Spiral Spa @ Bloo,Padang Bai, Bali:
The Skin, Massage, Base- and Essential oil
Dear all,
In this Blog Spiral Spa @ Bloo,Padang Bai, Bali wants to give you a short overview about different Base or Carrier
oils, Essential oils and how they
become absorbed through the skin.
1.The human skin:
First of all
we should have a look to the human skin and his structure. To keep it simple I
just want to explain the three main layers and their function and just make
short excursions in the sub layer you could divide them into.
The three
main layer of the skin are the Epidermis, Dermis and Sub cutis.
Epidermis: As you can see at the picture on
the left the Epidermis is the outermost layer of the skin. It forms the waterproof
protective wrap over the body’s surface.
“Interesting: The Epidermis is water resistant, that means that it prevents water leaving the body, but it also prevents most substances from entering the body.”
The Epidermis
contains no blood vessels, and cells in the deepest layers are nourished by
diffusion from blood capillaries to the upper layers of the dermis. The
Epidermis could be divided in to 5 different layers: stratum corneum, stratum
lucidum, stratum granulosum, stratum spinosum and stratum germinativum.
In between
the the Epidermis we have now a small sheet of fibers called the basement membrane. The basement
membrane controls the traffic of cells and molecules between the dermis and
epidermis.
Dermis: The 2. Layer is the Dermis and
directly beneath the epidermis. The Dermis is the layer of the skin that
provides the skin strength and elasticity due to an special mix of collagen and
elastic fibers. The Dermis again can be divided into 2 Layers, the Papillary
and Reticular region.
The Papillary
region extends fingerlike into the epidermic layer of the skin and creates here
a much bigger joint surface, than a straight boundary would have.
The second
layer, the Reticular region provides the Dermis his properties of strength,
extensibility and elasticity. Further located in this region are the roots of
the hair, sebaceous glands, sweat glands, receptors, nails and blood vessels.
That means
that substances that crossed the Epidermis by diffusion now can be transported
to the rest of the body by blood vessels.
Subcutis: To keep it simple
you could say that the subcutis is mostly used for fat storage.
Conclusion: As we have seen the Epidermis
prevents most substances( specially inorganic)
from directly penetrating our body. Further this layer is hydrophobic , but allows
lipophile substances to diffuse until reaching the Dermis, from where on they
can be transported via blood vessels. That shows that we need carrier oils(our
Base oils) for substances(Essential oils, Vitamin, Minerals etc) that should
become absorbed through our skin during a massage.
2.Base oil:
There are so many different
grades, qualities and brands of base
or carrier oils that deciding which
oil to use can be quite overwhelming. The general rule of thumb is that the
less processing the oil has undergone the better the oil and potentially the
higher in nutrients it will be especially as certain vitamins are heat
intolerant and will be destroyed by heat. The more organic the seed, nut or
plant, the darker the oil usually is and the stronger the odor. This can have a
deleterious effect on the end product for creams and lotions if you are trying
to achieve a certain color or scent.
Base oils should be pure and preferably cold pressed and, especially with olive
oil, extra virgin. Oils that have been heat extracted or solvent extracted
(usually with petroleum derivatives) have lost a lot of their vitamins and
other nutrients as the heat and chemicals destroy these. Cold processing is
where the nut or seed is crushed or pressed in temperatures below 80°C.
Manufacturers found that heating the seeds and nuts to 100°C made the
extraction of the oil easier and there was less waste. Solvent extraction
started from the manufacturers desire to extract every amount of oil possible
from the seeds and nuts. The solvent usually used is hexane which is a
petroleum product. Another extraction method is using steam distillation for
oils that are difficult to extract, such as grapeseed oil.
Mineral (or baby) oil is made
from petroleum and is relatively useless because, although essential oils will
dissolve in it, it has very low penetration power so you won't get the
absorption for the essential oils into your skin. They are dead oils and
diminish the positive effect of essential oils. Since the human body cannot
cope with mineral oils when they are absorbed they are deposited in the tissues
as toxins and can accumulate there and cause skin eruptions. For this reason it
is important to read the labels of any commercially made product (especially if
using the product on a baby) to ensure that it does not contain parafin or
petroleum based mineral oils. That is as well the reason why Spiral Spa @ Bloo doesn’t use these oils and rather
spends more money for quality.
The main purpose of using oil
during a massage is to lubricate the massaged area, and then of course to
supply the skin with vitamins, minerals if used different essential oils.
Popular Base oils used in
Massage are: Sweet Almond oil, Apricot Kernel oil, Jojoba oil, Virgin Coconut oil, Sunflower oil,
Avocado oil, Cocoa Butter, Grapeseed oil, Kukui Nut oil, Olive oil, Sesame oil,
Shea butter, Wheat Germ oil or Soybean oil.
In other Blogs Spiral Spa @ Bloo want to introduce you
more to each of this Base oils. Some of the criteria you should check now are
for example odor, lubrication, how quick the oil is absorbed, how was it
produced, does it still has Vitamins and minerals? And many more. Another very
important point is as well the availability, so is Spiral
Spa @ Bloo
for example located in Padang Bai, Bali…and
choosing for example Olive oil instead
of virgin coconut oil, might be unnecessary production of CO2 Emissions.
3. Essential oils:
An essential
oil is a hydrophobic liquid containing volatile aroma compounds from
plants. Essential oils are also simply known
as the "oil of" the plant from which they were extracted, such
as oil of clove. A oil is "essential" in the sense that
it carries a distinctive scent, or essence, of the plant. Essential oils do not form a distinctive category for any medical,
pharmacological, or culinary purpose.
Essential
oils are generally extracted
by destillation.
Interest in essential oils has revived in recent decades with the popularity of
aromatherapy, for that reason we dissolve them in Base
oils and use them in massage.
It is important to know is that they not necessarily have to be a part of a massage oil, but of course can
be interesting fragrant, be antiseptic, antibacterial and they can have
stimulating or calming effects on the body.
It would go beyond the scope of the article to
introduce all of the essential oils now, but in further blogs I want to
introduce you more in detail with these fascinating substances.
Another thing you should consider is that
essential oils should be avoided as part of massage oil or used in less quantity, when used for kids, old
people or pregnant woman.
So should kids or older people use smaller
quantities of essential oils as part
of massage oils and infants, and pregnant woman should completely avoid them.
Another very important point is that you
should not use undiluted essential oil,
due to the fact that pure essential oil
can in some cases cause skin irritations or depending where applied as well be
able to cause dangerous cell damage, so for example some drops of certain
essential oils applied to the eyes may cause irreparable damages.
Taken orally there could be the possibility of toxicity
when taken in high quantities. You should not take any self experiments.
The safest way of using essential oil and to benefit from it is to use it in massage and to use it as a fragrance.
.
Spiral
Spa @ Bloo, Padang Bai, Bali
We
hope you enjoyed our small articel.
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