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The truth about oils, acne-prone skin, and the science nobody is teaching you. From a holistic practitioner, skincare founder, and award-winning formulator who's been there.

If you've ever stared at a beautiful bottle of face oil, lifted the dropper, and then put it back down because some quiet voice inside said "this is going to break me out" — I want you to keep reading.

Because the very thing you've been taught to fear is the thing your skin has been missing.

I'm not just saying that as a holistic practitioner who's spent almost 30 years studying skin from the inside out. I'm saying it as a woman who has personally been there. I have oily, acne-prone skin. I have been broken out by oils in the past. I know that fear is real. And I'm telling you, with every cell of my body, that fear is based on a misunderstanding that the skincare industry has done very little to correct.

The wrong oil will clog your pores. The right oil can heal them. The difference between those two statements is the entire reason this blog exists.

Let me walk you through what I've learned about the science of sebum, the missing fatty acid most acne-prone skin is desperately starved of, the role your hormones and gut play in everything, and why the oils I formulated at The Golden Secrets have helped so many women break the vicious cycle they've been stuck in for years. You can see our real customer before & afters HERE.

The Vicious Cycle Most Acne-Prone Women Are Stuck In

Let me describe a story that I think you'll recognize.

You notice a breakout. You panic. You reach for the harshest cleanser you own, usually something foaming, sulfate-based, and "deep cleaning." Maybe you double-cleanse it for good measure. Then you apply a drying spot treatment. Then a clay mask. Then a salicylic acid serum. Then, out of desperation, a glycolic acid pad on top.

Your skin stings. It feels tight. It looks angry. And within a few days, you're breaking out worse.

So you assume you didn't strip it enough. And the cycle starts again.

Here is what is actually happening underneath all of that. Every time you strip your skin, you damage the lipid barrier — the protective film of healthy fats and oils that holds your skin together, retains its hydration, and regulates how much sebum your sebaceous glands produce. When that barrier is compromised, your skin does the only thing it knows how to do: it sends an emergency signal to your oil glands to produce more sebum to compensate for what was stripped away. More sebum means more clogged pores. More clogged pores means more breakouts. More breakouts means more stripping.

You haven't been over-producing oil. You've been over-producing oil in response to being chronically stripped.* Those are two very different problems.

Your skin isn't broken. It's been compensating for years of being stripped.

The Missing Fatty Acid Almost Every Acne-Prone Woman Is Deficient In

Now we're getting to the part that changes everything.

Multiple peer-reviewed studies going back to the 1980s and continuing through the most current dermatology research have shown that acne-prone skin is genuinely deficient in one specific fatty acid: linoleic acid.

Linoleic acid is an essential omega-6 fatty acid that your sebaceous glands use to produce healthy, liquid sebum. When your skin has plenty of linoleic acid, the sebum your glands produce flows easily out of the pore, lubricates the skin, and protects the barrier. When your skin is deficient in linoleic acid, your body substitutes a different fatty acid called oleic acid, which produces sebum that is thick, sticky, and hard. This thick sebum doesn't flow out of the pore. It gets stuck. It plugs the follicle. It feeds the bacteria that cause inflammation. And it creates the exact comedones and breakouts you've been fighting.

Let me say this again so it lands: *acne-prone skin doesn't have a sebum problem. It has a sebum quality problem.* The oil your skin is producing is the wrong kind of oil because the raw materials it needs to make the right kind are missing.

This is why so many "oil-free" skincare regimens fail acne-prone skin in the long run. You can strip and dry and exfoliate forever, but until you give your skin the linoleic acid it needs, your sebum will keep coming out wrong. The breakouts will keep coming back.

And here is the part that no one talks about: the right plant oils are some of the richest topical sources of linoleic acid on earth.

So Why Have Some Oils Broken You Out?

Because not all oils are created equal. This is the part the clean beauty world has done a serious disservice by selling you the problem and the solution, keeping you in a vicious cycle of thinking something is wrong with you.

There are two factors that determine whether an oil will heal your skin or break you out: its fatty acid composition (specifically the ratio of linoleic acid to oleic acid), and its stability (how prone it is to oxidation once exposed to heat, light, oxygen, and your skin). Most blogs and brands only talk about the first one. The second one is just as important and it's where most so-called "natural" oils fall apart.

Let me explain.

