Dr. Giuli’s All-One Magic Oils!
Filed under: Uncategorized — Giulianna Maria Lamanna @ 1:54 PM
I made herbal soap and shampoo for people with scaly skin or dandruff. Babies sometimes got Cradle Cap and we used herbals with Rosemary in it and healing balm to treat this condition. The oils were from goose or bear—we hardly ever used domestic animal fat for this purpose. The best was deer tallow for soap and shampoo—it makes a soft and creamy soap. Goose fat was used for rubbing compounds with plenty of pepper plants for warmth. We now can use almond oil, olive oil, and grape seed oil for this purpose. I still save my goose and deer fat for the medicinal. Sometimes I can get Bear fat for its wonderful fine oil. There is nothing better for chapped hands than Bear grease. Waynonaha Two Worlds
Various types of oil are well-known for softening the skin. As we see above, Native Americans used a variety of animal-based oils for soaps, shampoos, and healing balms. Similarly, the Australian Aborigines used emu oil. So naturally, now that I’ve started thinking about making my own beauty products, these animal oils are at the top of my list of ingredients. There is one problem, however: emu oil is expensive—way too expensive to use as a base for homemade beauty products. And to buy bear oil nowadays is to support often-illegal poaching operations that threaten the bears’ survival in North America.
But hey, if using domesticated plant-based oils instead of animal-based oils is the least of your compromises with civilization, you’re way more rewilded than I am, so feel free to pat yourself on the back and skip this blog post. Although come to think of it, you probably don’t own a computer or use the Internet. So really, I don’t know why I’m spending an entire paragraph talking to you.
Let’s start with one oil that’s as un-primitive as they come: mineral oil, which is derived from petroleum. Nothing derived from petroleum is going to be something you can hunt and gather—let’s just get that out of the way right now. Mineral oil is a common ingredient of beauty products because it’s cheap and never goes bad. But since we’re just making products for ourselves (and perhaps a few close friends), I should hope we don’t have to worry about keeping the product fresh on long truck rides across the continental United States. That should free us up to use vegetable-based oils, which are generally better for the skin anyway. I’m not even going to touch the whole “mineral oil causes cancer and also leaps from your skin to suck the blood of puppies and kittens” story that’s so often found on the Internet because I’m not convinced either way. (I’m leaning toward mineral oil being mostly harmless to your skin, though of course extracting oil from the ground and turning it into products like mineral oil is extremely bad for the environment, so there’s a legitimate reason to not use it.) The following is a list of oils that I do recommend, shamelessly cribbed from Janice Cox’s Natural Beauty at Home:
Almond oil is frequently used in massage therapy for its emollient properties. Bear in mind that there are two different kinds of almonds: sweet and bitter. Sweet almonds are domesticated and the almond oil I’m talking about comes from them. Bitter almonds grow wild and contain deadly poisons which will kill you. Try not to mix them up.
Apricot oil is pressed from apricot kernels and is very much like almond oil, but much cheaper (which is probably why it sometimes finds its way into bottles of almond oil without the consumer’s knowledge). You’ll often find apricot oil listed as an ingredient in cosmetics, since it softens the skin.
Avocado oil is pressed from the fruit of the avocado tree, which is native to Mexico and Central America. Like apricot oil, avocado oil is often found in cosmetics due to its skin-softening and regenerative properties.
Castor oil comes from the seed of the castor oil plant, which is native to either tropical Africa, India, or the Mediterranean, depending on whom you ask. Today, it’s found in tropical regions throughout the world. The oil comes from the seed, which is actually poisonous raw. In addition to lubrication and dressing leather, castor oil has also been used as a purgative, laxative, and cathartic.
Coconut oil is extracted from dried coconut (ah, the coconut: is there anything it can’t do?) and as for where that grows, well, if coconut palms grow naturally in your bioregion, I officially hate you. Coconut oil is also known as coconut butter and is basically a giant wad of fat (90% saturated fat). You can theoretically use it for cooking, but unless you’re stranded on a desert island with no other source of fat, you’ll just make the American Heart Association cry. No, the best use for coconut oil is to smear that little bastard all over your body. In India and Sri Lanka, it’s often used to style hair. The same purpose can be applied to pretty much any oil on this list: as long as you don’t overdo it and make yourself look like you haven’t bathed in a month, these natural oils keep the frizz down and moisturize your hair all at the same time. Coconut oil also tends to last very long without going rancid.
