Finding the Best Essential Oils for Skin Care
Our guide to finding the best essential oils for skin care, including essential oil printable charts!
With so many essential oils to choose from how do you know which are the best essential oils for skin care?
Your skin is most certainly one of the first things anyone notices about you. And it’s probably THE FIRST THING you notice about yourself.
And how you feel about your skin can have an impact on your emotional well-being, which makes it all the more important to take care of.
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Related: Choosing Carrier Oils for Essential Oil Blending
What To Keep In Mind When Choosing Essential Oils for Skin Care
#1 DILUTE, DILUTE, DILUTE
Due to their high concentration, essential oils need to be properly diluted with water, body butter, carrier oils, or hydrosols before applying to the skin. Learn how to dilute essential oils safely with an essential oil dilution guide.
#2 PATCH TEST
Before applying a new essential oil to the skin a skin patch test is recommended. To do so simply add one drop of essential oil to a cotton ball. Swipe it on the inside of your arm if redness, itchiness, or inflammation occurs within 15 to 20 minutes you may be sensitive to it. If this occurs you may want to skip using that oil.
#3 NOT A ONE SIZE FITS ALL
Truth Bomb – just because a particular essential oil worked for someone else, doesn’t mean it will work for you. We all have a unique chemistry and varying skin types.
Here’s the t
YOUR SKIN TYPE MATTERS
Using essential oil for the skin can have an incredible impact on the appearance and health of your skin. But, if you’re using the wrong oils – you’re wasting your money!
Start with a quick skin type quiz, then use this detailed guide of the best essential oils for skincare recipes, blending, and simple application as a
The Top Essential Oils for Skin Care
#1 CHAMOMILE ESSENTIAL OIL:
Recommended for: All Skin Types
Best Skin Type: Sensitive Skin
Chamomile essential oil is a profound soothing oil. Its calming properties are among few essential oils calm enough to use for infants and children with dilution.
It’s a gentle aid to irritated, itchy, dry, or inflamed skin. And chamomile is genuinely the best essential oil for sensitive skin.
Aroma: Sweet / Warm / Herbaceous / Floral
The aroma is said to calm the nerves and promote a sense of ease and peacefulness—all the more reason to use it for infants and children.
#2 FRANKINCENSE ESSENTIAL OIL:
Recommended for: All Skin Types
Best Skin Type: Mature Skin
Frankincense essential oil is coveted in the world of anti-aging products, known to rejuvenate the skin and improve the appearance of wrinkles and fine lines.
Aroma: Woodland / Smoky / Earthy
Like chamomile essential oil, frankincense has a calming aroma often used for stress relief or with the practice of mediation and yoga.
#3 LAVENDER ESSENTIAL OIL:
Recommended for: All Skin Types
Best Skin Type: Dry Skin
Truly the most versatile of all essential oils, lavender doesn’t slack when comes to skincare needs either! It’s actually one of the only essential oils that can be applied to just about any area of the skin without dilution.
Known to encourage hydration and help repair damaged skin lavender essential oil is a wonderfully nourishing oil for dry skin.
Aroma: Clean / Calm / Herbaceous / Floral
Lavender’s calming, fresh aroma is a classic for soaps, perfumes, and beauty products alike.
#4 GERANIUM ESSENTIAL OIL:
Recommended for: All Skin Types
Best Skin Type: Combination Skin A.K.A. Oily, Dry, and Blemish Prone
Geranium essential oil helps to balance sebum production in the skin, while cleansing pores, and toning the skin, which makes it quite suitable for combination skin and certainly one of the best essential oils for skin care.
Aroma: Sweet / Uplifting / Pungent / Floral
Often used in high-end perfumes and skincare lines, geranium essential oil has a powerful strengthening aroma. Its sweet, uplifting, floral scent can make an excellent addition to your skincare routine.
