Four impressive safflower seed oil benefits for skin & beauty

what is safflower seed oil and how does it benefit skin? read on to find out.

You may see the name Carthamus tinctorius on cosmetic product labels, and wonder what ingredient it represents. The common name for this botanical is safflower, and it is used fairly widely in food and supplements, and it also has a long history in cosmetic formulations. The plant goes back as far as the time of Egyptian pharaohs, and has been referenced in many Greek documents.

In the 1880s, it was known as carthamine, and today it is a major crop in India, and has many agricultural and commercial applications. In the United States it grows in the western part of the country (California produces about 50% of the plant) and it is also grown in western Canada.

Despite its long history, people didn’t start pressing safflower seeds for oil until 1925, and it become popular in the 1960s as many of the benefits of the oil and the plant were discovered.

Safflower seed oil benefits: all-around great for skin

The oil pressed from the safflower seeds is very high in vitamin E, which offers many health benefits. In addition to vitamin E, safflower oil also contains omega-6 fatty acids. The seed oil is low in saturated fat, making it a healthy choice for cooking as well as skin. Vitamin E is recognized as a potent antioxidant and a great line of defense against free radicals, which are molecules that tend to attack collagen and help to prematurely age the skin.

When the skin is expose to excessive UV radiation from sunlight, the body produces free radicals. The free radicals attack the skin at the cellular level, damaging the mitochondria within the cell and causing a loss of elasticity. This is a significant contributor to fine lines, wrinkles and the appearance of aging skin. Because of its antioxidant properties, safflower oil has many benefits for the skin and is used in cosmetic products that are created to help reverse the damage done by free radicals.

This includes rough skin, age spots, and skin irritations. Research also shows that safflower oil works to reduce skin inflammation and plays a significant role in wound healing. Wound healing is a combination of various functions within the body that includes cellular, molecular, and other mechanisms. Once an injury to the skin occurs, the body begins to create a wound matrix, which is an immune response that helps break down the tissue where the wound happened. Then the process of wound repair begins, allowing new cells to form and move to the wound area. The topical application of oils like safflower oil and its vitamin E component helps to expedite this process.