Grape seed oil is the stupidest freaking thing to try to make yourself if you’re rewilding. Grape seeds don’t contain all that much oil, which explains why grape seed oil production only really took off in the industrialized 20th century. (Compare that to, for instance, olive oil, which has been produced and in wide use since the beginning of civilization.) But as long as we’ve got grocery stores, I should mention that, according to Wikipedia, grape seed oil has been used for “salad dressings, marinades, deep frying, flavored oils, baking, massage oil, sunburn repair lotion, hair products, body hygiene creams, lip balm and hand creams.”
Jojoba bean oil comes from the jojoba plant, which is native to the Sonoran Desert (around southern Arizona, southern California, and northern Mexico). You can forage for jojoba beans if you live around there, though naturally it’ll take a hell of a lot of them to extract enough oil to be useful. Native Americans and Mexicans have been using jojoba beans for centuries: “In the 1700s, Father Junipero Serra, the founder of 21 California missions, noted in his diary that the Native Americans were using the oil and the seeds for many different purposes: for treating sores, cuts, bruises, and burns; as a diet supplement and as an appetite suppressant when food was not available; as a skin conditioner, for soothing windburn and sunburn; as a cooking oil; as a hair or scalp treatment and hair restorative; and as a coffee-like beverage by roasting the seeds.” (from here)
Macadamia nut oil is pressed from the meat of macadamia tree, native to Australia. It’s considered a good botanical replacement for mink oil. Like everything else on this list, it’s an emollient and is frequently used in cosmetics. It’s particularly good for heavy creams and suncare.
Olive oil comes from (duh) olive trees, which are native to the Mediterranean. It’s known for softening the skin, hair and cuticles, and also might help prevent skin cancer. Being of half-Italian descent, I take full credit for the wonders of olive oil, and you may leave your gifts at the door. Mind you, in any beauty product you make, take care to use extra virgin olive oil, as opposed to filthy slut olive oil, which will give you syphilis.
Sesame oil is extracted from the sesame seed, which is quite a difficult process even for industrialized civilization. You might remember sesame oil from various Asian dishes you’ve had in the past, particularly of the Chinese or Korean variety. It’s also used for massage therapy, and by people living in the tropics to cool themselves down. I.e., if global warming’s getting you down and you don’t have air conditioning, try applying sesame oil to wherever you’re feeling hottest. Don’t put any on if you’re cold, though; it’ll just make things worse.
Wheat germ oil is a favorite of the kind of hippie that would get the joke in this blog post’s title. (*in stage whisper* I’m making fun of Dr. Bronner!) Unfortunately for our friend wheat germ oil, it’s very expensive and also perishes easily. In my opinion, there’s no real point in choosing it over, say, coconut, olive, or apricot oil. Since it’s extracted from wheat, I don’t need to tell you that trying to gather enough wild what kernels to make the oil is going to be infuriatingly difficult. So either way, what’s the point? But if you just love anything wheat germ-related, go nuts.
Now, I know that basically all the oils on this list are from tropical or sub-tropical regions, and for those of us in temperate zones, that’s not so good for us. If you know of any oil-producing plants that grow wild in other bioregions, please list them here. But do keep in mind that, in a hunter-gatherer context, it makes way more sense to use animal-based oils than to squeeze oil out of plants. That’s only worth it if you’re living in an agriculturalist society, as we are now.
Rose hip seed oil is really nice too… very healing and restorative (and pink!)
Living in the wilderness, I have to totally agree with you that animal based fats make a whole lot more sense, so much easier to get and process. I can’t imagine the number of grapeseeds it would take to make oil, yikes. Beaver have a lot of fat, and a fairly neutral smell (unlike Bear usually).
Interesting what you write about Sesame oil, since in Ayurveda it’s often considered wonderful for grounding and healing Vatas who are consitutionally cold…. I use Coconut oil for overheated pitta people alot though. And I eat the unrefined Coconut oil in a huge way, it’s great for you (one of the healthiest saturated fats) and makes everything taste lovely.
hrrm, this is a very long comment, sorry about that.
