A Review of Botanical Therapy Products and Ingredients
Rosacea is a tough condition to have. Sure, there are topical and oral medications your dermatologist can prescribe, but many work well for a year or two, but then they lose their effectiveness. Strict skin care routines, a diet eliminating triggers, and careful attention to environmental triggers help alleviate the redness, pustules, and irritation. It's hard, however, to maintain a strict level of control, and you can't always control the outdoor temperature, pollen count, or the wind.
Botanical treatments are gaining ground among rosacea sufferers. I recently had the pleasure of testing out Botanical Therapy's Facial Serum for Rosacea. Here's what I found.
A Closer Look at What's in Botanical Therapy's Facial Serum
The rosacea serum contains nothing that generally irritates my sensitive skin. It's a custom blend of apricot oil, jojoba oil, sea buckthorn essential oil, lavender essential oil, rosemary essential oil, and helichrysum essential oil. It comes in a one-ounce bottle that has an eye dropper. It's easy to use. Simply spread five drops on the afflicted areas twice a day.
The Ingredients
I own this awesome guide about essential oils for therapeutic use. If you haven't heard of Essential Oils: All-Natural Remedies and Recipes for Your Mind, Body, and Home, pick up a copy. It's not very expensive and talks a lot about the essential oils available today and how they help you. The book also looks at how essential oils are made, so you'll learn a lot.
The key essential oils in BotanicalTherapy.com's rosacea oil are:
- Sea buckthorn
- Lavender
- Rosemary
- Helichrysum
Looking at the book Essential Oils, you'll find that Helichrysum is great for fighting infections, healing and protecting the skin, soothes allergic reactions, and works as an anti-inflammatory. These are all beneficial when you have rosacea. Lavender offers similar properties and also has antiseptic properties.
Rosemary adds properties that help improve circulation and removal of toxins from the body. Sea buckthorn helps with rashes, is rich in antioxidants, and can help with blood vessel health. As you likely know, blood vessels and capillaries lead to the flushing and redness rosacea causes. Those beneficial properties also aid in easing rosacea.
My Experience
The serum spreads on well. I worry about having to pull at my already sensitive skin when applying a product, but this serum is light and spread effortlessly. Loved that! The other thing I loved was the scent. It's not strong, but it does have the light scent of lavender, which is something I find soothing. Anyone who knows me knows my stress levels have been through the roof following my dad's unexpected death following a stroke and my mom's diagnosis with Alzheimer's. Lavender oil is a soothing way to ease anxiety, so I feel like I'm getting two benefits in one.
Getting back to the rosacea serum, I didn't find it made my rosacea any worse or better, maybe a little better but not drastically so. It definitely made my skin feel moisturized, but the redness didn't diminish at all after a week. I'll keep using it and update if it does. What I did notice though is that it ended the itching! In the spring/summer, my rosacea itches like crazy. Each time I applied the rosacea serum, any itching came to an end and stayed away until about two hours before I was due to apply the next round. I highly recommend Botanical Therapy's Facial Serum for Rosacea if itching is one of your issues!
Final Thoughts
With the bottle of rosacea facial serum came another bonus - Cuts and Scrapes Oil. I happened to be in the garden and cut myself on a raspberry thorn, so I tested the oil too. It's just as good as the rosacea serum. I plan to keep using the rosacea serum. I have this feeling that stress is a leading factor in the redness right now. I'm hoping once we agree on how to best provide the care my mom needs, my stress levels should lessen.
Visit BotanicalTherapy.com to learn more about their products. They have a range of products in their online shop that cover many conditions ranging from anxiety and asthma to rosacea and acne. I definitely recommend them and thank them for sending me such great products.