In this article:
What are essential oils?
Can you put essential oils on your skin?
Are essential oils bad for skin?
The best essential oils for skin
Fragrant essential oils to avoid
Is tea tree essential oil good for skin?
What to use instead of essential oils
What are essential oils?
Essential oils, like tea tree oil, appear on the ingredient lists of many skin care products. However, did you know this group of ingredients can cause irritation and incur long-term damage, like fine lines and wrinkles?
Essential oils are the volatile essences of plants that create unique, wafting fragrances. They can be extracted from any plant’s flowers, bark, stem, leaves, roots, and sometimes its fruits. No matter the source, these oils are complex mixtures, often containing up to 60 different components—some good for skin, others not so great.
The volatile fragrant portion of plants is what makes essential oil for skin problematic—but these compounds can be beneficial for health, too. This duality makes things confusing for people, because the truth is that although the oils smell wonderful, what’s good for your nose is rarely good for your skin.
Many companies who sell products that contain these oils brag that they’ve been used for aromatherapy for thousands of years (1). But modern science has revealed the truth about how fragrant oils cause problems for skin: What’s ancient isn’t always good! Regrettably, the simple truth in beauty is there isn’t a single best essential oil for skin.
Can you put essential oils on your skin?
Diluted essential oils are often included in skin care products with claims that they’ll do everything from fight breakouts to combat fine lines and wrinkles. While you can certainly put diluted essential oils on skin, the reasons not to are far more compelling than those in favour. The only exception is when using essential oils for aromatherapy, where insignificant amounts are applied in key areas so inhalation is possible during the aromatherapy process.Are essential oils bad for skin?
Some components of essential oils are indeed beneficial for skin (5). For example, many of them are rich sources of potent antioxidants like caffeic acid and rosmarinic acid (among many others). Others contain antibacterial ingredients that protect against visible skin problems related to fungi, yeast, and other topical troublemakers.
Sounds good, right? Not exactly. Overall, they’re not good for skin, because most of those compounds can also significantly irritate and damage skin. Some common reactions to essential oils include contact dermatitis, dryness, redness, and itchiness.
Common irritants found in these oils include fragrance ingredients like limonene, citronellol, eugenol, and linalool, all present in many fragrant plant oils. The positives just don’t outweigh the negatives.
Some essential oils for blemish-prone skin, such as rosemary, lemongrass, thyme, cinnamon, citronella, and tea tree oils, do have research showing their helpfulness. But they also cause significant irritation and haven’t proven to be as effective as the gold standard active ingredient for blemishes, benzoyl peroxide (which research shows can even reduce redness!).
In terms of essential oils for ageing skin, none can successfully address the appearance of wrinkles, brown spots, loss of firmness, or the need to exfoliate skin, especially in comparison to the hundreds of beneficial, non-fragrant plant extracts and vitamins that have no risk of causing irritation.
The best essential oils for skin
Unfortunately, as you now know, there isn’t a best essential oil for skin. We wish that wasn’t the case, but to one degree or another, all of them pose risks when applied to skin.
You can find research showing that certain amounts (such as 0.1%) of these oils are non-irritating, but this research doesn’t consider the fact that lots of skin care products contain more than one essential oil, or far more than 0.1%. It also doesn’t consider that some people use multiple fragranced skin care products, which adds up to a higher risk of irritation than what research has shown is acceptable.
Another important fact: Skin is exceptionally good at hiding when it’s irritated. So, even if you don’t see a reaction, damage is still occurring beneath skin’s surface, cumulatively leading to problems you will see later, like dryness and fine lines. Irritation is pro-ageing, the opposite of what most adults want from skin care.
Fragrant essential oils to avoid
As we mentioned above, using essential oils for skin care is a bad idea because so many of them hurt skin more than they help. All the citrus oils, including lemon, lime, tangerine, grapefruit, mandarin, and bergamot, are a big problem for all skin types. Mint oils, such as peppermint, wintergreen, pennyroyal, and balm mint, although cooling, irritate the skin and result in damage. In a similar vein, avoid camphor oil, which is a potent irritant.
Despite their reputation for being soothing (they are if you inhale them rather than put them on your skin), flower-derived oils like lavender and rose are also problematic. Ironically, both oils contain skin-calming substances, but those are present alongside the problematic fragrant compounds— you can’t get one without the other within these flower-derived oils (7).
To make it easier for you to navigate ingredient labels, we’ve compiled a brief list of other oils to avoid. These show up in a surprising number of skin care products, including those that contain essential oils for ageing skin and dry skin:
- clary sage oil
- eucalyptus oil
- geranium oil
- ginger oil
- jasmine oil
- lemongrass oil
- neroli oil
- oregano oil
- patchouli oil
- rosemary oil
- sage oil
- sandalwood oil
- ylang ylang oil
Is tea tree essential oil good for skin?
Tea tree essential oil has a long history of anecdotal use as a skin care ingredient, especially for treating blemishes due to its proposed antibacterial properties (2). While there is some evidence that tea tree oil can be used this way, as with other essential oils, the result is a mixed bag. We recommend avoiding tea tree essential oil to bypass any irritation it may incur.
What to use instead of essential oils
There are many wonderful, gentle, and proven non-fragrant oils and plant extracts to consider for various skin types and concerns. Natural ingredients can be great for skin if you avoid products that also contain natural fragrant ingredients—exactly the approach Paula’s Choice Skincare takes with our products. For example, our Omega+ Complex Serum and Moisture Renewal Oil Booster contain non-fragrant, non-irritating products loaded with natural ingredients research has shown are good for skin.
There are too many beneficial non-fragrant natural oils and plant extracts to list here—this article would go on for pages and pages! Instead, our advice is to avoid any skin care products that contain fragrant plant oils and extracts. Simply shop with your nose (paying attention to lack of aroma) and double-check the ingredient list for anything fragrant. You can also look to brands like Paula’s Choice Skincare, which does the detective work for you!
In the end, the best essential oils are the ones you don’t use on your skin. Enjoy their aromatherapeutic benefits in other ways, such as from scented candles, sachets, or burning oils in a diffuser. This approach will make your nose and your skin happy!
Learn more about skin care ingredients.
References for this information:
- Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine, August 2015, pages 601-611
- International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, February 2015, pages 106-110
- Essential Oil Safety, Second Edition, Tisserand, R., Young, R., Elsevier Ltd., 2014, pages 69-98
- Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety, January 2013, pages 40-53
- Food and Chemical Toxicology, February 2008, pages 446-475
- Planta Medica, October 2007, pages 1,275-1,280; March 2006, pages 311-316
- Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, March 2007, pages 1,737-1,742
- Journal of Investigative Dermatology, December 2003, pages 1,317-1,325