The PUFA Problem Most Brands Won't Talk About

Polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) are inherently unstable molecules. The same chemical structure that makes them biologically useful (multiple double bonds in the carbon chain) also makes them extremely vulnerable to oxidation when they're exposed to heat, light, or oxygen. When a PUFA-rich oil oxidizes, it doesn't just lose its nutritional value. It actively generates free radicals that damage skin cells, accelerate aging, and ironically contribute to the very inflammation, clogged pores, and breakouts the oil was supposed to help prevent.

Linoleic acid itself is a PUFA. So here's the nuance that almost no one in the clean beauty space is teaching you: just because an oil is high in linoleic acid doesn't automatically mean it's good for your skin. The source matters. The extraction matters. The processing matters. The freshness matters. The packaging matters. The stabilization matters. And the formulation matters.

This is why a high-linoleic oil that's been properly grown, cold-pressed, third-party tested, stabilized with vitamin E, and stored in dark glass is a completely different product than a high-linoleic oil that's been industrially processed, exposed to heat, sold in plastic, and sitting on a warm shelf for a year.

Linoleic acid is necessary. But stability and formulation is everything.

The Industrial Seed Oil Family — And Why I Avoid All Of Them On My Face

There's a category of oils I want you to know by name, because they show up everywhere in conventional skincare and even in many "clean" beauty products and they all share the same fundamental problems.

They're collectively known as industrial seed oils. They are the byproducts of industrial agriculture — soybeans, corn, cotton, rapeseed (canola), sunflower, safflower, rice — most of which are grown as commodity crops on a massive scale and processed for animal feed, biofuel, and the food and cosmetics industries simultaneously. The oils we're talking about are typically extracted with chemical solvents like hexane, exposed to high heat, deodorized, bleached, and refined into a uniform-looking product before they ever reach a bottle.

They are quietly inflammatory. They are unstable. They oxidize easily. And several of them carry additional concerns that go beyond the fatty acid conversation — pesticide residue, hormone disruption, GMO contamination, allergen status, and natural toxins.

If you want one rule that will simplify your entire skincare audit forever, it's this:

If an oil exists primarily as a commodity crop byproduct, it doesn't belong on your face.

Here is the full family, listed roughly in order of most-pervasive and most-concerning to least. I have never used any of these oils on my face. I never will. And once you start reading labels, you'll be shocked at how often they show up in products that market themselves as natural.

• Cottonseed oil — this is the one I want you to pay the closest attention to, because most women have never heard of it but it's hiding in countless beauty products and processed foods. Cotton is one of the most heavily pesticide-sprayed crops on earth. The cotton fiber is fed into the textile industry, and the seed is fed into the food and cosmetic industries as a byproduct. Cottonseed oil contains gossypol, a naturally occurring toxic compound that the plant produces as a built-in pesticide; gossypol has been associated in research with infertility, hormonal disruption, and toxicity to multiple organ systems. Raw cottonseed oil is literally not fit for human use it has to be refined, bleached, and deodorized through aggressive chemical processing before it's even sold. The fact that it ends up in skincare products at all is a function of how cheap it is, not because anyone thought it was good for your skin. I would never put cottonseed oil on my face, on my body, or in my home

• Soybean oil (also listed as Glycine soja oil or Glycine max oil — pay attention, because it hides in more clean beauty products than any other oil on this list) — about 50% linoleic acid and 23% oleic acid. The fatty acid profile looks fine on paper. The problem is everything else around it. Over 90% of the U.S. soybean supply is genetically modified. Most commercial soybean oil is hexane-extracted, refined, bleached, and deodorized before it ever reaches a product. It oxidizes easily, like all PUFA-heavy oils. And here's the part that should really get your attention: soybean oil contains naturally occurring isoflavones (genistein, daidzein) that bind to estrogen receptors and can act as endocrine disruptors when applied topically over time. For women dealing with hormonal acne, estrogen dominance, perimenopause, pregnancy, or breastfeeding this matters. Soy is also one of the top 9 FDA-recognized allergens, meaning a meaningful percentage of women will react to it on their skin without ever connecting the dots back to the ingredient

• Canola oil — (this is the one no one expects to see on this list, and that's exactly why it deserves to be here). Canola is a manufactured oil. It didn't exist in nature until the 1970s, when it was created in Canada through the hybridization of rapeseed to reduce naturally occurring toxic erucic acid levels. The name itself is a marketing term — CANadian Oil, Low Acid. The supply is almost entirely GMO. The processing is the same industrial chemical extraction story as soybean and corn. There is nothing traditional, ancestral, or beneficial about canola oil. It's a commodity crop product engineered for shelf life and cost — not for your skin, not for your health, and certainly not for your face

