What Italians should use as an oil alternative

Whether it be olive, coconut, seabuck thorn, or… wait what?? Seabuck thorn?

Isn’t seabuck thorn oil used in that one famous face wash that holistic naturapaths swear by??

Yeah. This isn’t an article about using oil for cooking Italian food.

Sorry.

However, this is about using oil as a double cleanser. If you didn't know about oil cleansing, you’re in for some useful intel that will change everything you’ve ever thought about washing your face.

You know that black thing that you keep picking at because it’s so satisfying when it oozes out and seems to be most commonly prevalent around the crevices of your nose? Well that right there is called a blackhead. Blackheads are basically bad bacteria build up that has been clogged in your pores. So what does this have to do with oil cleansing?

Oil cleansing has a widely held misconception that if you have oily skin, you shouldn’t be adding more oil to your skin care routine. This is incorrect. Let me explain why:

1. there’s no such thing as ‘reactive seborrhea.’ The theory that removing oil from the skin makes the skin compensate by making more oil.
2. Only things that are causing oil production in your skin are the male hormones directly acting on and stimulating your oil glands to produce that oil (women have this as well)

So, does oil cleansing actually work?

Oil cleansing doubles as a facewash and makeup remover dissolving and melting away all the make up residue effectively without having to use those remover towels.

So how does it work?

“Oil cleansing works because the oil you use to cleanse with bonds to the oils and dirt on your skin.” So essentially, you’re rubbing oil into your blackhead containing pores which is then pushed/loosened out of the hole without the creation of lesions or breakage (when you try to pop pimples with your nails).

Replacing oil cleansing into you face wash routine will not only remove those blackheads but also create a protective barrier that locks in moisture. But, that’s not all. Oil cleansing provides antimicrobial benefits because natural oils such as coconut oil contain antimicrobial properties that can help protect against harmful microorganisms such as bacteria or fungi.

So, does this mean that oil cleansing is the answer to perfect skin?

Not completely.

This brings up the analyzation of what makes oil so good for our skin besides the blackhead removing factor? Oil, specifically olive, coconut and seabuckthorn oil contain microbial properties that are also found in human breastmilk! This microbial property is called lauric acid.

A study was made for “human gut microbes, where LA was shown to have low antimicrobial activity against commensal lactic acid bacteria, but high antimicrobial activity against pathogenic Bacteroides and Clostridium, suggesting that LA might modulate intestinal health, as confirmed by the proposed method.” In simpler terms, lauric acid and lactic acid work together for our microbiome to fight against pathogenic properties that affect our skin health.

Lauric acid is derived from the oil which is both consumed and used for cleansing our skin.

Then where is lactic acid derived from? “Probiotic bacteria have the unique capacity to break down sugar and produce D-lactic acid.” Probiotics are live microorganisms considered good bacteria that fight the bad bacteria which are also naturally dervived from sources such as breast milk, fermented, and dairy products.

That explains why no one had food poisoning from Remy’s cooking. Because he eats probiotics from fermented cheese!

So the Italians seem to be onto something…Garlic, oil, cheese, and wine.

• Garlic contains antibiotic properties and is effective against a wide spectrum of bacteria, fungi (fungi is related to skin eczema)
• Cheese contains fermented porperties (Cheeses that are probiotic rich are either aged or made from raw, unpasteurized milk)
• Wine (“Organic Natural Wines. Commercial processing techniques, like extreme filtration, damage or remove many of the good compounds in wine. Manufacturers often replace them with artificial coloring and lab-created yeast strains.”)

Not to mention, GMOs are banned from Italy. As well as BST (growth hormone) injection into cows to produce more milk which is linked to IGF-1 and cancers.

However, note one important factor. These ingredients, especially sourced in America, do not contain enough probiotic bacteria that can have visible impacts on skin health.Although they may provide some residual benefits of vitamins the same way multivitamins have, but cannot provide the strength necessary for additional benefits related to skin.

Overpriced import fees and impractical logistics of the shipping significntly impacts the quality of the product which makes all these delacacies questionable. To make it easier, we could just take a probiotic pill and oil cleanse to call it a day… a day with flawless skin that is.

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Michelle Oh publishes on Medium three times a week; follow her here to get each post in your email — and if you’re not a Medium member, you can join here!

Michelle is a CEO of Ohbiotics, USC Marshall Alumni, and a strong supporter of the Asian American community. She’s @ohbiotics on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Discord, and Pintrest.