Category: Skin

#13. About lather

Did you know that 99.5% of liquid soaps are not real soaps?

99.5% are cocktails of synthetic detergents that have many undesirable long-term effects on the body. This is denied worldwide due to the billion-dollar revenues of large multinational corporations. Sodium Lauryl (Laureth) Sulphate (SLS) is currently Western Civilization’s leading foaming agent. SLS is found in shampoos, bath gels, car washes, dishwashing detergents, soap bars, laundry detergents, etc. It is a wetting and dispersing agent, emulsifier, degreaser and foam booster. It also increases the permeability of the skin by about 100 times and is used in lotions to increase the absorption of micronutrients into the skin. And there is a big danger there!!

10 reasons to use products without SLS or SLES:

  1. It is used in toothpaste to make it foam, and also to hold the paste together when it comes out of the machine. Unfortunately, it also worsens gum irritation. A report from the University of Oslo (Norway) shows that in people with gum disease, symptoms disappeared 40 times faster when toothpaste without SLS was used.
  2. It can worsen hair loss and stimulate skin and scalp irritation in people with sensitive skin. It can also cause damage to the skin and hair, including cracking or inflammation. SLS is known to irritate the skin and is used in lotion tests. First, the skin is irritated with SLS – then the soothing effect of the lotion is tested.
  3. Due to its low molecular weight of 40 (anything under 75 passes through the skin and into the blood), this substance enters the body very easily and is stored in the eyes, heart, brain and liver. This substance is usually listed on the label as the second ingredient after water, indicating that it is present in large quantities.
  4. Both SLS and SLES can potentially form carcinogenic (cancer-causing) nitrates and dioxins by reacting with the other ingredients. Large amounts of harmful nitrates can enter the body through a single shower.
  5. SLS can damage the immune system, cause skin peeling, and irritate the skin. – Journal of the American College of Toxicology; Vol. 2, No. 7, 1983
  6. SLS penetrates deeply into the skin and eyes and is also retained in the brain, heart, and liver. A single drop remains in the brain and body for days. – The Doctor’s Concern: Is Your Baby Safe? Almost All Baby Products Contain SLS!!! – David L. Kern, New Health and Longevity.
  7. SLS Changes the Proteins in Eye Tissue – Permanently Affecting Eye Development. -Dr. Keith Green, PhD, D. Sc., Medical College of Georgia
  8. SLS is a mutagen. It is capable of changing the genetic information in cells. SLS is used in research to cause mutations in bacteria. – Higuchi, Araya and Higuchi, School of Medicine, Tohoku University: Sendai 1980, Japan.
  9. SLS is carcinogenic when it comes into contact with nitrosamines. Research has shown that a large number (85%) of 209 nitrosamines tested toxicologically were found to be carcinogenic. For cosmetics, N-nitrosodiethanolamine (NDELA) and 2-ethylhexyl 4-(N-nitroso-N-methylamino)benzoate (NMPABAO) are mainly important. The presence of nitrosamines in cosmetics is undesirable given their potential health risks. -FDA report 1978
  10. Sodium Laureth Sulphate (SLES) is the alcohol form of Sodium Lauryl Sulphate. Concerns regarding SLES are much the same as for SLS. SLES is slightly less irritating to the skin, but causes more dehydration and therefore faster ageing of the skin.

In conclusion: Soap has been used for thousands of years. Chemical surfactants (foaming agents) have only been used for less than 100 years. You can infer from this what is best described as “natural”. The possibility of a potential loss of 16 trillion dollars per year in the soap industry will ensure that multinational corporations continue to deny the dangers of SLS and SLES.

From: “De Online Zeepwinkel” – https://www.online-zeepwinkel.nl/c-1259894/over-sls-en-sles/

Important to know: Cretan-Garden soaps and Cretan-Garden liquid soap concentrate do not contain SLS or SLES. Cretan-Garden liquid soap concentrate will be available in the online shop during 2025, maybe 2026: lavender, oregano, rosemary and sage.

#12. The difference between essential oils and extracts

Original article published on LinkedIn, also on his website, 23 June 2021, by: Nuqo Trading

“With the increased awareness of natural products, more people are asking questions about the difference between essential oils and extracts. Both play an important role in natural wellness products used in everything from aromatherapy to teas, and the right process is essential to get the most out of these natural substances.

The main difference between essential oils and extracts is the process. While both are extracted from different parts of the plant, the process is very different. Essential oils must be extracted through distillation, while extracts are steeped in a liquid to isolate the flavor.

