Oat oil is a soothing skincare treatment that you can actually make at home. You have probably heard of oat creams, serums, and body washes before, or maybe even used them, and you are probably already familiar with how good they are for your skin.
Oats have all sorts of beneficial properties that make them great for skincare. I want to share with you a method for how to make oat oil at home, if you’re interested in the DIY side of skincare.
What Is Oat Oil?
Oats are healthy inside and outside the body. Of course, oatmeal is great for your heart and digestive system thanks to its high fiber content and various nutrients. Oats used as a skincare treatment offer completely different benefits. Oat oil comes from that same plant you get oatmeal from, and the stems and leaves of the plant are processed to create a soothing, helpful body oil that can do wonders for you.
Oat oil is so good for keeping your skin moisturized. If you have skin that tends to be dry, flaky, and dull looking, then applying some oat oil can help, as it fortifies the skin’s barrier and keeps moisture from escaping as easily. That’s perfect for when you are in a dry climate and need some help keeping your skin looking vibrant.
Oat oil is also a good anti-inflammatory, and that’s why it is so soothing. It can be used to treat burns, eczema, and other skin conditions.
Another benefit of this oil is its ability to boost healthy hair growth. This is a beneficial side effect of its moisturizing powers, as it relieves dryness in the scalp and stimulates healthy hair follicles by improving the health of the skin that the hair is growing from.
Why Is There Oil in Oat Milk?
Some types of oat milk will contain oat oil in them. That may seem strange to you, and if you’ve ever heard about oil being an ingredient in oat milk, you may have wondered what its purpose is there.
Oil is actually added to oat milk and other kinds of milks to help them achieve a creamy consistency. Oat oil may not be the only type of oil used in oat milk. Sometimes canola oil or other types of oils are used.
Typically, there will only be a small amount of oil in oat milk, so it shouldn’t feel or taste oily at all. Just enough oil is added, in most cases, to make the milk as creamy as the customer expects.
How Is Oat Oil Made
You can buy oat oil that’s already prepared for you or you can make it yourself from scratch. Let me share with you a method for how to make oat oil at home.
Ingredients:
- 4 grams of colloidal oatmeal
- 40 grams of sunflower seed oil
- 40 grams of sweet almond oil
- 11 drops of lavender essential oil
- 9 grams of emulsifying wax
- 17 grams of olivem 300
- 3 blobs of benzoin essential oil
Directions:
- Pour water into a small saucepan to fill it to about an inch and bring that to a simmer on the stovetop.
- In a separate dish, combine a teaspoon of sweet almond oil and all of the colloidal oatmeal. Stir them together until they create a smooth mixture. You may need to break up some clumps.
- In a glass measuring cup, combine sunflower seed oil, emulsifying wax, olivem 300, and the remainder of the sweet almond oil.
- Add to that the oatmeal mixture and then place the measuring cup into the pan of water (a heat resistant measuring cup is essential for this part).
- Allow the hot water to melt your ingredients, which should take 15-20 minutes. Stir everything together once it has melted.
- Take your melted oil and pour it into a plastic pump bottle. Add the essential oils in and cover the bottle. Then shake the bottle to mix all of your components together.
This creates a wonderfully soothing oil that you can use in the shower to help fight infection, improve skin moisture levels, and ease skin irritation.
To use the oil, just pump a few globs into your hand and spread it across your skin, particularly on the dry, scratchy and irritated areas. You can use it in the shower, if you like, rinsing off whatever isn’t absorbed into your skin after using it. It doesn’t have to be rinsed off, though. You can spread it on your skin outside the shower and leave it there as a skin lotion.
How to Make Oat Infused Oil
Oats can be infused with other kinds of components to make oil as well. Usually, you will start with colloidal oats and mix them in to your other ingredients and then melt all of that together using heat conduction. That’s the method I showed you above, and it stays pretty much the same no matter what kind of combination of ingredients you are using.
Just make sure that whatever oils you are using, that they are soothing for your skin or at least won’t irritate it. Remember that all of the components you use will be spread on your skin, so be aware of what oils cause irritation or allergic reactions.
Even using colloidal oatmeal on its own as a skincare treatment works well, so when you infuse it into an oil, you can make it a little less icky (who likes spreading oatmeal on their skin anyway), and you can craft it into a form that is more easily absorbed by your skin.
The benefits are pretty much the same either way, but you get more benefits faster by making the oats into an oil and rubbing that on your skin rather than using an oatmeal powder or paste.
How to Store Oat Oil
You may be wondering what kind of storage is ideal for oat oil. There isn’t any water in the mixture I gave you earlier. It contains water soluble components, but it doesn’t have water in it. Because of that, you won’t have to use a preservative in it. It should store just fine for as long you care to use it.
You should keep it way from water when you aren’t using it and ensure that water does not get inside the oat oil solution. If you keep it sealed in the pump bottle, then there shouldn’t be any issue. Once water get introduced to it, though, then there could be a risk of microbial intrusion and the oil could spoil after a while.
You can store it wherever you store your other lotions, creams or shower products. Just be careful about shower storage, because you want to keep water from getting inside. Make sure the bottle is secure after every use and definitely after you refill the bottle.
The method I have given you for making a homemade oat oil is about as simple as you can get when you are trying to make a quality skincare treatment. Use the oat oil as often as you like, even when your skin isn’t dry and itchy, just to boost your protection against dryness.
I’m Jennifer a beauty and wellness expert. I believe in promoting a sustainable and healthy lifestyle from within. Helping people feel good is my passion; whether it’s teaching yoga or offering skincare advice.
