It’s April and grass everywhere is teaming with beautiful yellow dandelions, feeding our bees, and brightening our days. I love them, and I love even more that they make the most incredible dandelion face oil for all skin types. As you know, I love growing useful plants in my garden that I can use in my skincare, but mostly I plant these from seed and wait for them to grow. Not so with dandelions; I didn’t have to plant them, they’ve very helpfully just grown themselves all over our lawn.
This week I’ve made my first batch of beautiful yellow dandelion face oil. Why? because like most things Mother Nature gives us, they have absolutely endless health and skin benefits. Dandelion oil can be used in balms and creams or on its own: it has the amazing capability to to soothe dry and cracked skin, speed up the healing process of scars and calm down skin irritations. It is also incredible for acne treatment. Check out this impressive list;
The benefits of for skin
- It helps soothe redness, irritation and swelling from skin conditions like rosacea, acne, eczema, and psoriasis.
- For acne; it reduces microbial infections, it’s antibacterial, germicidal and anti-fungal, it detoxifies the skin, clears out pores, and regular use will prevents acne breakouts coming back.
- For aging skin; it contains vitamins A, C, and E, and is high in antioxidants which encourage healthy skin cell production and will therefore reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
- For age spots (or hyperpigmentation/sunspots); it can reduce the appearance of these dark areas that occur as a result sun exposure; the high vitamin C content may lighten or fade them.
- For cuts, scrapes, bruises, bites; because it helps healing and reduces redness, apply a little to sore area.
- For aching muscles: also great for sore muscles, just massage in to tight muscles to help ease tension.
If you have an allergy to Ragweed (or related plants such as banana, cucumber, potato, courgette, maybe sunflower), you should do a patch test before using dandelion oil, because it could cause contact dermatitis, and if you have sensitive skin, always due a patch test.
How to make Dandelion Oil
This is how I’ve done it:
- I picked the flower heads during sunlight when they’re fully opened; (make sure you have picked away from busy roads of where doggies might have done a pee, and definitely where they’ve not been sprayed with any kind of weed-killer). I picked mine in the garden where I know they’re definitely safe.
- I popped them in a bowl and dried them on the radiator over night to get rid of excess moisture.
- I put them in a clean jam-jar (I always clean mine in the dishwasher to sterilise them).
- I covered with organic sunflower seed oil. You could use other oils such as olive, apricot kernal or grapeseed – make sure it’s organic.
- I put lid on and gave it a good shake shake shake.
- I left it on a sunny windowsill for two weeks, shaking it every time I remembered.
- I strained out the flowers and poured into a dark glass bottle with a pump lid, and labelled with oil name and date.
That’s it – so so simple. I’m thrilled with it. It’s such a joyful colour. On that note, don’t smoother your face in it then lie on a clean white pillow.
You can use it neat as a face oil, or you can mix it up with a little organic shea butter to make a lovely balm. You could also use it as a cleansing oil.
If you want to use it on your hair, you could infuse it in argan or coconut oil.
Let me know if you’ve had a go at this too. It really is amazing for all skin types.
If you love learning how to make simple skincare, book yourself into one of my product-making workshops.
If you have any questions then just let me know.
