They offer a thousand and one beauty benefits for the face, body, and hair. We help you choose with the advice of Didier Thévenin, international training director at Melvita.
Oils are used in all fields of cosmetics, and it becomes necessary to decode the different names to make good use of them.
A “vegetable” oil is, for example, obtained by cold pressing of part of the plant (often the kernel or seeds rich in lipids) or by maceration. An essential oil corresponds to a liquid concentrate of the volatile compounds of the plant, obtained by steam distillation. If it is a dry oil, vegetable oil has first been esterified by a chemical reaction to get a non-greasy and inert galenic base, to which active ingredients are added. Is your oil mineral? It is then derived from the refining of petrochemical products. Also, it combines added functional elements: light, without shine effects, very covering or even occlusive, thus maintaining the skin’s hydration.
The oils can be used simply as a single ingredient or enter into the composition of targeted cocktails for a specific action and area or a global body, face, and hair application in a simplified, often economical beauty ritual.
Tailor-made oils for the face
Of a nature close to our natural sebum, the oil is in osmosis with the skin, whether dry to nourish it or oily to treat it without suffocating it.
Suppose it is a vegetable, without preservatives apart from a hint of tocopherol (vitamin E), ensuring its stability, without synthetic ingredients or associated mineral oil. In that case, it is better for the skin in the medium term.
It can be a single ingredient for a well-targeted action, combine several vegetable oils, or even connect with essential oils. All that remains is to choose well according to the nature and needs of the epidermis.