It seems like every third article about new medical advancements has to do with cannabis. Researchers are finding one use after another. If you’re someone who struggles with their skin, rest assured that the benefits of cannabis extend outward too.
It’s important to recognize that not all cannabis products are the same. The benefits below are relating to hemp oil, a cannabis extract that doesn’t include THC. THC is the component in cannabis that causes the “high” people get when they smoke marijuana. In other words, getting high isn’t the same as treating your skin with hemp oil.
With that being said, there are a variety of benefits of hemp oil for skin.
The Benefits of Hemp Oil for Skin
Hemp oil can benefit your health in many ways, and your skin is no exception. Here’s what the natural oil can do for the largest organ in your body.
Acne-Friendly Hydration
Moisturizing is an essential part of every daily skin care routine. That’s even truer as fall and winter start to set in. If you’re prone to acne, though, it’s hard to find a moisturizer that won’t clog your pores.
That is, it was hard. Hemp oil is a great way to lock in hydration without boosting your breakouts. You already know that hydrated skin is important for your comfort. However, it also builds your skin’s protective barriers to keep your skin healthy.
Anti-Inflammation
Inflammation is one of those buzz words in health today, but for good reason. Inflammation can play a large role in health problems throughout your body. When it comes to your skin, though, inflammation is a comfort issue.
Hemp oil contains several beneficial fatty acids which work well to reduce inflammation. Your skin can get inflamed from a variety of conditions, or it can happen when your sensitive skin reacts to an irritant. Regardless, hemp oil can ease the inflammation and the discomfort that comes with it.
Reducing Atopic Dermatitis
One unique type of skin inflammation is atopic dermatitis. “Atopic” means it doesn’t come from anything that touches your skin. It’s caused by something you ingest, like a food you’re allergic to.
The fatty acids in hemp oil can reduce skin inflammation during an atopic dermatitis breakout. As with the irritant, though, you need to ingest hemp oil for it to work in this way.
Fighting Facial Aging
Sometimes improving your skin has nothing to do with a medical condition. It’s about helping you feel confident in your look.
There are many ways to make your skin look younger, and hemp oil is one of them. It encourages cell turnover: your body’s process of replacing aged and damaged cells with new ones. This can promote smoother, more youthful skin.
There’s another way hemp oil helps you look young. One of the primary culprits behind aging is sun damage rather than time. Sun exposure breaks down the proteins that make your skin firm. It also makes your pigment cells produce too much pigment, which creates age spots.
What does all this have to do with hemp oil? Hemp oil contains natural antioxidants. The antioxidants reduce the damage sun causes, slowing the aging process.
Acne Management
We’ve already mentioned how hemp oil can help acne-prone folks get the hydration they need without causing pimples. However, that isn’t the only way hemp oil benefits people who struggle with acne.
Hemp oil also helps to balance your body’s oil production. For many people with acne, part of the problem is that their skin produces too much oil. The excess oil gets stuck in their pores, causing a breakout. Hemp oil can regulate your natural oil production for a skin-friendly balance.
The anti-inflammatory features of hemp oil come in handy for acne patients as well. In several types of acne, the pimples are inflamed, red, and painful. The inflammation is also a major cause of acne scarring. Hemp oil eases the inflammation so breakouts are less intrusive and scars are less likely.
Of course, there’s no shortage of acne medications available. As many people with acne can attest, though, a large number of these acne products and medicines are harsh on the skin. It may be better to use a gentle product like hemp oil along with practicing good skin care habits for people with acne.
Bug Bite Relief
Even for those who love the outdoors, bug bites are never fun. Depending on the bug, the bite could become inflamed, swollen, itchy, and painful. That can put a damper on any hike or camping trip.
Instead of suffering in silence, try applying hemp oil. It can calm the inflammation and the other symptoms of the bug bite, helping it heal faster and with less discomfort.
Managing Select Chronic Skin Conditions
Most of the hemp oil uses we’ve discussed relate to isolated instances like a breakout or a rash. However, hemp oil may be able to help people with certain chronic skin conditions as well.
Psoriasis is a condition that causes people to develop itchy, dry, scaly patches. It’s caused when the body over-produces skin cells in these patches or “plaques.” Because hemp oil aids cell turnover, it may be able to ease the symptoms or psoriasis.
Another chronic skin condition that hemp oil can often treat is rosacea. Rosacea is a skin condition that affects the blood vessels in the face, causing redness and inflammation. You’ve probably already guessed it, but hemp oil can reduce the inflammation in rosacea patients.
How to Use Topical Hemp Oil
As you use hemp oil to treat your skin conditions, it’s important to make sure you’re using it in the right way. You’ll get many of the benefits above from topical hemp oil, but for others, you need to ingest it. Read more online through reliable sites about the many ways to use hemp oil.
Harnessing the Benefits of Hemp Oil
Hemp oil is one of those gifts from nature that we’re only now starting to investigate further. The skin benefits above are only a few of the many benefits hemp oil can offer.
For more great skin care tips about hemp oil for skin and beyond, check out our beauty blog.