Oils collected from the aromatic parts of flowers, roots, and leaves are known as essential oils. These oils are concentrated in nature and prepared by steam distillation. The plant parts are placed inside a steam chamber, steam is released over the plant parts, and the oils are collected by squeezing under steam pressure. The extracted substances are collected in the vapor chamber and cooled in a condenser. The condenser creates water and separates the oil into a concentrated form.

With extracts, the plants go through a steeping process, where the collected substance is concentrated. This can also be done by pulverizing the plant. The most common extraction process is herbal tea, while tinctures require the plant material to be steeped in alcohol for a long time to remove the essential compounds.

Each method removes the most important compounds from plants and concentrates the best of nature into a simple, easy-to-use substance.”

My question to Nuqo Trading:

In my handmade soap production1, I use olive oil, which has been infused with 720 grams of herbs such as rosemary, oregano, sage, lavender, in 15 liters of olive oil. The infusion time is half a year. Then the soaked herbs are filtered out, and powdered in the food processor, filtered again and returned to the added oil, so that everything that is possible to extract from the soaked herbs is retained and used in the soap production. The infused olive oil looks black when the grinding and back-filtration are done. The smell is extraordinary. Next to that, I use a tea from the same herbal extract (for many days), which is also very dark. I use this tea to create a lye with sodium hydroxide. Later, when the liquid starts to saponify, I add the necessary amount of essential oil of the same herb for that batch.

My question is: is the result of infusion, and the way I make the oil, also a kind of extract?

Answer on LinkedIn, by Nuqo Trading:

Most likely! Your soaps sound amazing!

In the video you can follow the creation of (in this case) lavender soap, from lavender fields to infusion, to cutting and packaging:

Footnote

  1. Cretan-Garden webshop ↩︎

#8. Shampoo

Shampoos are, they say, liquid soap. Did you know that 99.5% of liquid soaps are not real soaps?

“99,5% are cocktails of synthetic detergents that have many undesirable long-term effects on the body. This is denied worldwide due to the billion-dollar revenues of large multinational corporations. Sodium Lauryl (Laureth) Sulfate (SLS) is currently Western Civilization’s leading foaming agent. SLS is found in shampoos, bath gels, car washes, dishwashing detergents, soap bars, laundry detergents, etc. It is a wetting and dispersing agent, emulsifier, degreaser and foam booster. It also increases the permeability of the skin by about 100 times and is used in lotions to increase the absorption of micronutrients into the skin. And there is a big danger there!!” Source

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Shampoos, all sorts of shampoos and all sorts of brands are claiming to be the best for your hair, offering for every hair type another shampoo, another conditioner, another hair mask. I have used pH-neutral shampoos, hair conditioners, and hair masks, for as long as they became available, but my hair was, despite the neutral pH of the shampoos, and the beautiful natural conditioners and masks, never really okay. My hair is thick, curly, dry, fluffy, and my hair is becoming dryer because of becoming grey as well. I have tried everything. Because of the mentioned characteristics of my hair, it is impossible to have it long. Not even half long.

Herbal olive oil soap as a shampoo bar

I have started lately to use my own herbal olive soap for hair washing, to see what happens. It looks better and better. . The most significant difference is that I do not need to wash my hair more than once per week. My hair looks and feels normal, it is so much easier to be dressed. I was wondering why. 

Though pH-neutral shampoos can be used every day, the question is if washing your hair every day is really okay for hair and scalp. My thoughts go far back in time when hair was washed just once per week. That had a reason: the skin on the scalp is not the same skin as on the rest of your body. Every single piece of hair grows out of the scalp-skin, and it is the skin that keeps the hair in good condition. We indeed need hair conditioners and hair masks when we wash our hair daily. But if we offer the skin of the scalp the time to do their work in their own natural way, and if we do not immediately destroy their work, by daily taking away what the skin itself produces, namely sebum, we do not need hair conditioners as we do now. Daily washing the hair is maybe okay according to shampoo manufacturers, but it is a matter of logic that the natural resistance of the skin and the hair will decrease because of exhaustion, or will become overactive at the very beginning, when the daily shampoo attacks start, even when the shampoo is pH neutral. Using a neutral shampoo once per week was for me not the solution. Reason to use it more. And that did not work either.

A natural conditioner: olive oil or cocos oil

My own experiences with my oily cold process herbal olive soaps are that washing my hair with it once per week is really enough. After making my hair well dry, I use some drops of pure olive oil or cocos oil, or a mix of both, and spread it over and through the towel-dry hair and massage it into the scalp and hair. I let my hair dry naturally. My fluffy, dry hair is gone, but I expect that the condition of my hair will improve more. [Update July 20, 2025: my hair is curling again, shining, and looking healthy.] 

