The weather is getting colder, and my skin keeps getting drier. I’ve started to use sweet almond oil on my body and occasionally on my face as a natural moisturizer. You can also use it in home hair treatments, in body or massage oils and other homemade beauty products.
How to Use Sweet Almond Oil in Skin Care
- Sweet almond oil is a natural face moisturizer. You could use it daily if your skin is really dry; I use it once or twice a week as an intense moisturizing treatment for the face.
- Sweet almond oil is an affordable base oil for homemade massage oils. Check out this post on How To Make Your Own Massage Oils.
- I get dry patches of skin on my feet and on my knees and elbows during the winter. To soften the skin, I massage a little bit of almond oil into the dry spots every day, just before I go to bed.
- I use almond oil as a body oil (instead of a body lotion) when my skin feels really dry. I often add essential oils to make a more nourishing body moisturizer – read more about Choosing Essential Oils for Homemade Body Oils if you want to make your own naturally scented body oils.
- Almond oil makes an easy DIY oil hair treatment: massage some almond oil into your hair (and scalp, if the scalp is dry), cover your hair with an old bath towel and let the oil do its work for at least half an hour, or even a couple of hours, before washing your hair as usual.
- Almond oil is one of the most common ingredients in homemade hand creams and lip balms (recipes coming soon).
- Mix almond oil with sea salt for a natural body scrub, or with brown sugar for a scrub for sensitive skin and for the face. I made a really simple (but effective) body scrub with a one part of almond oil and two parts of brown sugar.
- Add a tablespoon or two of almond oil into your bath water to moisturize the skin. Hot baths are great in the winter but they can dry the skin, so add some oil – maybe with a few drops of relaxing essential oils – to minimize the drying effect.
- Massage a little almond oil into your cuticles to moisturize and soften. For an even more effective cuticle and nail treatment, add a drop of lemon essential oil to a teaspoon of almond oil.
Sweet almond (Prunus dulcis) oil is suitable for most skin types (although it might not be suitable for you if you have a nut allergy), and if you can find organic almond oil, even better.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
I love this. Sweet Almond oil is something I used a lot when I was doing massage therapy but I’ve let it slip a little bit.
How do you clean the measuring cup of the remaining lip balm that doesn’t pour out and sticks/stays in the measuring cup? Is there a trick or secret?