Comment by Kiva — 5 September 2007 @ 6:57 PM
Hey Giuli,
Enjoying the fabulous posts. Just a quick comment about coconut oil: it’s fantastic for eating, just like tallow and especially suet, which are also way saturated. As for the AHA, well, I think Weston Price, and the indigenous he observed would give them little credence.
Comment by Archangel — 6 September 2007 @ 10:47 AM
Plant based oils to be found in temperate climates (esp the Longhouse bioregion) include sunflower seed oil & butternut oil. Both obtained by mashing, then boiling the seeds/nuts and skimming the oil off.
Comment by jhereg — 6 September 2007 @ 11:15 AM
Giuli, the nature of “wonked out” is simply that as more text gets added to the comments page I lose the whole left side of the screen - so I have to just assume that the left side of my message is right because text doesn’t start appearing onscreen until, for example, in your message where I can only read… “nshot of that?” onward.
I’ve made a screenshot (since that’s what nshot means to me
but how shall I send it to you? uh oh, I can’t access the submit button…
ok, I’ve posted this in the comments of this post simply because the whole left side of the page had dropped off in the other… sorry for off topic here…
Comment by neighbor — 7 September 2007 @ 10:58 AM
Email to fabforager@anthropik.com
Comment by admin — 7 September 2007 @ 11:10 AM
Yes, any fatty nut makes a decent oil, so you have hickory, beechnut, walnut etc. in the longhouse bioregion. But sunflower is what I have heard used most for beauty. It seems they preferred that or bear grease. The other nut oils I know were eaten. I don’t know if they chose sunflower for its beautification properties or because it was the most abundant or the least tasty or some other reason, or if they actually did use the other oils.
The oil thing is curious to me. The native sunflower seeds are soo tiny. How did they ever collect enough to process into oil? I know sunflowers were cultivated (by the Haudenosaunee) though so I’m wondering did they select for giant ones way back when?
Beechnuts are another mystery. I have never found enough beechnuts to eat out of hand, let alone make nut butter or oil out of, supposedly a common practice. Beech are being killed by beech bark disease now, but they are still a common tree. How did the indians get so many nuts? Were the trees larger? more abundant? did prescribed fires increase the yeild like for oak? or were they just better collectors than me?
Kiva- I have this aversion to coconut oil. I hate the taste, and it makes me sick and nauseous to eat much while my friends eat it all the time. Do you think this has anything to do with my constitution?
Comment by Penny Scout — 7 September 2007 @ 12:08 PM
Oh, and Giuli I was thinking maybe you could have a beauty tip page where people can post their own little primtive beauty hints and helpers. Or ask for tips too? Eventually some of them could lead to full-length articles.
Comment by Penny Scout — 7 September 2007 @ 12:13 PM
I got the joke. Does that make me a hippie?
Comment by Rix — 7 September 2007 @ 1:51 PM
Yes.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 7 September 2007 @ 2:00 PM
Nice idea, Penny.
Giuli, I certainly understand if you want to keep something like this in-house, but if you wanted to host a forum for this kind of discussion over at REWILD.info, I would happily open it up to you.
If we set you up with your own board, we could even give you an RSS feed for just that board that you could have show up in your sidebar (like the main Anthropik site does with the general REWILD.info conversations).
Let me know if this interests you.
Comment by Rix — 7 September 2007 @ 2:02 PM
Damn. [Sniff, sniff] I knew it.
Comment by Rix — 7 September 2007 @ 2:03 PM
Rix, that would be awesome! And don’t feel bad about being a hippie. We’re all hippies here.
Comment by Giulianna Maria Lamanna — 7 September 2007 @ 11:29 PM
The herbalist Dr. Christopher’s three favorite oils were wheat germ, olive, and castor. In short, he considered wheat germ oil to be healing, olive oil to be nutritive, and castor oil to be cleansing. If you have need of any of those effects consider using these oils as your base.
Wheat germ oil is a primary ingredient in the comfrey burn paste, along with honey and comfrey root, which I have had some almost miraculous experiences with personally. I used some just last night on my wrist which was hurting from too much writing. It feels much better this morning.