To make it more personal, I added about 20 drops of essential oil to a small re-used 50 ml bottle with pump, filled with olive oil, and stirred it very well.

Additional information

  1. What ages hair? – PubMed
  2. Hairloss due to electromagnetic radiation from overuse of cellphone – ResearchGate

My personal experiences with EMF and hair loss: during the time that I was not aware of the impact of EMF on my health, not informed about symptoms of overradiation, I was indeed losing so much hair that I was wondering what was going on. I have written about this on my blog Multerland, in several posts[Archives 2017-2018]. It was the start of a private study on EMF. The consultation of an osteopath was helpful in stopping my bad physical condition: she worked on my scalp and neck, and it felt as if a layer of glass had broken and my scalp was back to normal again. After several treatments, my hair was growing again. The new hair looked like baby hair, but after some months it was back to normal. The only way to get rid of the effects if wireless radiation is to live in an EMF-free environment. I bought the Acousticom2. This calibrated device is able to measure EMF. In this way, I could find the rooms where the radiation is almost zero, or at least the less, where to put the bed, where the desk with computer. Of course, all the wireless is turned off, the smart meter is turned off, the Wi-Fi is turned off, also in the computer and printer. All is Ethernet cabled. I do not have the internet on my cellphone and mostly the cellphone is on Flymodus.

#7. Rosemary-infused body oil

The benefits of the herb rosemary, or rosmarinus officinalis 1 2 3, were already hailed in the Minoan Civilisation 4. Rosemary is a kitchen herb, but a medicinal herb as well. Medicinal herbs 5 6 7 8 are available as tinctures, tablets, pills, teas and essential oils. These are for internal use and oral use. Essential oils, however, are also used externally. The term medicinal is an indication that nobody should use these without consulting a well-trained professional therapist, or a medical doctor who also studied these herbs and/or their oils, how to use these, when, for which health problems, and what the dosage should be.

Rosemary is known for its benefits for the skin. It is present in almost all skin products, like shampoos, creams, massage oils, and body oils. Four out of seven Cretan Garden soaps are made out of rosemary-infused olive oil 9, oregano-infused oil 10 and sage-infused oil 11.

Your home-made body oil and body scrub

Body oils are expensive. You can make your own body oil. Your skin will love it, and your wallet as well. Follow the next steps and enjoy the result.

  1. 500 ml organic extra virgin olive oil
  2. 30 grams dried organic rosemary leaves
  3. Put the dried rosemary in a casserole that is big enough for the half-litre olive oil plus the 30 gram rosemary leaves. Warm the oil up to 38–60 degrees Celsius and keep the casserole at this temperature for about 48–72 hours. During this time, all the goods are extracted from the leaves into the oil. This process is called infusing. Another method: add the olive oil and herbs to a bowl, or casserole and keep it for some weeks in a warm sunlit spot in the house. Stir the oil-rosemary mix during the infusing time every day. I infuse olive oil as well, for making soap, but I offer the oil more time to infuse. At least three months. 
  4. When the oil is infused, you can filter the herbs out, by using a sieve. If you want to make rosemary pulp, you can add the oily herbs to the kitchen machine and pulverise them. 
  5. Take an empty bowl or casserole, and put a cheesecloth in the sieve. 
  6. Put the rosemary-olive-oil pulp from the kitchen machine cup into the cheesecloth, and let it leak out for a while, till all the oil has disappeared. 
  7. Make this process more efficient by pouring the filtered oil for the second time over the pulp. At the end, you can take the rest of the oil from the pulp when you take the four points of the cheesecloth together and press the oil out. Your hands will become very oily, but you can remove this with kitchenpaper.
  8. Fill an empty, well-cleaned and dried fluid soap dispenser and add about 20 drops of rosemary essential oil, or an essential oil of your own choice.
  9. The rest of the infused oil can be stored in a cold place, for instance in the refrigerator. Put a lid on it.
  10. The left-overs of the rosemary pulp in the sieve can be used as a body scrub. You can store it, for instance, in an empty, clean, glass jar in the refrigerator. Before using a body scrub to exfoliate your skin, read my blog post: Exfoliating the skin 12.

How to use the body oil

The best moment to use body oil is after a shower or bath, before drying your body with a towel. Pump some body oil from the dispenser into the palm of one of your hands and divide the oil over both hands. Apply the oil on the entire body. Massage the oil onto the warm and wet skin. In this way, you do not need so much oil, the oil is easier to spread, and because the skin is warm, the oil is easily absorbed. Then pat the skin dry. You will discover that the skin is not oily, and after drying the skin shines and looks younger and healthier. In case your skin is really dry, it will take some weeks before your skin is back to normal again. You can use body oil every day.

