Pure essential oil is not directly used on skin, even the tea tree essential oil and the lavender essential oil, are only partially directly applied on skin . Unlike the pure essential oil, base oil can be directly used on skin. Usually massage your body by base oil, it will moisturize the skin. Especially in winter, massage your body by base oil, it can prevent skin dry.
Base oil contains very rich nutrients. Even with out mixture with pure essential oil, it is already very good oil for massage. It helps to moisturize the skin, and can be directly used for body massage. Many base oils themselves have medical and cosmetic effects. For example, rose fruit oil has remarkable effect on eliminating scar and desalination of pigment. Wheat germ oil has excellent flat wrinkle and moisturizing effect.
The base oil for aromatherapy is distillated by cold press extraction. By cold press extraction of vegetable oil, without any loss, we can plant minerals, vitamins, fatty acids, and good preservation. It has superior moisturizing and nourishing qualities. However, the edible vegetable oil , for example, soybean oil is hot pressed under 200 degrees, which is the edible oil we can see on supermarket shelves.
A vegetable oil that can be used as a base oil must be a vegetable oil that is non-volatile and not chemically refined. For example: sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil, cheese pear oil, jojoba oil, wheat germ oil, and etc. This type of oil, contains vitamin D, E and iodine, calcium, magnesium, fatty acids, etc. They can be used to dilute essential oil, and to assist skin rapidly absorb the essential oil. Other normal edible oil are usually refined under high temperature, and lost their natural nutrition, they are not suitable as base oil for aromatherapy.