Pairing botanical oils with herbal constituents for herbal skin care

What herbal constituents get extracted into herbal infused oils?

I have been pondering this question for a long time.

“But you have a PhD in chemistry – shouldn’t you know?!” I hear you ask.

I mean, yes, I have quite a good idea which herbal constituents from which plants make it into herbal oil infusions. (And I will generously share about them in Oily Craft - 3-part online course on botanical oils (& tallow), herbal infused oils & herbal salves, balms and body butters.) But I am always hungry for more detail.

Recently I came across claims such as:

“Oil X is better for extraction of {insert name of a herbal constituent} than oil Y.” etc.

which sparked both my interest and suspicion. 

Should we select botanical oils based on the oil-soluble herbal constituents we wish to extract? Contrary to recently popular internet belief, I argue that apart from following through with several general considerations, we need not worry about such pairing for the purposes of small-scale herbal skin care making. Below is why (briefly). 

How can we tell what we extracted into herbal infused oils?

When assessing the molecular composition of a herbal infused oil (at home), we can rely on:

1. An organoleptic analysis

i.e. Use our senses of sight, smell and taste to understand what herbal constituents made it into the herbal infusion.

2. Chemistry knowledge

We can lean into general chemistry principles to make educated guesses about what constituents are extracted. This will inform us about the molecular composition of herbal oils in more detail.

3. Review of scientific literature

Finally, we can further underpin the above by reviewing published scientific literature. Such a review is not a trivial thing and can easily take months/year(s) of full-time work (yes, even with access to AI tools). It is also handy if you are at least semi-proficient in chemical analysis and its methodologies.

What do these tools allow us to say about our herbal oils?

Even if all this information was available to you, I argue that there would still be data missing. Yes, essentially, I am saying that there should be more experimental work done before making conclusions about pairing botanical oils with herbal constituents for use in herbal skin care making.

Without performing an actual analytical measurement of our herbal oils, our knowledge of their exact molecular composition simply can’t be accurate enough to justify claims such as:

“I made my extract with olive oil instead of sunflower oil, so my extract is richer on this particular polyphenol (and therefore more effective) than yours.”

We may theorize about it on the above grounds, but it remains in the realm of an interesting scientific discussion. Because (to sum up):

1. There is no consensus on this in the scientific literature (yet).
2. There are far too many extraction variables that will influence the outcome and that we simply cannot account for in our small home labs.
3. You need an analytical measurement to be this precise with your claims.

In Oily Craft I will share an insight into all three above pillars of the assessment of molecular composition of herbal oils (organoleptic analysis, chemistry principles, literature review). You will learn about:

• What types of herbal constituents can you expect to find in you herbal infused oils.
• How to tell they are there (and can you tell in what concentration?). 
• Relevant factors that actually matter when selecting a botanical oil for both, your herbal oil infusion and skin care formulation.
• How to avoid bold inaccurate statements that might not be valid for your particular extract anyway.