Instead, you could massage the entire body from head and hair to toes according to the Indian abhyanga massage before taking a shower. Read more about this massage in my blog post “The skin” 13. The used oil is also an herbal-infused body oil.

Other uses: after a day at the beach, in the sunlight, in the hot dry wind, the salty seawater, or in winter when being outside in the cold, or 24/7 in a warm dry room. You can use the rosemary body oil also as a hair mask.

Attention: the rosemary aroma is uplifting, stimulating, energising, and therefore best not to be used before sleeping. If you would like to create a body oil for a good night’s rest, use lavender instead of rosemary.

Benefits of rosemary-infused body oil

  1. Anti-ageing
  2. Improves elasticity
  3. Moisturises
  4. Protects the skin
  5. Can be used in cases of eczema and acne 
  6. The aroma of rosemary uplifts the psyche.
  7. The aroma creates a beneficial effect on the central nervous system.
  8. The aroma stimulates the 3rd chakra, balances the 5th chakra 14
  9. Photo: Karolina Grabowska from Pexels

Additional information

  1. Rosemary soap – Cretan Garden
  2. Lavender-Rosemary soap – Cretan Garden
  3. Patchouli-Rosemary soap – Cretan Garden
  4. YlangYlang-Rosemary soap – Cretan Garden
  5. Lavender soap – Cretan Garden
  6. Oregano soap – Cretan Garden
  7. Sage soap – Cretan Garden
  8. Exfoliating the skin – Cretan Garden
  9. Rosemary harvest in Morocco – Medicine Hunter
  10. How to Make Herb-Infused Oils for Culinary & Body Care Use – Mountain Rose Herbs
  11. Effect of Olive Oil on the Skin – ResearchGate
  12. Virgin olive oil as a fundamental nutritional component and skin protector – ReasearchGate
  13. Olive Oil in Botanical Cosmeceuticals – ResearchGate
  14. Enhancement of antioxidant and skin moisturizing effects of olive oil by incorporation into microemulsions – ResearchGate
  15. The foundation for the use of olive oil in skin care and botanical cosmeceuticals – ResearchGate

Footnotes

  1. Rosmarinus officinalis L. (rosemary) as therapeutic and prophylactic agent – Journal of Biomedical Science ↩︎
  2. Gallery Rosmarinus officinalis – Flickr ↩︎
  3. Rosemary essential oil – New directions Aromatics ↩︎
  4. Herbs for Health and Beauty in Minoan Crete of 2000 BC – Explore Crete ↩︎
  5. Historical review of medicinal plants’ usage – PubMed ↩︎
  6. Herbs – Multerland ↩︎
  7. Herbal medicine – Multerland ↩︎
  8. Chinese Traditional Medicine – Multerland ↩︎
  9. Lavender soap – Cretan Garden ↩︎
  10. Oregano soap – Cretan Garden ↩︎
  11. Sage soap – Cretan Garden ↩︎
  12. Exfoliating the skin – Cretan Garden ↩︎
  13. The skin / Abhyanga massage – Cretan Garden ↩︎
  14. A Beginner’s Guide to the 7 Chakras and Their Meanings – Healthline ↩︎

#5. Exfoliation of the skin

What is exfoliation?

Your skin naturally sheds dead skin cells to make way for new cells. Exfoliation is the removal of dead skin cells from the surface of your skin using, for example:

Exfoliation can improve the appearance of your skin, but if not done correctly, it can do more harm than good. It is best to choose safe materials.

  • Washcloth
  • Loofah
  • Dry brush

I find dry brushing – a bath brush that has the right strength for the skin – to be a very excellent daily aid in really improving the condition of my own older skin. In the figure below, you can see the difference between younger and older skin. One of the differences is the blood vessels: in older skin, they are darker red, which means there is less oxygen. When you brush your skin, blood circulation in the skin improves. 

Adapted from Characteristics of the Aging Skin – PMC (nih.gov) with permission from Dr. Miranda A. Farage

More :

  1. Blog Cretan-Garden: #10. Loofah and skincare
  2. What Does It Mean to Exfoliate? Why You Should and How to Start – Healthline
  3. Dr. Berkowsky’s Vital Chi Skin Brushing System™ – Natural Health Science
  4. Skin care in the aging female: myths and truths – PubMed
  5. The truth about dry brushing and what it does for you – Cleveland Clinic

#4. Skin and pH

When writing this post it is July 2021. We, humans all over the world, have an experience with skin and pH(power of Hydrogen) values, while knowing maybe not anything about pH and if not being aware of the fact, why the skin of the dorsal of their hands looks so incredible bad since the last year. Most probably this is caused by the antiseptic sprays (high percentage alcohol) at the entrance of all shops. Not one doctor, dermatologist, talks about it. However, when one uses a soap to wash hands it has to be skin neutral. They say.

pH scale / CC BY 4.0

Skin neutral?