#5 ROSE ESSENTIAL OIL:
Recommended for: Dry / Sensitive / Mature / Normal
Best Skin Type: Dry Skin
Rich in antioxidants rose essential oil promotes cell turnover for a glowing appearance. Rose helps to provide rich hydration, beneficial for dry and aging skin.
Rose essential oil in absolute form is best for skin as it doesn’t contain solvents are other residual compounds.
Aroma: Sweet / Warm / Pungent / Floral
Extracted from likely the most recognized and culturally significant flower in the world. Rose has a classic, rich aroma as beautiful as the bloom itself.
#6 LEMONGRASS ESSENTIAL OIL:
Recommended for: Normal / Oily / Blemish Prone
Best Skin Type: Oily Skin
It is distilled from the leaves and woody stalks of the lemongrass plant. Lemongrass essential oil naturally balances and tones the skin while enhancing the glow.
Lemongrass essential oil like geranium helps to balance the skin’s sebum production and cleanse the pores. This makes it one of the best essential oils for skin types that are oily or blemish-prone.
Aroma: Sweet / Citrusy / Bright / Fresh
Lemongrass essential oil has a lovely fresh, sweet citrusy scent like that of a lemon peel. Its bright, joyful aroma enhances your space as much as it benefits the skin.
#7 NEROLI ESSENTIAL OIL
Recommended for: Normal / Mature
Best Skin Type: Mature Skin
A fantastic tool to add to your anti-aging toolbox, neroli essential oil helps to encourage new cell growth in addition to balancing sebum production, toning the skin, and improving the appearance of fine lines.
Neroli essential oil comes from the flowers of the bitter orange tree. While it is a limonene like most citrus oils it’s not a photosensitive oil.
Aroma: Sweet / Citrusy / Fresh / Floral
Much like lavender, neroli essential oil has an uplifting sweet floral aroma with a touch of citrus.
Pin this ultimate list of the best essential oils for skin care now to share or grab all six of the printable essential oil skin care reference guides in the Oily Chic Library.
The Best Essential Oils by Skin Type
Essential Oils for a Normal Skin Type: lavender, frankincense, geranium, ylang-ylang, chamomile, rose
Essential Oils for a Dry Skin Type: geranium, lavender, myrrh, rose, frankincense, cedarwood, chamomile, sandalwood, jasmine
Essential Oils for an Oily Skin Type: frankincense, geranium, lavender, tea tree, ylang-ylang, chamomile, lemon, cypress, rosemary, sandalwood, orange, lemongrass,
Essential Oils for a Blemish-Prone Skin Type: geranium, cedarwood, lavender, tea tree, rose, chamomile, lemongrass, rosemary, frankincense
Essential Oils for a Sensitive Skin Type: helichrysum, lavender, rose, jasmine, geranium, frankincense, sandalwood, chamomile
Essential Oils for a Mature Skin Type: rose, frankincense, myrrh, helichrysum, sandalwood, geranium, lavender, cypress, jasmine, rosemary, ylang-ylang, orange
You May Also Like: Essential Oil Blending Wheel
Look no further than what nature has already provided us – essential oils if you struggle with skin issues. The best essential oils for the skin are incredible for soothing and nourishing all skin types! And it’s so easy to incorporate essential oils into your daily skincare routines.
Don’t forget to grab this ultimate list of essential oils for skin types now in the Oily Chic Library. Print one out for your skin type and refer to it when you make essential oil rollers or natural skincare recipes. Or print all six essential oil skin type guides to
Essential oils are best for our skin. They help to make your skin brighten, lighten and also improve the quality of the skin. I use lavender oil daily before go to bed and It provides a smooth, soft and looking glowing skin.
Lavender is a great one, I use it daily too!
Thanks so much for the article. Lots of useful info 🙂
I use Cinnamon Essential Oil almost every day. It smells amazing. I have turned to them as part of their daily skincare routine.
It does smell amazing, but can be sensitive for some on the skin.