One story, reportedly printed in JAMA but possibly apocryphal, is told of a young boy who burned his esophagus out with lye and lived healthily for years on nothing but daily olive oil massages.
Castor oil is absorbed through the skin and will go straight to the liver and cleanse the system from there - but don’t try to press it yourself unless you enjoy taking your life into your hands.
Comment by anon. — 8 September 2007 @ 1:27 PM
Penny, what’s your constitution like?
It could just mean you hate Coconut oil
How do you feel about coconut itself?
Seed oils go rancid so fast that that they seem fairly useless to me for beautifying practices (ever smeared rancid oil on yourself? It don’t smell too good). Rendered animal fat tends to smell more neutral but most people are grossed out by the thought.
We have wild olives but they’re tiny and seem to have a shortage of oil, oh well…
Hah! I’m not a hippy, I’m a plant-crazed, sawed-off shotgun wielding wild woman. But sometimes villagers mistake me for a hippie due to my strange clothing, so don’t feel bad, Rix!
Comment by Kiva — 8 September 2007 @ 4:18 PM
A note on castor oil: It will permanently stain any fabric it comes in contact with, so be careful when processing or applying it!
Comment by anon. — 15 September 2007 @ 6:44 PM
Sorry that it has taken me so long to get around to this. I set up a board for you on REWILD.info. It’s in the “Invisible Technologies” section, and it’s called “The Fabulous Forager”. Follow this link to get there. The site requires you to set up an account, but it’s free, and your email will not be shared.
If you want to set up a feed for this board, you can use this link.
And, Giuli, you have moderator rights on the Fabulous Forager board.
Enjoy.
Comment by Rix — 17 September 2007 @ 5:02 PM
Hey, you got yourself a feed in the sidebar. Nice.
FYI: you can limit the number of posts that show up with the (ironically enough) “limit” parameter. I think I set it up with “limit=10″ but you can make that number anywhere between 5 and 255. Not that you would ever want 255 posts showing up over there, but you know… in case you might, then you can.
Comment by Rix — 18 September 2007 @ 8:41 PM
I also forgot to mention that even though the feed titles just show up as the thread title (which doesn’t really tell you much) if you hover your mouse pointer over the title, then you can see the first few lines of the forum post.
Comment by Rix — 18 September 2007 @ 8:46 PM
Yup, we’re using the limit. We’ve got more real estate here than on Anthropik, so we bumped it up from 5 to 10.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 September 2007 @ 8:49 PM
Rock on, Mr. Technoshaman.
Comment by Rix — 18 September 2007 @ 8:57 PM
“I made herbal soap and shampoo for people with scaly skin or dandruff.”
Scaly skin? Like, say, DRAGONS!?!
Comment by Dragon Slayer — 19 September 2007 @ 1:30 AM
Coming in late on this: I’m gonna echo everyone here who said, “Waitaminnit, coconut oil is HEALTHY!” Saturated fat is healthy, as a matter of fact. I read recently that about fifty percent of our cell membrane material is made up of the stuff, and it’s vital for building nervous system tissue, among other things. A lot of what passes for good nutritional advice these days is based on bad science–a lot of the crap they assume about the relationship between cholesterol and heart disease is based on an early-20th-century experiment where they fed meat to rabbits!
Comment by Dana — 14 October 2007 @ 12:15 PM
Thank you for having the good forsight to explore possible ways to use healthy things for the body and skin.
When I was younger we used what we had on hand. There was little access to stores or ready made oils. We sometimes used the oils from the pine nuts that once grew plentiful in the higher plains of Nevada. Nothing was easy but wild game was plentiful and we lived on what we took from nature.
I trust you all find a good way to nurture your self and explore the vast knowledge that is there for your reading. love Waynonaha
Comment by Waynonaha — 15 October 2007 @ 8:24 AM
Dear Dr. Giuli:
How do you get the smell of rancid oil out of a salad oil bottle?
And how do you get the smell of castor oil out of fabrics?
Thank you.
Carol
Comment by Carol — 18 November 2007 @ 10:11 PM
Honestly, Carol, I wish I knew.
Comment by Dr. Giuli (LOL) — 19 November 2007 @ 6:47 PM