The pH value of the skin is on all places of the body different. Therefore one uses an average pH value, which is about 5 or lesser. What exactly is causing the pH value of the skin? First one needs to know what exactly is “skin”. Skin is an organ which covers and protects all what is beneath the skin, and outside the skin. The skin is nourished by the food we eat. If we never eat a balanced food, concerning pH levels, acidic and alkaline, the skin will not be able to have a healthy pH level. The influence of too much acidic food, which is the most popular among humans in the “civilized” countries, influences of course the constitution of the skin, and its pH values.

Also influences from outside the skin, like air pollution, artificial electromagnetic radiation, burning sun rays, extreme temperature, contribute to the condition of the skin, and its pH. On health websites one claims that only soaps with a pH value that is similar with the skin pH are healthy for keeping a healthy skin. This would mean that swimming in the salty sea pH 8,2), or ocean (pH 8,2), even bathing in tap-water (pH value between 6,5 and 8,5) or taking a shower should be avoided.

The neutral pH level soaps are a mix of the normal alkalinity of soaps, and mostly several chemicals to achieve a lower pH level. These chemicals are more skin damaging than a normal soap ever can. With other words: a lot of industrial propaganda for their so-called neutral pH products should be suspected.

The term alkaline is a sort of curse in the ears of many, because of the industrial propaganda for their self created myths that a soap must have a neutral pH value. How can they explain the alkalinity of for instance breast milk(pH of 6,35-7,35)[1], the alkalinity of the skin of new-borns(pH value 7)[2], the alkalinity of the amniotic fluid(pH value 7,1-7,3)[3] in which the foetus swims before it is born? The foetus is extremely sensitive: imagine the damage that could be created in its development of organs, brains, eyes, blood vessels, nervous system, bones, skin…. Nature however found it better to let it swim in alkaline fluid, not in neutral fluid, neither in acidic fluid. The pH value of blood ranges between 7,35 and 7,45. It is the blood that nourishes the skin from inside, and the lymphatic fluid in the skin pours out the acidic waste to the surface of the skin. If the food habits of the human being are not healthy, unbalanced, too acidic, of course the blood will be more acidic and the skin as well. How high was the pH level of the skin of our ancestors? They washed with alkaline soap, without any problem. Skin problems occur because of an unhealthy life style, bad hygiene, the poisonous environment we live in, and the poisonous food people eat.

Healthy lymph have a pH that ranges between 7 and 10. The lymphatic system, part of the immune system, is a network of ducts that carry the lymphatic fluid (LF). LF also contains white blood cells called lymphocytes, fats, and proteins.[4]. The lymphatic system, made up of lymphatic fluid, tiny vessels, nodes and organs, is responsible for removing excess fluid, infections and acidic waste[5].

Viruses, and pH

There are several publications about viruses and how they react to low or high pH values. The most of the publications contradict each other. Some write: Viruses thrive, like bacteria, in an acidic environment. Viruses infect body cells by binding to the proteins in the cells and then multiplying. Scientific research shows that this process mainly takes place at a low pH value or in an acidic environment. An acidic environment has a pH of 0 to 7. As the pH becomes more basic, the activity of viruses decreases sharply. Scientists have established this in various studies in numerous viruses in both humans and animals. The relationship between pH value and infection-increasing activities has been demonstrated in, among others, influenza1, corona2, hepatitis C3, foot-and-mouth disease4 and other viruses in animals. By increasing the alkaline buffer in your body, which improves the pH value of your body cells, the sensitivity to viruses in the body could decrease[6][7] More: [8][9]

Since scientists are not unanimously concluding that alkalinity of food, or body care products, create a not virus-friendly environment it is necessary to wait for more research.

Sources

  1. pH value of breastmilk – ScienceDirect
  2. Skin pH of a newborn baby – PubMed
  3. Amniotic fluid has a pH of 7.1 to 7.3. – Healthline
  4. pH value of healthy lymphatic fluids – Portland Press
  5. About lymphatic fluid – PrairieNaturals
  6. Viruses are pH sensitive – Reelyse
  7. The influence of pH on SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 severity – ResearchGate
  8. Conditions Favoring Increased COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality: Their Common Denominator and its Early Treatment – PubMed
  9. What do we know so far about COVID-19 and alkalinity? Health Desk
  10. Additional information about pH values – Scientific Research, §6
  11. The Skin – Cretan Garden Blog

#3. Essential oils and their aroma

A short history

The use of aromatic plants and trees goes far back in history, to the time of the Egyptians and Babylonians, 3000 – 4000 before Christ. It is told however, that the oldest knowledge of essential oils.is to be found in China.