• Corn oil — over 90% of U.S. corn is GMO. The oil is extracted from corn germ as a byproduct of the industrial corn production system that drives most of American agriculture. Heavily processed, hexane-extracted, deodorized, and high in unstable polyunsaturated fats. Like the others above, it oxidizes quickly once exposed to air, light, or your skin. Cheap filler oil. Don't use it on your face

• Sunflower oil (high-linoleic variety) — over 60% linoleic acid. Beautiful fatty acid profile on paper, deeply unstable in practice. The version sold in most clean beauty products has typically been heat-extracted and degraded long before it ever touched your skin. The cold-pressed, low-volume, properly stabilized exception exists in some traditional formulations, but the version you'll find in 99% of mass-market skincare is not the one to trust

• Safflower oil (high-linoleic variety) — about 70% linoleic acid. Same story as sunflower. Beautiful on paper, deeply unstable, often industrially processed, and oxidizes quickly. The kind of oil that makes ingredient lists look impressive while delivering very little to your skin

• Grapeseed oil — over 70% linoleic acid. Yes, it's high in linoleic acid. It's also one of the most unstable, oxidation-prone oils there is, and it's almost always a byproduct of industrial wine production, extracted with chemical solvents like hexane unless explicitly cold-pressed (and even then, the stability problem remains). The clean beauty world has been pushing grapeseed for years as a "natural" anti-aging oil. It isn't

• Hemp seed oil — about 55-60% linoleic acid. Genuinely useful in some contexts and I have nothing against hemp as a plant. But as a face oil, hemp oxidizes notoriously fast, has a short shelf life, and the version most brands use isn't fresh enough by the time it reaches the consumer. I would not put it on my face

• Rice bran oil — this one deserves a bit more nuance, because the story isn't black and white. Rice bran oil has been used traditionally in Japanese and Korean skincare for centuries, and it does contain some genuinely beneficial compounds (gamma-oryzanol, tocotrienols, ferulic acid). In its truest, freshest, most traditional form, rice bran can have real value. But the modern commercial version that shows up in conventional skincare is heavily refined, oxidation-prone, and often stripped of the very compounds that made it valuable to begin with. If you find a beautifully sourced, cold-pressed, intentionally formulated traditional Japanese product using fresh rice bran — that's a different conversation. The mass-market version most brands use is not

Here's the takeaway that ties this all together.

If you've been using a face oil with any of these as the primary base, and you've been breaking out, this is very likely part of why. You weren't reacting to oil itself. You were reacting to oxidized, industrially processed, hormone-disrupting, or pesticide-residue-carrying oil, which is a completely different category of substance than the fresh, properly-sourced versions of the genuine plant oils your skin actually benefits from.

These industrial seed oils are pro-inflammatory. They are pore-clogging. They accelerate aging. The whole point of using oils on your skin is to reduce free radical damage, calm inflammation, and feed the lipid barrier. PUFA-heavy industrial seed oils sold in clear bottles, plastic, or unstable formulations do the opposite. They contribute to the very problems they're being marketed as solving.

This is the truth most clean beauty brands won't tell you, because these oils are cheap. They're a fraction of the cost of properly cold-pressed, organic, traditional plant oils like pomegranate, rosehip, or jojoba. They make formulations look impressive on paper at a low cost per ounce. But the women buying those products are the ones paying the price in breakouts, in oxidative damage, in hormonal disruption, and in skin that gets worse the longer they use "natural" products that aren't actually serving them.

How To Spot The Industrial Seed Oil Family On Labels

These oils don't always appear under their common names. The cosmetic industry uses INCI names (International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients) on labels, which means the same oil can show up under several different terms depending on the brand. Save this list, screenshot it, or bookmark this post — and use it whenever you're evaluating a new product:

• Soybean oil → Glycine soja oil, Glycine max oil, hydrogenated soybean oil

• Cottonseed oil → Gossypium herbaceum oil, Gossypium hirsutum oil

• Canola oil → Brassica napus seed oil, Brassica campestris oleifera oil, rapeseed oil

