The past winter, I experimented with blending a homemade facial oil. After a few trials and errors, this recipe turned out smelling delicious (thought not very strong) and my face seemed to love it.
Some oils I tried included Macadamia nut oil, Pomegranate seed oil and Hemp seed oil. I tried using them individually, to see how my skin would react. It was fun to experience the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) differences between the oils. Macadamia nut oil for example, is quite slick and smooth, compared to hemp oil. My skin would look a tad too shiny during the day, so I bumped it to night care, body care and hair care. It smells lovely, almost like Nutella. Pomegranate oil is expensive and apparently a power-house of wrinkle-fighting goodness. One of nature’s very own anti-aging skin care products. On my face it was still a bit rich at this time, but I will surely give it another try. Hemp oil was nice, I’ll experiment more with this one as well. Hemp oil is a fragile one though, and seems to become rancid rather quickly. Not that you would feel that on your face, but I suppose you would smell it. I ended up eating the rest of my bottle, so it wouldn’t get the chance to go bad. 😉 It tasted delicious. I know all of these oils are great, but somehow they didn’t fit the specific needs of my skin at that particular time. Not as perfectly as the Rosehip oil did.
When trying Rosehip oil (on its own) on my face, something just clicked. My skin felt very soft, silky and nourished. With an application of Rosehip oil before bed, my face looked more plump in the morning, and I swear it had a different glow. It’s just as great for daytime use. Of all the oils I tried, Rosehip oil was best at sinking straight in to the skin. My face looked luminous and both the redness and flakiness disappeared.There is just something about it. Exactly what my skin needed.
Rosehip oil – for now – was ‘the one’.
I wanted to add some essential oils and create a lightly scented aromatherapy blend. One with additional healing properties, that wouldn’t overwhelm my skin. The Rosehip oil seemed to be doing enough good on its own to be the main star of this homemade facial oil anyways!
“Rosehip Face Oil Blend” – The Recipe
Fill a little 1 oz bottle with rosehip oil, almost all the way to the top.
Add one drop of each of these essential oils:
- Cypress
- Patchouli
- Vetiver
- Niaouli
- Manuka
- Cananga Odorata / Ylang Ylang
- Lavender
- Carrot Seed
- Rosewood
- Myrrh
- Frankincense
- Ho Wood
After the concoction has been allowed to set for a while, the essential oil most noticeably present is Vetiver, followed by perhaps a whiff of Patchouli. The fragrance of this facial oil is very discrete though – nothing too overwhelming, if you ask me. The idea was to add a little extra for those areas that may need it, while at the same time keeping this homemade facial oil recipe rather general, and therefore versatile. Frankincense, Myrrh, Carrot seed and Cananga or Ylang Ylang essential oil are good against aging and wrinkles, Cypress helps with varicose veins and couperosis. Niaouli, Manuka and Patchouli are great against acne (in a gentle way), but also good for all skin types in general. Lavender, Rosewood, Cananga and Myrrh are wonderful multi-purpose essential oils as well.
Almost all ingredients for this Rosehip facial oil recipe can be found at my favorite supplier Mountain Rose Herbs.
The only item I couldn’t find at Mountain Rose Herbs was Rosewood essential oil. Hmm… isn’t that ironic? I got mine from a local store. You could just leave out the Rosewood, or replace it with Juniper berry if your skin is normal to oily/acne prone, Sandalwood for dry/mature skin and – ahem – Rose essential oil if money really isn’t an issue. There are so many essential oils with fabulous aromatherapeutic skin care properties, that I could easily have dropped in ten more. That would have been crazy. I decided to limit myself at twelve.
If you prefer to go hunting for supplies in the jungle of Amazon
Obviously, this recipe is only interesting if you have a large collection of essential oils already. Buying twelve essential oils, just to use one drop of each is a bit extravagant… unless you’ve always wanted to start a collection. In that case, these twelve essential oils are probably my favorite ones for skin care and a great place to start.
So, perhaps you…
- have been an aromatherapy skin care enthusiast for years
- have been asking for essential oils for birthdays and Christmases
- and have most of these in your treasure trove already. Yup, like me. 😉
If not, getting all these ingredients at once (in the smallest available quantities) at Mountain Rose Herbs would be around US $ 240 (rough estimate). That would give leave you with 8 oz of precious homemade Rosehip Facial Oil, and a collection of essential oils to use in other aromatherapy projects. Still – quite a splurge! Which is why I would like to suggest some alternatives here, ways to let your face benefit from the goodness of Rosehip oil that (when compared to the recipe above) are more simple & less expensive.
Alternatives to this Rosehip Facial Oil Recipe
Alternative 1
Just plain Rosehip oil, certified organic, without any frills. Why the heck not see what this oil does for your skin on its own? After all, you can always add some essences later.
Alternative 2
Get the Rosehip oil, with just 1 or 2 essential oils. Depending on your skin type, pick one (or more) of the following.
- Oily skin – Niaouli – Manuka – Cananga / Ylang Ylang – Patchouli, Juniper berry – Palmarosa.
- Acne prone skin – Lavender – Niaouli – Palmarosa – Manuka – Myrrh.
- Normal skin – Cananga / Ylang Ylang – Lavender – Rosewood.
- Anti-Aging – Frankincense – Carrot seed – Cananga / Ylang Ylang – Myrrh – Rose – Sandalwood.
Alternative 3
If you’re not all that attached to making something yourself, just grab one of these lovely facial oils. No fuss, no hassle. No dripping on the kitchen counter either.
- Rosehip oil is one of the key ingredients in Annmarie Gianni’s Anti-Aging Facial Oil. You can order a trial size with two other organic skincare mini’s for ten bucks. This is a wonderful organic facial oil, made with many other botanical ingredients.
- Natural skincare brand Trilogy has an entire skin care line based on Rosehip oil. Their pure certified organic Rosehip oil on Amazon
is available for around $ 25 (international shoppers check out LoveLula, $ 28 and free worldwide shipping). Uhmm… The one thing I don’t really understand, is why anyone would pay this amount for a 20 ml dropper bottle of pure Rosehip oil (which is about 2/3 oz) when you can get 8 oz of certified organic Rosehip oil for roughly the same price at Mountain Rose Herbs.
- Speaking of which, Mountain Rose also offers some ready-made facial oils. For a blend of Rosehip oil and a few other (essential) oils, check out the ‘Facial Oil Wild Rose‘ and in the ‘Facial Oil Classic Rose‘. These facial oils are rather simple compared to Annmarie Gianni’s, but made with a few wonderful essential oils nonetheless. At $ 13 and $ 17 for 1 oz, both are pleasantly affordable. I look forward to trying them sometime soon.