A Guide to Oil Cleansing for Healthy Skin

What is Oil Cleansing?

The oil cleansing method (often referred to as OCM) involves cleansing your skin with pure oil, or at least it was that simple before the internet took hold of the idea. Most traditional facial cleansers contain one or more of the following ingredients: soap, surfactants (non-soap ingredients that also make bubbles), emulsifiers (ingredients that keep oil and water from separating), and preservatives (to keep the water phase from growing bacteria and mold). Oil cleansing, on the other hand, involves using a blend of pure oils (traditionally castor oil and olive oil) to cleanse your skin, then wiping the oil away with a very warm washcloth, and/or following up with a second cleanser. The benefits of oil cleansing can include a very deep cleanse, ease of use, and, once you get the right blend and the right frequency, improved skin clarity. Oil cleansing can also remove makeup and sunscreen effectively. Oil cleansing may not be appropriate for all skin types.

How Oil Cleansing Works

The oil cleansing method involves using a blend of pure oils to cleanse the skin, with the idea that “like binds like,” meaning the oil blend will bind any grime, makeup, excess sebum, or sunscreen on your skin and, when you remove the oil cleanser, the other stuff on your face gets removed as well. The trick is to make sure that you apply the oil cleanser to dry skin initially, especially if you’re wearing makeup or sunscreen, and that you remove it all completely after you’re done cleansing. If you don’t remove the oil cleanser thoroughly, you end up with a new mixture of grime/makeup/sebum/sunscreen AND your oil cleanser that gets left sitting in your pores, and can actually cause severe breakouts and cystic acne. 

Choosing the Right Oils for Your Skin Type

While there is some debate about the best oils for oil cleansing, the classic oil cleansing method calls for a blend of olive oil and castor oil, with more castor (75%) and less olive (25%) for acne-prone skin, a 50/50 blend for normal skin, and the inverse ratio (25% castor, 75% olive) for dry skin. Castor oil tends to be quite thick, and can bind almost too well with your skin’s sebum, so a high percentage of castor oil in your blend could both feel too thick, almost like glue, when you’re using it, and leave your skin feeling quite dry. Most skin types will do fine with 10-30% castor oil, or you can swap it for something slightly less viscous such as sweet almond oil. You can also swap the olive oil for sunflower oil or jojoba oil. Scroll down for some DIY recipes at the bottom of this article. 

If you’re not the DIY type and you’re looking to purchase an oil cleanser, buyer beware. While the original oil cleansing method started with people using simple, pure oils like olive oil and castor oil, most “oil cleansers” on the market now are actually just cleansers with a liquidy texture and “oil” somewhere on the ingredient list. To give a specific example, one of Allure’s Best of Beauty winners is an oil cleanser that has nine ingredients—cetyl ethylhexanoate, polyglyceryl-5 dioleate, glycerin, hydrogenated polydecene, sorbitol, water, pentaerythrityl tetraisostearate, polyglyceryl-5 oleate, polyglyceryl-6 caprylate—listed before you get to the first actual oil on the list. Since ingredients are listed in order from most to least, this means that there’s not very much oil in this oil cleanser. Many commercial oil cleansers contain foaming agents, emulsifiers, ethoxylated ingredients, and fragrance, and are not truly oil cleansers in the strict sense of the term. Our Purely Gentle Mud Cleanser contains organic sunflower oil, but we would not refer to it as an oil cleanser. 

“Oil-to-milk” cleansers are another example of potentially misleading terminology, making consumers think that a magical chemical transformation happens when they start using the oil on their skin, turning it into milk. The truth is that any oil, when mixed with water, will develop a milky appearance as an emulsion starts to form. So any time you add water to your face during the process of oil cleansing, you will notice a milky appearance. Oil-to-milk cleansers simply contain extra emulsifying ingredients that will enhance this process and make it more obvious. 

There are a few products that align with the more traditional interpretation of oil cleansers, such as this one by Tata Harper or these by Primally Pure, both of which use only high quality oils. And if you have an oil serum you’re already using and enjoying on your skin, you can try cleansing with it—chances are quite good that it will perform well as an oil cleanser, too!

How to Do Oil Cleansing Properly

Step One: Wash and dry your hands, then apply your oil cleanser to dry skin, using enough product that you can massage it around easily without feeling like it’s pulling on your facial skin, but not so much product that you’re dripping with oil. Use gentle pressure with the pads of your fingers, and massage the cleansing oil into your skin for about a minute. 

Step Two: Wet your hands with very warm water and continue massaging your face for another thirty seconds, emulsifying the oil with the water from your hands. 

