Botanicals for the face
Face oils, plant extracts and the claims made for them, graded against the research. Start with dryness, scars or sensitivity, or browse everything below.
19 articles · 12 botanicals
Myth Busting
Castor oil
Castor-heavy oil cleansing can remove makeup and even affect drug penetration, but the notion that castor oil ‘‘draws out’’ toxins or reliably clears acne is not supported by the research cited here. Evidence for helpful effects is patchy and mostly lab or formulation-level.
Myth Busting
Rosehip
Many product pages call rosehip oil “nature’s retinol.” The papers supplied here show rosehip as a source of carotenoids, vitamin C, tocopherols and PUFAs and include small in‑vitro and animal studies of wound healing, hair growth and antioxidant activity. They do not, in themselves, establish that rosehip contains meaningful retinoic acid or that it reproduces the clinical effects of pharmaceutical retinoids.