• Corn oil → Zea mays oil, Zea mays germ oil

• Sunflower oil → Helianthus annuus seed oil (without a "high-oleic" qualifier — high-oleic sunflower is a different and more stable oil)

• Safflower oil → Carthamus tinctorius seed oil

• Grapeseed oil → Vitis vinifera seed oil

• Hemp seed oil → Cannabis sativa seed oil

• Rice bran oil → Oryza sativa bran oil

• The catch-all hide: "Vegetable oil" — used on conventional cosmetics and especially old-school drugstore brands. Almost always a blend of soybean, corn, canola, and/or cottonseed. If you see this on a label, put it back on the shelf

If you scan a face oil, serum, moisturizer, or cleansing product and one of these names appears in the top five ingredients, which means it's a meaningful concentration of the formula I would put the bottle back on the shelf and look for a brand that's chosen better.

This is the skincare audit that will quietly transform your bathroom over the next year. Most women have no idea how many of these oils they've been applying daily for decades. Once you start seeing them, you can't unsee them.

Oils That Are Genuinely Beautiful For Acne-Prone Skin

Now let's talk about what does work — and what I personally use, formulate with, and trust on my own face.

• Pomegranate seed oil — high in linoleic acid and contains punicic acid, a rare omega-5 fatty acid with exceptional anti-inflammatory and barrier-rebuilding properties. Naturally more stable than the PUFA-only oils above. One of my favorite oils on earth for acne-prone skin

• Rosehip fruit oil — about 45-50% linoleic acid, with naturally-occurring vitamin A compounds and trans-retinoic acid that support healthy cell turnover and skin renewal. Properly cold-pressed and stabilized, it's a foundational oil for acne-prone skin

• Jojoba oil — technically a liquid wax, not an oil. Its molecular structure is the closest of any plant oil to human sebum, which is why your skin recognizes it. Jojoba signals to your oil glands that the skin is supported, which helps regulate sebum production naturally rather than adding to it. Jojoba is also exceptionally stable — it can sit on a shelf for years without oxidizing. This is one of the most important oils in the entire conversation for oily and acne-prone skin

• Sea buckthorn oil (CO2-extracted) — one of the most nutrient-dense oils in the world. Rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and rare omega-7 fatty acids. Deeply healing for inflamed, broken-out, or reactive skin

• Carrot seed oil — rich in beta-carotene (a vitamin A precursor) that supports gentle cell turnover and skin renewal — like a botanical, self-regulating, non-irritating version of retinol. Also delivers strong antioxidant protection

• Tamanu oil — in a category of its own. Tamanu doesn't compete on fatty acid ratio. It competes on rare bioactive compounds — calophyllolides, calophyllic acid, and inophyllum P — that have documented antibacterial action against the bacteria associated with acne breakouts. More on this below, because I gave tamanu its own entire product

Oils I Personally Avoid On My Own Face

This is the part I want to be honest about, because I get asked all the time. Just because an oil is "natural" doesn't mean it works for every skin type — and certainly not for mine. Here's what I've learned about my own oily, acne-prone skin over almost 30 years of trial and error:

• Coconut oil (used alone, on the face) — breaks me out. Full stop. I love coconut oil for body, hair, and cooking. I formulate with it in our Aphrodisiac Glow Oil and Illuminating Cleansing Oil because it's paired with other stabilizing oils that balance it out. But straight coconut oil on the face? Not for me. Not for most acne-prone women I work with either

• Shea butter (on the face) — same story. Beautiful for body. Heavy and clogging on my face

• Tallow (on the face) — I know tallow is having a major moment in the wellness world, and I respect the ancestral logic. But the reality is, it's heavy. For dry, mature, or barrier-compromised skin, it can be wonderful. For oily and acne-prone skin like mine, it sits on the skin and traps debris. I don't use it on my face

• Almond oil — high in oleic acid, breaks out a lot of acne-prone women including me. I avoid it in face formulations

• Olive oil — about 70% oleic acid. Gorgeous for dry or mature skin, generally too heavy by itself, for very acne-prone skin

• Avocado oil — about 70% oleic acid. Same as olive — beautiful for dry skin, often too heavy for acne-prone skin

• Marula oil — about 70-78% oleic acid. Trendy in the clean beauty space, but too heavy for my skin type

I'm not telling you to avoid all of these. I'm telling you what I've personally learned through years of paying attention to my own skin. If you have dry, mature, or normal skin, some of these — particularly olive, avocado, and tallow — may work beautifully for you. If you have oily, acne-prone, or combination skin, learn from my mistakes. Stick with the lighter, linoleic-rich, properly stabilized oils.