Step Three: Take a clean, wet, very warm (not super hot) washcloth or microfiber face cloth and gently wipe away the oil, turning the cloth over and rinsing it frequently. 

Step Four: Follow up with a second cleanse, using your favorite, non-oil cleanser. Alternatively, if you started with fairly clean skin and feel you’ve removed the oil cleanser completely, you can skip the second cleanse and apply your moisturizer. 

Benefits of Oil Cleansing

Believers in the oil cleansing method report softer, smoother skin, reduced pore visibility, fewer breakouts, and a balanced, glowing texture to their skin. Oil cleansing can reduce sebum production, which may be helpful for oily or breakout-prone skin types. And for people who wear makeup daily, oil cleansing (if done correctly) can help ensure the makeup gets entirely removed at the end of each day so your skin has a chance to rest and reset overnight.

Can Oil Cleansing Cause Breakouts?

Oil cleansing absolutely can, and often does, cause breakouts. There are a few reasons this can happen: 

• Your oil blend contains oils that are too comedogenic (pore-clogging). Some examples might be sesame, soybean, moringa, carrot seed, or wheat germ oil.

• You’re not wiping away the oil cleanser completely, which means you’re leaving a mixture of oil cleanser and whatever was on your skin prior to cleansing on your face, where it can clog pores and cause breakouts. 

• You’re oil cleansing too often, which can dry out your skin and cause your sebaceous glands to kick into high gear and produce too much sebum, which can cause acne.

• You’re oil cleansing for too long or with too much pressure, which can irritate your skin or push the oil cleanser so deeply into your pores that it’s hard to remove.

How Often Should You Oil Cleanse?

This is likely to be a trial-and-error experiment. I recommend starting once a week to see how your skin feels after oil cleansing and whether you experience any dryness or breakouts. If your skin seems happy, and you want to do it more often, increase to twice a week for a couple of weeks to observe what happens. You can continue to increase the frequency if you feel inspired to do so, but oil cleansing is not a necessary step in any skincare routine, as long as you’re using a cleanser that cleans your skin thoroughly. 

Should You Oil Cleanse If You Have Acne?

Oil cleansing can be beneficial for acne-prone skin. It can also make acne worse. Success with oil cleansing depends on your oil blend, how often you do it, and your technique. Even if you’re doing everything right, your skin may have an increase in breakouts when you start oil cleansing. If you notice your acne getting worse, you can oil cleanse less often and give your skin a chance to adjust to the new routine. If it does not adjust after a few weeks, it’s possible that oil cleansing is not right for your skin, and a different approach, like this breakout clearing kit, could be worth considering instead.

Which Skin Types Benefit Most From Oil Cleansing?

There is no hard and fast rule here: all skin types have the potential to benefit from oil cleansing, and all skin types have the potential to react poorly to it. If you have an oily complexion, oil cleansing may help your skin downregulate sebum production, just as applying the right facial oil serum can. If you have very dry skin, you’ll want to pick a more nourishing oil blend and reduce the frequency of oil cleansing to once a week or so, in order to ensure you are not pulling too much sebum away from your skin. If you find that even once a week is too much, oil cleansing may not be the right fit for you, and switching to other natural skincare for dry skin may be in order.

Common Oil Cleansing Mistakes to Avoid

• Oil cleansing too often

• Oil cleansing too aggressively

• Not removing the oil completely

• Using the wrong oil blend for your skin

DIY Oil Cleansing Blends

If you’re intrigued and want to try DIY oil cleansing, here are a few blends you can try, using very simple ingredients that you should be able to purchase at your local health food store. I suggest you use organic cold-pressed or expeller-pressed oils to avoid low quality, potentially contaminated ingredients on your skin. Store your blend in a small glass bottle away from heat and direct sunlight, and make sure you don’t get water into the container.

DIY Oil Cleanser for Oily Skin: 25% castor oil + 75% olive oil or sunflower oil

DIY Oil Cleanser for Normal Skin: 10% castor oil + 90% olive, sunflower, or jojoba oil

DIY Oil Cleanser for Dry Skin: 50% sunflower oil + 50% jojoba oil

Conclusion

Oil cleansing can be a nice ritual to add to your repertoire, but it is not a necessary step in your skincare routine. All of our natural facial cleansers, for example, will remove makeup and sunscreen completely with just one cleanse. However, if you wear a significant amount of makeup, oil cleansing can help loosen and remove your makeup before a second cleanse. Also, if you have very oily skin, oil cleansing can help your skin balance its sebum production and become less oily over time. And, if you just want a reason to massage your beautiful face with a lovely oil blend from time to time, oil cleansing is a great way to do it.