The 7 Best Clean Body Oils
There’s something undeniably decadent about a body oil: Ultramoisturizing and wildly luxurious to the touch, it leaves your skin more glowy, firm, and supple. It is also not something you smooth on and then dash off to work—even oils that sink in relatively quickly do take a minute. And that’s sort of the point: Body oils are (in part) about taking a minute for yourself.
Just like conventional body lotion, conventional body oils can contain all sorts of unappealing ingredients: mineral oil and silicones infused with artificial fragrances and colorants. Slather your entire body in them and you could potentially expose yourself to larger amounts of toxic ingredients—endocrine disruptors as well as plain old skin irritants—than you would with, say, an eye cream.
The manner in which even natural, plant-based oils are extracted also makes a difference: Harsh solvents leave toxic residues in the oil that your skin readily absorbs. And oils labeled “bath” oils are often cut with solvents or drying surfactants to make them foam, or to make them less greasy on the surface of a tub.
In the same way that face oil simplified and revolutionized skin care for many people (suddenly, the centuries-old essential of indigenous women across the globe made more sense than the 17-million-ingredient conventional skin-care concoctions designed to attract with texture and scent as opposed to results), the best body oils turn out to be incredibly multipurpose. Beyond their amazing moisturizing and firming qualities, great body oils work in place of conventional perfume, as bath oil, and even hair oil in most cases. Our favorites, below, combine beautiful scents, exquisite texture, and serious skin benefits.
goop Beauty G.Day Black Pepper + Rose Hip Energy Body Oil
$60
A blend of some of the world’s most luxurious, exquisite oils, this is astonishingly light on skin. Organic Indian black pepper oil, Bulgarian rose hip oil, and Korean red ginseng oil glide beautifully over skin and sink in instantly, leaving it smooth and deeply moisturized. With the aromatic power of Japanese shiso leaf, fresh ginger, and pink peppercorn berries, this oil leaves the skin feeling invigorated, the senses awakened, and the body supple and soft.
KORA Organics Noni Glow Body Oil
$58
This gorgeous body oil combines extract of noni fruit, a skin-nourishing antioxidant Australian superfood, with rose hip and sunflower seed oils. Vitamins, minerals, and essential fatty acids sink instantly into skin, leaving it super soft, hydrated, gleamy, and smelling faintly of roses.
The Organic Pharmacy Detox Body Oil
$68
This invigorating body oil helps detoxify with juniper, grapefruit, and rosemary essential oils, enlivening and deeply nourishing skin. Use it alone right after dry-brushing, or you can actually apply it with a dry brush, working upward from the feet in a circular motion toward the heart for the ultimate treatment.
Balmyard Beauty Romantic Call Body Oil
$82
This has to be one of the most beautiful scents ever. It’s luxurious all over the body, but it also works as an amazing, subtle perfume dabbed at your wrists or neck. Made with coconut, shea, sweet almond, and hibiscus-seed oils, this incredible oil leaves your skin soft and gorgeously fragrant, not to mention glowy and supple.
Jao Goe Oil
$49
A combination of twenty-eight plant, fruit, and flower oils and butters, this multipurpose, semisolid oil smells faintly of monoi (Tahitian gardenias soaked in coconut oil) and moisturizes skin like nothing else. Lighter than a typical body butter, longer-lasting than a moisturizer, it’s made with a high percentage of jojoba oil (not technically an oil but a polyunsaturated liquid wax), plus rose hip, hemp, meadowfoam, and rice bran oils, all of which contain omega and essential fatty acids. Antioxidant avocado, grape-seed, mango, and pumpkin-seed butters and kukui-nut oil nourish skin, while chamomile and calendula calm.
de Mamiel Revitalising Body Serum
$110
A miracle blend of oils—including sea buckthorn, prickly pear, and baobab—enriches this slightly shimmery (it imparts a pretty sheen on legs, shoulders, or collarbones—especially good before going out) oil-serum. Scented with a stunning mix of citrusy, floral, and woody essential oils, it moisturizes like crazy, leaving skin beautifully nourished.
French Girl Lumière Body Oil - Jasmin
$65
Smooth a few drops over your limbs after a shower or bath and feel deeply, sexily French Girl all day: pure organic coconut, argan, rose-hip-seed, and sesame oils are infused with Ayurvedic botanical absolutes, resins, and essential oils to treat the skin and create the gorgeous scent all at once. We also use it on the wrists and behind the ears as a subtle perfume, and as a supremely indulgent (and skin-revivifying) bath oil.