Castor Oil Craze
Magical beauty product or big myth?
Beauty is fleeting—as are all the so-called “magical” aesthetic fixes for myriad personal concerns over our appearance. Enter the latest rising fad: castor oil (Don’t @ us, holistic health nuts… we know it’s been around for a hot minute). Becoming quite the talker online, the essential oil has been raved about for its handful of health and beauty benefits—from helping with inflammation and digestion to aiding stress relief. And since you can never believe what you see on the internet, I decided to give the trend a try myself to discover if castor oil was worth the hype or just a bunch of hocus pocus. My guinea pig era, if you will. Here, the results of my castor oil journey.
Laxative? Uh, Yep! Castor oil has long been lauded as a natural way to go No. 2—and I can attest this is true. In the morning, after rubbing a bit of diluted oil on my stomach and waiting ~20 minutes… voila: consider me cleansed.
Hello, Hydration! Packed full of ricinoleic acid—aka a monounsaturated fatty acid—the oil helps moisturize your skin from face to bod. After a few days of applying castor oil to my face before bed, my skin was noticeably softer and smoother. A score for wintertime dry season!
Becky Anna Beth With the Good Hair After a week of massaging a quarter-size bit of castor oil into my roots, my locks started looking less dry and appeared and felt softer. Sign me up for the next L’Oréal commercial!
Mellow Mood This might be a placebo effect, but from the first day I started applying this product in the spot right beneath my lower right rib, I noticed a shift in my mood that can only be described as a sense of Zen (which aligns with the oil’s rep of providing stress reduction). … But don’t just take my word for it. Give the ~essential~ oil a try yourself!
