When applied to the skin, essential oils can have three beneficial actions.
1) Essential oils can have a healing action on the skin
When applied in carrier substance they can help our skin to:
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Maintain general health and wellness and improve the general/overall function.
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Regenerate healthy skin cells quickly and efficiently.
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Enhance the barrier repair and protection functions, enabling it to more easily heal and repair itself from irritations and sensitivities, wounds, cuts, bites, stings, sores, and scars.
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Fight infections and kill potentially harmful microbes, stopping the spread of infection.
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Tighten and tone the skin tissue, bringing greater strength and elasticity.
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Soften and smooth, cleanse and clean, hydrate and moisturize, which improves the skin overall health and wellness as well as look and feel.
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Stimulate local blood circulation which encourages a glowing complexion.
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Fight free radicals, delay the signs of premature aging and soften fine lines and wrinkles.
2) They can help the body to heal when applied topically (on the the skin)
The molecules of essential oils are small enough to penetrate the semipermeable layers of the skin.
When they do, either they are used by the skin cells themselves, or they pass through into the bloodstream where they are transported around our body to help maintain healthy functioning organs (eg heart, lungs, stomach, kidney, liver, etc) and systems (eg circulatory, respiratory, digestive, nervous, hormones, etc).
In both cases, when our body absorbs the essential oils it can help to:
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balance, regulate and improve functions
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repair and heal
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fight infections
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kill potentially harmful microbes
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eliminate toxins, and
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affect changes; for example, they may stimulate or sedate the function of an organ or an entire system
3) The aroma they provide can improve our mood, lift our spirits and encourage a greater sense of wellbeing
This can helps counteract stress, fear, tension, and worry, which, over time, place greater stress and strain on the body, its organs and systems.
When all three actions are combined, essential oils can demonstrate wonderful holistic healing powers where “healing the whole person” is considered to be more effective at reducing the strain, not just on our organs and systems but also on the wider mind, body and spirit.