The 17 Best Clean Body Oils
There’s something undeniably decadent about a body oil: Ultra-moisturizing 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. Body oils are in fact for taking a minute for yourself.
A conventional body oil can be, like a conventional body cream, pretty bad: Mineral oil and silicones infused with artificial fragrances and colorants. Slather your body in them and you could potentially expose yourself to many more 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 and/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 skincare 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 Body 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.
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.
Rodin Luxury Body Oil
$136
This is made with the same impossibly deluxe ingredients as the best-selling, life-changing Olio Lusso face oil. The incredibly moisturizing, beautifully scented (it’s made with 11 plant and flower oils, from neroli to evening primrose, rosehip, and calendula) body oil sinks into skin and truly leaves you glowing. Former model/stylist Linda Rodin created it; one look at her skin, and you’ll want to have what she’s having. Models, designers, stylists, photographers, and …pretty much everyone in the fashion industry is obsessed.
Tata Harper Revitalizing Body Oil
$90
This deeply luxurious mix of natural oils is amazing for plumping and hydrating skin, and it also makes for a beyond-indulgent, ultra-moisturizing bath. The scent—a mix of essential oils from borage to calendula—is relaxing and uplifting all at once, while the formula itself is pure skin nourishment.
Chantecaille Rose De Mai Body Oil
$95
This gorgeously scented body oil combines the extracts of four different types of roses with moisturizing oils like tamanu, andiroba, moringa, and borage seed to hydrate and soothe skin. It sinks in on contact, leaving behind smooth, silky skin and a subtle, spectacular scent.
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 alone, right after dry brushing, or you can actually apply it with a dry brush, working upwards from the feet in a circular motion, towards the heart for ultimate treatment.
Kypris Body Elixer in Inflorescence
$125
It’s hard to get past the fabulousness of the bottle—it seriously dresses up a medicine chest or even the prettiest vanity—but this luxurious body oil is equally amazing once opened: Scented with bitter-orange blossom, it’s a mix of potent, highest-quality botanical oils that are usually reserved for face-only formulas. Skin-plumping sweet iris stem cells and vitamin C ester are combined with nourishing oils like sunflower, moringa, prickly pear, and tamanu seed to tone, enhance, and glow. It sinks into skin instantly, leaving it soft and silky.
Rodin Mermaid Collection Luxury Body Oil
$90
This gorgeous tri-color moisturizer combines Rodin’s famous oil with hyaluronic acid and sea kelp for the ultimate lightweight summer body oil. Gently shake to combine the three layers (the result with be a beautiful, seafoam-green liquid) and smooth onto skin for instant hydration. Skin is left luxuriously gleamy and smelling of intoxicating sambal jasmine. The chic packaging, designed by Donald Robertson, is as summery as it gets.
True Botanicals Pure Radiance Body Oil
$48
This fast-absorbing oil sinks instantly into skin, leaving you both gleaming and hydrated. Formulated with antioxidant green tea and essential fatty acids, this moisturizing oil supports skin health, helping to lock in hydration. Sandalwood, cedarwood, and rosewood oils combine to leave you smelling faintly woodsy.
KORA Organics Noni Glow Body Oil
$58
This gorgeous body oil combines noni fruit extract, a skin-nourishing antioxidant Australian superfood, with rosehip 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.
Organic Pharmacy Rose and Jasmine Body Oil
The Organic Pharmacy, $66
The scent alone is gorgeous, sophisticated and subtle; the mix of oils is at least as luxurious. Beyond the exquisite rose and jasmine, there’s carrot, rosehip, St. John’s wort, jojoba, and marigold, leaving skin plump with moisture, faintly scented, and beautifully healthy.
Jao Goe Oil
$48
This ultra-luxurious body oil is packed with firming, anti-aging ingredients that protect against UV and environmental damage, hydrate, and reinvigorate skin. Sweet almond, grapeseed, flaxseed, antioxidant Hoya flower, passionfruit, and fig oil combine to create a healing, nourishing treatment; a blend of lime, grapefruit, lemongrass, and bergamot essential oils.
Jao Patio Oil
$30
Infused with lemon-eucalyptus oil, think of this silky, supremely moisturizing, insect-repelling balm as summer (or tropical vacation) body cream: It leaves your skin plump, supple, and faintly gleamy, smells of lemon and herbs like chamomile and calendula, hydrates with oils like jojoba and hemp and manages, without toxic ingredients, to seriously discourage insects of all sorts. We love the chic silver tube, the feel, the scent, and our smooth, healthy, unbitten skin.
Maya Chia The Revitalizer Beautifying Body Oil
$45
This 24-hour hydrating, nourishing blend of grapeseed, supercritical chia, marula, baobab, pomegranate, cranberry, and pumpkin seed oil is a true superfood for the skin. It sinks in instantly, smells incredible, and delivers fatty acids, antioxidants, and vitamins to help firm, moisturize, and tone skin. It feels amazing going on and leaves skin with a subtle sheen.
Esker Firming Body Oil - 60ML
$40
This toning, hydrating body oil is designed to keep skin looking plump and youthful—and it doubles as a subtle fragrance. The key ingredient—juniper berry essential oil—tones and moisturizes, while macadamia nut, rosehip-seed, and baobab oils leave skin feeling soft, gleamy, and youthful.
Everyday Oil Everyday Oil
$48
Organic, cold-pressed plant oils and steam-distilled essential oils combine into a super-nourishing all-in-one so you can use as a super-moisturizing face and body treatment, restorative deep conditioner for hair, or incredible massage oil. Coconut, olive, jojoba, castor, and argan oils are spiked with palo santo, geranium, lavender, and clary sage, so it smells absolutely fantastic.
Esker Restorative Oil - 120ML
$75
Gently hydrate and enliven lackluster skin with this nurturing body oil. Squalane, evening primrose, and jojoba deeply moisturize, while carrot-seed oil supports skin health. You’re left soft, and smelling subtly of rosemary, bergamot, and ylang-ylang essential oils.