Botanical skin care: skin health as nature intended
When seeking care for skin problems, many people are turning to botanical skin care. Botanical ingredients are derived from natural herbal sources, including essential oils, flower essences, and herbal plant parts. One way to include these alternative ingredients in your skin care treatment is to make your own, but sometimes the results are less than satisfactory for do-it-yourselfers. A better alternative is usually to shop for these natural skin care treatment products.
A major consideration is the amount of the botanical ingredients found in the product. Bargain priced herbal skin care products often have very little of the botanical ingredients listed. Look for the herbal ingredients to be listed high in the list of ingredients. In fact a really high quality botanical skin therapy product will even include base ingredients that are made from plants. For instance, shea butter, coconut oil, or cocoa butter might be one of the major ingredients. Other soothing botanical ingredients you are likely to find include aloe vera juice or gel.
You may be surprised that your lawn contains an all natural skin care product
Organic skin care products provide still more fresh quality as the herbal ingredients are derived from plants that have been grown with no chemical pesticides or fertilizers. Organic botanicals have sometimes been wild-crafted (collected from the wild by experienced herb experts.) If you'd like to try your own hand at creating a soothing herbal lotion from your own wild-crafted herbs, look in your yard for common plantain. This is the glossy, round-leafed weed that finds its way into most lawns. It has distinctive parallel veins. Plantain is a natural skin healer. Chop some plantain fine and combine with a botanical oil such as almond oil. Let it set for a few days. The healing power of the natural botanical will diffuse into the oil. Strain out the herbal material and use the resulting infused oil on minor skin irritations.
Botanical products are often indicated in cases of allergy to chemical skin care ingredients. In addition to herbal and botanical oils, they sometimes contain flower essences or essential oils. Flower essences are similar to homeopathic medicines, having been processed with pure water until only the memory of the essential molecule of the botanical remains. They are extremely safe and thought to be potent healers for all sorts of ills including emotional troubles.
Essential oils, on the other hand, are the botanical oily substances distilled from a flower or plant. It takes a great deal of a plant to produce only a tiny vial of essential oil. Essential oils are relatively expensive and can be irritating to skin. A few, however, are indicated for skin health. One such botanical is geranium oil. Tea tree oil is also popular because it is a natural germicide. Essential oils are so concentrated that they should almost never be used directly on the skin, but should be diluted into a gentler natural oil, such as jojoba.