A Word On The "Comedogenic Rating Scale" Everyone Quotes

If you've Googled "is [oil] comedogenic," you've encountered the comedogenic rating scale — a 0 to 5 scale that ranks ingredients by how likely they are to clog pores. You've probably been told certain oils are "a 4" or "a 5" and should be avoided.

I want you to know something about that scale.

It was developed in the 1970s using rabbit ears. Specifically, by applying ingredients to the inside of rabbit ears and measuring follicular response. Rabbit skin is dramatically more reactive than human skin. The concentrations used were also much higher than what appears in any actual skincare formulation. The scale has been criticized for decades by dermatologists and formulation chemists for being misleading and outdated. Modern human studies have repeatedly failed to confirm many of the original scale's rankings.

This isn't to say the comedogenic conversation is meaningless. It's to say that one ingredient's rabbit-ear score in isolation tells you almost nothing about how a complete formulation will perform on your actual skin. Context matters. The fatty acid ratio matters. The stability of the oil matters. The other ingredients in the formulation matter. The freshness of the oil matters most of all — because as we just covered, oxidized oils are far more likely to clog pores than fresh ones, regardless of what the original rabbit-ear score said.

If you want to choose oils wisely, the framework I'd use is:

• Look for high linoleic-to-oleic ratios if you're acne-prone

• Look for inherently stable oils (jojoba, pomegranate, sea buckthorn) over inherently unstable ones (grapeseed, sunflower, safflower, hemp)

• Look for cold-pressed, organic, third-party-tested sourcing — not industrial extraction

• Look for dark glass packaging — not clear bottles, not plastic

• Look for vitamin E or other natural antioxidants in the formulation as stabilizers

• Look for a brand that talks about stability, freshness, and small-batch production — not just "natural ingredients"

That framework will serve you for the rest of your life. The rabbit-ear scale will not.

How I Formulated Our Oils For Real Skin (Including Mine)

When I sat down to formulate The Golden Secrets oils, I was formulating for myself first.

I have rheumatoid arthritis, which means my whole system is inflammation-reactive. I needed oils that would work on the most stubborn skin in my own household before I would let them go out into the world. And I needed them to do something the clean beauty industry was largely failing to do at that time: deliver real therapeutic benefit to acne-prone skin, in stable, cold-pressed, food-grade form, with zero toxic load.

Every oil in The Golden Secrets line was chosen for a specific therapeutic role. Every botanical is organic. Every bottle is made in small batches. Nothing is included as filler. And most importantly for the women reading this — none of our oils contain the heavy, oleic-dominant carriers or the unstable PUFA-heavy fillers that have historically broken out women like us.

Here are the three oils I'd point you to first if you're scared of oils, struggling with acne, or have oily skin. Each one tells a different story because each one solves a different piece of the acne puzzle.

Illuminating Cleansing Oil is the formulation intelligence story — what happens when you combine multiple thoughtfully-paired oils to cleanse without stripping. Heal All Oil is the rare bioactive story — 100% pure tamanu, one of the most-researched plant oils on earth for breakouts and inflamed skin. Youth Beauty Face Oil is the linoleic acid story — a high-linoleic, daily face oil designed specifically to feed acne-prone skin the fatty acid it's been deficient in.

Together, they're a complete protocol. Individually, each one teaches you something important about how to choose oils for your skin for the rest of your life.

Illuminating Cleansing Oil

The cleansing ritual that balances sebum production — instead of stripping it.

This is where most acne-prone women need to start, and most don't. If you take one thing from this entire blog post, please let it be this:

The biggest single thing you can do to break the breakout cycle is stop using harsh cleansers.

Foaming, sulfate-based, "deep cleaning" cleansers strip the lipid barrier we just spent this entire post talking about. Stripping that barrier is what sets the whole vicious cycle in motion. The fix isn't more stripping. The fix is cleansing without stripping — and that's exactly what an oil cleanser does.

How oil cleansing works. Oil dissolves oil. Sounds counterintuitive, but it's basic chemistry. When you massage a cleansing oil into dry skin, it dissolves the sebum, makeup, sunscreen, pollution particles, and bacteria that have built up on the skin's surface — without disrupting the natural lipid barrier underneath. You rinse it away with warm water and our Glowing Facial Cloth, and what's left behind is balanced, hydrated, intact skin. Not stripped, tight, squeaky skin.