The Egyptians used essential oils from plants and resins to mummify the dead, because of their cleansing and anti-sceptic properties. Cleopatra used essential oils to enhance her attraction. Also, in the bible, essential oils are mentioned, like myrrh, incense, cloves, sandalwood, rose, and cedar.

Those who worked as perfumers during the Black Death plague epidemic were not contaminated by the plague: they inhaled the aerosols which were mixed with the anti-sceptic aerosols from the plants while working with them, and also the anti-sceptic properties of the plants entered the body via the skin.[Additional: The Forgotten Pollution: Dr. Schnabel’s Hepa Filter]

Essential oils

Essential Oils are the highly concentrated, volatile, aromatic essences of plants. Essential oils are derived from the leaves, flowers, wood, seeds, roots, bark and resins of trees and plants.. Essential oils are composed of diverse aromatic volatile liquids, which are distracted from the plant parts via steam distillation. To create a one-litre essential oil one needs many kilos of aromatic plants. To create one litre of for instance, rosemary oil, one needs 50 kilos of rosemary leaves, and about 5000 kilos for a rose and jasmine oil.

Essential oils and the chakras

There is hardly any information about essential oils in the combination with the term “chakras“. There seem to be essential oils, however, that could be helpful in the healing of blocked or disbalanced chakras. I have just one but excellent advice: the smell you are searching for at that moment, and absolutely your favourite, fits all chakras. If you want to read more about it then this article could be helpful.

Hydrosols

Hydrosols, also known as “flower waters,” or “herbal waters”, are the water condensates from the steam-distilling process of essential oils. Hydrosols have similar properties and scents to essential oils, but these aromatic waters are much less concentrated. Hydrosols are especially suited for children, because they can hardly create irritations. One or two soup spoons in a baby bath are helpful in cases of inflammation or eczema. Consult a certified aroma therapist for the right information before experimenting with it. The pH values of hydrosol vary from 4,4 to 7. This means that it could neutralise too alkaline skin or very acidic skin into a natural skin condition. To read more about the pH value in Scientific Research, scroll down to pH values.

Aroma therapy

The use of essential oils is rather safe when using these in an aroma lamp diffuser, or in massage oils and body-oils, if one is following up the advice about the total of drops on a certain amount of water for a bath, footbath, or aroma lamp. Also, when using essential oils in a carrier oil, like olive oil, to create a body oil or a massage oil, or to dilute it to just a small spot on the skin, one must be well-informed about the total of drops of essential oil on how much carrier oil. Internal use of essential oils is dangerous, unless one follows the advice of a well-trained and certified aroma therapist.

Photo by Anna Tarazevich from Pexels

Quality criteria

There are many different brands on the market with several different essential oils, and all smell different from another brand with the same oil name, and do not all smell so nice. It can be related to your own nose, of course, and preferences, but it can happen that it is not only you who dislikes a certain smell: it can also depend on the brand, the country, the climate, the height of the area, the hours of sunshine, the soil, the pH of the soil, even the entire community of plants and trees, animals, the so-called biotope where the plants grow where the essential oil is extracted from, are creating the chemotype, the ct, and the scent. It is impossible to smell an essential oil when one orders it from the web. It is therefore wise, if possible, to buy an essential oil in a good health shop.

Steam distillation is a delicate process. It needs professional experience and constant control. The essential oil must be a hundred percent natural and may not be denaturised by half-synthetic molecules and not be mixed with essential oils with the same scent, but less expensive and of a lesser or even inferior quality.

