Hi Melb - so does this mean that the jojoba wax/'oil' works differently to oil 'oils'? Does it actually sink into the skin or does it sit on top and let the skin do its own work? How is this different from oils? If oil molecules don't penetrate the skin, and sit on top, shouldn't this work the same way as jojoba? How is this different from 'conventional' moisturisers, which promise to 'get into' the skin? How is this different from an organic product which is made of oils, beeswax and essential oils?

I'm not trying to argue, just wanting to nut out how all this works and why all these different substances that I experiment with work in different ways.

Thanks for any of your careful information - 

yours in eternal experimentation,
Niqi

Melb you really know your stuff! Thank you so much for sharing. I had heard that Jojoba oil was an amazing one to use and will definitely buy some soon.

Regarding 'active ingredients' or advertised ones.... it can be easy to fall for hype. I have some shampoo advertised as natural with organic fruit in it.. but when you look at the ingredients the shampoo is not organic, and the organic apple and mint is so far down the ingredients list as to be non existent (I've stopped using it). Someone gifted me last week with shampoo and conditioner from Dr Robert Young of the pH Miracle which is fairly natural and works well. Piers hasn't had to use shampoo in years and years and he has the best hair ever. I'm going shorter soon (having been growing my hair for www.locksoflove.org), and I look forward to using less shampoo too. I'm doing to using it about once a week though which is pretty amazing for me.

I'm so looking forward to shorter hair... when I sit back now it gets caught behind my back! I don't know that I've ever had it so long.

Sheryl what a beautiful gift to give...yes its only hair...and ideally not something that we should be so attached to...for years i use to be though....i hid behind it for so long..and thought that my beauty was my hair...lol ...go figure hey!

maybe it doesnt help that alot of men think that woman should have long hair...im keeping mine short and rebelling he he

i could grow mine long in a flash...mines cut every 2 weeks!! my hairdresser cannot believe it...every cut i can get a new style..and now my eyebrows are finally growing after years of not growing...when i was eating unbalanced raw...interesting hmmmm...

Melb...even i think i might look for that jojoba...and i have a bathroom and storage room full of diff products lol..thanks again for sharing your knowledge

Melb, thanks!

 

Niqi

Lots of things do sink into the skin, do help nourish and build up the skin, it's just that often heavy oils don't, they just don't have enough of the little extra bits to really do much beyond sit on the surface and get the skin confused. Essential oils can help the skin, though not if they're in something with mineral oil!  Traveling down the hair shaft can help penetration of some things, so hair removal where the entire shaft is removed can slow down things traveling that way.  There is a lot to this stuff!

Most oils have a few extra things in them other than the oil molecules, some of those are small enough to sink in.  Rosehip oil has lots of the extra bits, evening primrose does.  Some macerated oils are very good (where some plant is chopped up and left soaking in the oil) calendula oil is one of the most commonly use macerated oils lots of the goodies in the calendula flowers soak into the oils and then into the skin, main problem with calendula is it's usually bright yellow and can stain things. 

There are lots of incredibly high-tech methods of extracting the active ingredient portion of whatever, but it's often some major extract process with other chemical additives (sometimes similar to Jim's post about milk solids on how bad somethings in chocolate are) Sometimes the cheap version is of something like rose oil is either a synthetic copy (the very cheap version) or extracted using a lot of nasty chemicals, or extracted the traditional way with petals on fat between glass, but that often involves animal fat, or the incredible high tech super dooper phyto extraction that is so expensive you don't even see it anymore (wholesale pricing a few years ago super cheap copy unknown because it wasn't stocked, chemical extraction about $70 for 2ml, $120 for trad fat, and $350 for expensive high tech version with a few variations in between depending on location/organic)  The $350 for 2ml had more active ingredients than the others, the synthetic copies usually have no active ingredients other than some of the smell.

Unless it is horrible hormonal skin, I think a lot of skin problems are incorrect products - they either irritate it or people think oil is bad strip all the oil off  (sebum, which is actually a wax, but I'll call it oil since people think of it in terms of oily skin, not waxy skin:) ) so the skin thinks must pump sebum to surface to protect the skin, and goes into crazy oil production mode, the oil starts getting to the skin surface, but it's so dry it can't flow out over the skin, so it just sits in the pore, skin still feels dry, more oil is pumped, it gets blocked behind the first bit that hasn't moved out of the pore properly, still nothing gets out, more oil pumped, more stuff stuck on pore, enlarged pores, blackheads, pimples etc.  This is where oil as a at least a first cleanser works well (and you're not trying to nourish the skin with oil as a cleanser, so any oil will do pretty much, and you're going to wipe it off anyway) the oil will soften up stuff in the pore and it all loosens up and comes out, it also loosens up the greasy pollution grime on the skin in big cities and/or make/up etc. Dry skin is often diet related, not enough omega 3s, old age dry skin is often sundamaged and/or omega 3s.

Stick with jojoba (or camellia oil ) for a while and let your skin figure out what it can manage to do by itself.  Once it starts showing what it can do, you might find it is doing it all anyway - most of the nourishment for the skin is what you feed it from the inside rather than the outside.  Good diet it one of the best things you can do for you skin 

If you want to reveal fresher skin faster than it naturally falls off (and that is what happens you are continually shedding skin cells, they fall off!), use an enzyme mask (green papaya and pineapple are the big two, though the pineapple can be a bit aggressive on sensitive skin, depends on the pineapple)

If there is a particular condition, like psoriasis or eczema or rosacea, there are particular things to try, but most people it's just not having the right oil flow confusing the skin.

For those who were looking for organic jojoba oil, I discovered yesterday that Perfect Potion sells it.

Here's their website:

http://www.perfectpotion.com.au/index.php

(posted with permission from RP)

Disclaimer:  I personally have a long history with Perfect Potion, as I have been a customer since their first store opened in QVB, many moons ago.  I love their products, and have the deepest respect for Salvatore & his passion for aromatherapy.

Anyhoo, I thought this may be of interest to the burgeoning band of jojoba hombres! 

Sorry can I just clarify - you are using coconut butter, rather than coconut oil, as a cleanser? Or is butter and oil the same thing, just different names?

I thought I might buy some of the camellia oil from the USA and start to cleanse with jojoba oil and then moisturise with the camellia oil (still toning with the warm water)