Our Illuminating Cleansing Oil is built specifically for the woman with oily or acne-prone skin who has been afraid to switch to oil cleansing. The formula is 99.75% certified organic, and every single ingredient was chosen to do a specific therapeutic job. This is what formulation intelligence actually looks like:

• Jojoba seed oil — biomimetic to your own sebum. Signals to your oil glands that the skin is supported and helps regulate sebum production naturally. Highly stable, will not oxidize

• Castor seed oil — the unsung hero of oil cleansing. Castor oil is famously cleansing — it has natural ability to pull out impurities, dissolve stubborn buildup, and decongest pores. It's the reason this oil cleanses as deeply as it does

• Olive fruit oil — yes, olive oil is in here. And I know I said earlier that I avoid olive oil straight on the face. This is exactly where formulation intelligence comes in. Olive oil, when paired with jojoba and castor in a thoughtful blend, becomes nourishing rather than heavy. The other ingredients change how it behaves on the skin. (More on this in a moment.)

• Camellia seed oil — also known as tea seed oil. One of the oldest beauty oils in traditional Asian medicine. Rich in antioxidants, deeply hydrating, anti-inflammatory

• Tamanu oil (yes — the same tamanu that makes up 100% of Heal All Oil) — built into the cleanser to deliver antibacterial action against the bacteria that drive breakouts, every time you wash your face. This is part of why you'll notice the difference within the first few weeks

• Sea buckthorn oil — rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and rare omega-7 fatty acids. Supports tissue repair and helps stabilize the oil blend

• Vitamin E (tocopherol) — natural antioxidant that protects the oils from oxidation and supports your skin's own antioxidant defenses

• Coconut oil — yes, coconut is in here. And just like olive oil above, this is where formulation matters. Coconut alone breaks me out (and many of you, too). Coconut paired with jojoba, castor, and the rest of this blend behaves completely differently — it contributes specific medium-chain fatty acids and antimicrobial action without the clogging behavior straight coconut oil has on acne-prone skin

• Palmarosa, Cape Chamomile — calming aromatic botanicals that also have gentle antibacterial properties

• Nettle, Chickweed, Willow Bark, Rice, Calendula extracts — a herbal infusion blend that delivers anti-inflammatory and skin-soothing botanical support with every cleanse. Willow bark in particular is the natural source of salicin (the precursor to salicylic acid), giving you the gentle exfoliation and pore-clearing benefits without the harsh chemical version

Isolated ingredients on the face are a different conversation than formulated blends.

The honest answer to the question you might be asking right now. If you're paying close attention, you noticed that the Cleansing Oil contains both coconut oil and olive oil — two of the oils I mentioned earlier as ones I don't use straight on my face. This is the most important thing to understand about clean skincare: isolated ingredients and formulated blends are not the same thing.

Coconut oil alone, applied to acne-prone skin, can absolutely clog pores. I know because it's clogged mine. Olive oil alone, on oily skin, can sit heavy. I know because it has on mine. But when coconut and olive are thoughtfully formulated with castor (which actively pulls impurities out), jojoba (which regulates sebum), tamanu (which fights acne bacteria), botanical extracts (which calm inflammation), and antioxidant stabilization (which prevents oxidation), the entire behavior of the blend changes. The whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. The oils work in synergy rather than in isolation. This is what formulation intelligence is, and it's the difference between a thoughtful skincare brand and an ingredient deck thrown into a bottle.

Most women who switch to our Illuminating Cleansing Oil notice three things in the first week: their skin feels less tight after cleansing, their oil production starts to even out, and the cyclical breakouts start to slow. This is what your skin looks like when it's no longer being pushed into emergency mode every twelve hours.

How to use it: Pump 2-3 pumps into clean, dry hands. Massage into dry face (yes, dry — water is added later) for 30-60 seconds, focusing on areas with makeup, sunscreen, or congestion. Add a small amount of warm water to emulsify the oil, then rinse thoroughly with our soft, damp Glowing Facial Cloth. Follow with Aura Beauty Mist and either Youth beauty Face Oil or Heal All Oil. Safe for daily use, morning and night, on all skin types — including the most acne-prone.