More information

Books

Article

  • What Are Essential Oils, and Do They Work? – Healthline

Scientific Research

  • An Overview of the Biological Effects of Some Mediterranean Essential Oils on Human Health – PubMed
  • Essential oils and Health – PubMed
  • Essential Oils, Part I: Introduction – PubMed
  • Oregano essential oil as an antimicrobial additive to detergent for hand washing and food contact surface cleaning – ResearchGate
  • Antiviral efficacy and mechanisms of action of oregano essential oil and its primary component carvacrol against murine norovirus – PubMed
  • Antibacterial activity of oregano (Origanum vulgare Linn.) against gram positive bacteria – PubMed
  • Essential Oils of Oregano: Biological Activity beyond Their Antimicrobial Properties – PubMed
  • Carvacrol, a Plant Metabolite Targeting Viral Protease (Mpro) and ACE2 in Host Cells Can Be a Possible Candidate for COVID-19 – Frontiers in Plant Science [[oregano’s principle component is carvacrol, admin]]
  • Oregano Oil and Its Principal Component, Carvacrol, Inhibit HIV-1 Fusion into Target Cells – PubMed
  • Why aromatherapy is showing up in hospital surgical units – Mayo Clinic

#2. Effect of olive oil on skin

“Effect of olive oil on skin” is a chapter in the book: Olives and Olive Oil in Health and Disease Prevention, (pp.1125-1132). Parts of the abstract, published in ResearchGate in 2010, by Diana Badiu, Rafael Luque, and Rajkumar Rajendram:

The popularity of cosmetics derived from natural sources is increasing. Such products are ecologically “ethical” and are effective and safe to use.

Vitamin E is the main lipophilic antioxidant that inhibits peroxidation, especially if associated with “natural” moisturisers such as the lipids in olive oil and olive extract. Vegetable oils containing EFAs have proven to be of great use in the production of cosmetics as either active incipient or raw materials for the synthesis of novel compounds. EFAs are easily integrated into the skin’s hydro-lipid film and are nourishing, moisturising, and protective.

Some of these substances have been used for centuries yet can still meet the needs of today’s consumers. Apart from their moisturising and soothing effects, and anti-inflammatory and immune-modulatory function, these products reduce ageing of the skin with their antioxidant, stabilising action on the cellular membranes. Treatment with olive oil has no side effects. Olive oil does not burn or traumatise the skin.

License: Creative Commons

More scientific research:

  • Virgin olive oil as a fundamental nutritional component and skin protector – ReasearchGate
  • Olive Oil in Botanical Cosmeceuticals – ResearchGate
  • Enhancement of antioxidant and skin moisturizing effects of olive oil by incorporation into microemulsions – ResearchGate
  • The foundation for the use of olive oil in skin care and botanical cosmeceuticals – ResearchGate
  • More scientific research on the website Cretan Garden: go here

Article:

  • How to Use Olive Oil on Your Face – WikiHow

#1. The Skin

The skin is an extremely sensitive organ that is kept healthy due to a constantly regenerating, ingenious circulatory system of water, lymph, blood and fat. Due to the complexity of the skin, to understand how the skin is built up and how this organ works, it is useful to watch one or more educational videos about it. I have compiled these in a video list.

Photo by cottonbro 

How to maintain healthy skin?

Since the skin is nourished in the skin itself via the body’s systems and not on the surface, it is important to eat healthy food and drink enough water (1-2 litres per day) in addition to other liquids such as coffee, tea, soup, juice, etc. Coffee and black tea dehydrate the body. Breathing fresh air, while being physically active, contributes to optimal digestion and thus also to healthy skin. Daylight is also part of natural skin care. Daylight creates a natural vitamin D that is absorbed and transported by the skin into the body. Maintaining the skin from the outside is part of daily hygiene to keep bad odours, bacteria, viruses and fungi away, to avoid diseases. Skin-friendly body oils moisturise the skin, and, together with exfoliation and massage, they are a way to keep it vital, elastic and shiny.

1. Soap

It is astonishing that soap manufacturers of, for example, the very popular Aleppo soap Savon de Marseille and Castile soap do not provide information about the pH value. The pH value of all natural soaps is 9. Cretan Garden soaps are natural soaps, comparable to Aleppo soaps, and also have a pH value of 9. This pH level is related to the formula of handmade natural soaps according to ancient traditions. There are manufacturers of the so-called neutral soaps, or so-called ecologically degradable soaps, who also do not provide any information about them. There are natural soap manufacturers who add natural acidic substances from, for example, aloe vera to lower the pH level. For me, it has been a conscious choice to follow the old traditional methods and formulas. Although the Cretan-Garden olive soap is alkaline, the skin only needs 15 minutes to return to its own pH. The benefits of olive oil, herbs and essential oils in the soap are still present in the thin film that remains on the skin, nourishing, protecting and keeping the skin elastic.

*Advice. If the soap is used for scalp and hair washing: use rosemary soap, and argan oil after washing, on towel-dried hair if you have dry and/or curly hair. Grey hair can also be very dry. Argan oil is also used in the so-called Moroccan oil, but argan oil is pure oil and does not contain perfume or other chemicals. To make argan oil more yours, you can mix a drop of essential oil with argan oil in the palm of your hand before spreading it over your hair, and rub it into the hair and scalp for about a minute.

