by Janette Peel

Created on: August 08, 2008

Include essential oils in your daily beauty routine to keep the skin all over your body feeling clean, soft and blemish-free.

Your skin protects your body, providing a vital watertight barrier from the elements and infection. It is a living, breathing organ that needs constant care and attention to maintain a soft, supple, healthy state.

Incorporating essential oils into your skin care routine has therapeutic benefits. Antiseptic soils, such as tea tree and lemon, cleanse and heal skin infections, cuts and grazes. Anti-inflammatory essential oils (chamomile and rose) can be added to moisturizing creams to relieve sunburn and eczema.

The best way to treat your skin is to add oil to a bath, after which an aromatic body oil will easily penetrate the skin. For the face, use oils in steam (unless you have sensitive skin that's prone to broken capillaries), flower water or in cleansers and moisturizers to provide a fragrant start and finish to the day.

Essential oils are extremely useful additions to your beauty routine because they can offer you the benefits of their soothing, cleaning and refreshing properties.

To make fragrant exfoliating body scrubs add a few drops of your favorite essential oil to a sisal mitt or loofah and briskly massage all over in the shower for healthy glowing skin.

Gentle exfoliation will slough off dead skin exposing new, healthy skin. It has the added benefit of stimulating the body's circulation and promoting lymphatic drainage, helping to eliminate toxins and encouraging new cell production. The addition of a couple of drops of lemon essential oil will cool, refresh and detoxify the skin, while ginger and eucalyptus will stimulate circulation.

Pay special attention to patches of rough skin that develop on knees or elbows, adding a little lavender and rose.

Moisturizing is a vital part of a daily skin care ritual. It rehydrates the skin, keeping it soft and supple. Spending 2-3 minutes massaging in an oil blend will help to stimulate circulation.

Commercial moisturizers often use essential oils and you can use them too to blend simpler, natural oils that are cheaper. Create a totally personalized product by combining vegetable or but oils with a blend of essential oils to suit your complexion.

Your choice of carrier oil is important. Wheatgerm is beneficial for mature complexions, jojoba for greasy skin and apricot for dry. Add essential oils sparingly 5 drops per 25ml of carrier oil is all that's needed. Try rose and frankincense to rejuvenate mature skin or lemon and lavender for greasy skin prone to blackheads.

Make aromatherapy face masks by combining oils with wholesome ingredients, such as clay, yogurt or oatmeal which are a natural face lift for a tired complexion. Deeply cleansing, stimulating and nourishing, a weekly mask is a real treat for your skin.

Clay masks are an ideal face mask base for oily or normal skin. Add tea tree for spots or blackheads.

For sensitive complexions, yogurt, honey and jojoba will nourish the skin.

Try oats for a gentle exfoliating face mask. They blend perfectly with natural flower waters made from essential oils.

A nourishing facial massage should be included in your beauty care routine for soft skin. Select oils to suit your complexion and blend with a light carrier oil.

Massage improves circulation to the skin, bringing nutrients to the surface and removing waste. It has the added benefits of muscle toning and releasing tension.

Cleanse and tone first.
Use gentle upward strokes on the cheeks and neck and make tiny circles around the eyes, be careful not to touch them, and the forehead.
Use flower oils such as rose for their exquisite scents.

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