriented skin care, but you still love coconut oil, try the Coconut Age Corrective Moisturizer from Eminence Organics for a better alternative and leave the cooking oils in the kitchen. :)