*Advice for using soap on the skin on the face: Do not use soap too often. Use lukewarm water and dry the facial skin.

2. A skin friendly body oil

Cretan-Garden: Recipes for a skin conditioner

Note: the recommended amount of drops of essential oil per 200 ml of olive oil for a body oil is a safe total. On the Aroma Therapy Foundation website it is written that the total depends on the power of each individual essential oil: they are all different in weight, which means that a drop of lavender is lighter than a drop of oregano, for example. They recommend 20 – 40 drops per 100 ml of olive oil. I recommend a maximum of 20 drops per 200 ml of olive oil, for use on the body and face. Your skin may react to it anyway. Advice: test your homemade body oil on a small spot on your arm, and wait to see how your skin reacts before using it on your entire body. 

Do not use body oil as a sun oil. You can use it as an after-sun treatment. Protect your skin from the sun with a cream with a high protection factor. However, the best protection is to avoid direct sunlight, by wearing a sun hat or sitting in the shade.

3. Exfoliation of the skin

Exfoliation is the process of removing dead skin cells from the outer layer of your skin. If done well, in a way that suits your skin type, it creates a bright, healthy complexion because the circulation in the skin has improved. The correct way to exfoliate allows for better absorption of body oils and creams. See also the Cretan-Garden blog post: Exfoliating the Skin.

*Tip: the skin on your face should not be exfoliated in the same way as the skin on your body. Because the skin on your face is constantly exposed, dealing with temperature variations, air pollution, an overdose of aggressive sunlight, dry indoor air in the winter, air conditioning in the summer and winter, the skin on your face needs gentle care. No form of exfoliation is gentle, unless you use a washcloth carefully.

4. Therapeutical massage

Since Wikipedia offers a very excellent article on massage, types of massage, massage in history and massage therapies, I will just add a few notes.

Massage stimulates muscles, blood circulation, organs, metabolism in the cells, balances the body systems, removes blockages of chakras, creates a bridge between your mind and body, and also activates the skin, because the skin is the medium between the hands of the therapist and the body under the skin. To get used to a therapeutic massage, one can start with a foot massage. Videos: playlist 1, playlist 2

A professional and therapeutic Thai massage is a possible next step: you wear comfortable clothes. Videos: playlist.

The professional and therapeutic Abhyanga (“oil massage”) is a form of Ayurvedic therapy that involves massaging the whole body from head to toe with Dosha-specific warm herbal oil. Self-massage is also possible. Abhyanga massage improves skin health. Healthline published an article about it. Video: Abhyanga self-massage. Video: Abhyanga massage India

5. Fresh air

The skin is our natural boundary between our inner physical body, our inner world, our Self and the outside world. Human development, linked to so-called civilisation, led to changes in habits, and in clothing. Our ancestors did not wear clothes, they used the skin and fur of the animals they killed for food, to protect against the cold. They did not live in closed houses, but in caves, huts or tents. Fresh air was a constant factor. The air was not polluted at that time. The skin could bathe day and night in clean air. Fresh air and oxygen are necessary to keep the skin in good condition. Opening windows, at least an hour or two per day, is a must to keep air hygiene optimal. 

Going for a daily walk, also in winter, in an environmentally friendly area, creates healthy blood circulation. The blood is enriched by breathing in pure oxygen. The blood system also transports oxygen to the skin.

6. Daylight

We are the descendants of humans who lived in the open air, with an abundance of daylight. We must realise that our skin did not change as much during evolution as our habits in clothing and life. We live almost constantly in a closed house, office, workplace, car or any form of public transport, with artificial light. Natural light, daylight, is essential for our well-being, and for maintaining healthy skin. Note: daylight is created by the sun, but being in the full heat of a scorching sun is not healthy. The shade also provides natural daylight.

7. Water and healthy food

What you eat and drink can significantly affect your skin’s health. Drink at least a litre of water per day, in addition to any other liquids like coffee, tea, juice, or soup. Healthline has excellent information on good foods for healthy skin.

Photo by Arnie Watkins

Related information

More:

  • Cretan Garden: Scientific research on olive oil, the use of olive oil on the skin, essential oils, cold-processed olive soap and herbs.
  • Medical News Today: Benefits of olive oil for skin and face.
  • Mayo Clinic – a non-profit American academic medical center focused on integrated healthcare, education, and research – Does drinking water give hydrated skin?
  • Healthfully: The effects of sunlight[daylight, admin] and fresh air on the body
  • Healthfully: Vitamin D & Extreme Sweating

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