Shop Cleansing Ritual Kit

Heal All Oil

100% pure, organic, single-origin tamanu oil — the most-researched plant oil on earth for breakouts and inflamed skin.

If your skin is currently in a breakout cycle — angry, inflamed, reactive, broken out, sensitive to everything — Heal All Oil is the oil I'd put on you first. And I want to tell you exactly what's in it, because the story is incredible.

Heal All Oil is 100% organic tamanu oil. That's it. One ingredient. No fillers. No carrier oils. No additives. Just the cold-pressed nut oil from a sacred Polynesian tree called Calophyllum inophyllum, which has been used for centuries across the Pacific Islands as the primary medicine for skin healing, wound repair, burns, scars, and what we now call acne.

And here's why this matters: tamanu is in a category of its own.

Most plant oils win or lose on their fatty acid ratio alone — which is the whole conversation we just had above about linoleic acid, oleic acid, and PUFAs. Tamanu wins on something completely different. It contains rare bioactive compounds that no other plant on earth produces in meaningful quantities, and these compounds give it antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties that go beyond what fatty acid profiles can explain.

This isn't a face oil. It's plant medicine.

Here's what's actually inside tamanu, and why it works on broken-out skin:

• Calophyllolide — a rare anti-inflammatory coumarin found almost exclusively in tamanu. Modern research shows it has clinically significant anti-inflammatory effects, comparable in some studies to certain pharmaceutical agents — without the side effects

• Calophyllic acid — a unique fatty acid responsible for tamanu's accelerated wound-healing properties. It's the reason traditional Polynesian medicine has used tamanu for centuries to heal cuts, burns, and broken skin

• Inophyllum P and other coumarins — natural antibiotic compounds that have been shown to inhibit Propionibacterium acnes, the bacteria most associated with inflammatory acne. This is the part that should get every acne-prone woman's attention. Tamanu's antibacterial action is well-documented in peer-reviewed dermatology research

• Delta-tocotrienol — a rare form of Vitamin E with stronger antioxidant activity than the more common forms. Protects the skin from oxidative damage and stabilizes the oil itself

• Flavonoids and other phytochemicals — additional antioxidant and anti-inflammatory support

And then there's the fatty acid profile, which is genuinely beautiful: a balanced composition of stearic acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid, and linoleic acid that creates a substantive, healing oil — not heavy, not light, but exactly what compromised skin needs to repair itself. 41-52% saturated fatty acids (which actually make tamanu more stable than the PUFA-heavy oils we called out earlier — saturated fats don't oxidize the way polyunsaturated fats do), with a meaningful percentage of linoleic acid for barrier support.

What this means in practice: Heal All Oil simultaneously calms inflammation, fights the bacteria associated with breakouts, accelerates the healing of existing blemishes, supports tissue regeneration, and protects the skin from oxidative damage. All from one ingredient. That's why it carries the National Eczema Association Seal of Acceptance™ — one of the most rigorous safety certifications in skincare — and it's why women keep coming back to it for everything from cystic breakouts to scars to eczema to baby skin.

It's the oil I reach for when my own skin is in a flare. It's the oil I put on my baby's eczema. It's the oil I'd hand to any woman who walks up to me crying about a breakout that won't quit. And it's one of the most-loved products in our entire collection for a reason.

How to use it: Apply 2-3 drops directly to clean, damp skin — spot-treat active breakouts, or use it as your full-face oil during a flare. Can be used as a cleanser, layered under Youth Beauty Face Oil for additional barrier support. Safe for face, body, and very sensitive skin including babies and children.

Shop Hydrate & Heal: 21-Day Skin Reset

Youth Beauty Face Oil

The linoleic-rich daily face oil for acne-prone, oily, and combination skin.

Here's the longevity oil I want you to fall in love with if you have acne-prone or oily skin and you've been afraid of face oils your whole life.

Youth Beauty Face Oil was formulated for skin longevity and to give acne-prone skin the linoleic acid it has been starving for, in a clean, organic, intentional blend that absorbs beautifully and supports the skin without overwhelming it. The formula is 98% certified organic content, and every botanical was chosen for a specific job.

Here's what's actually inside it:

• Pomegranate seed oil — exceptionally high in linoleic acid and punicic acid; a powerhouse for barrier repair, inflammation reduction, and antioxidant defense. One of my favorite oils for acne-prone skin specifically

• Jojoba oil — biomimetic to human sebum. Signals to your oil glands that the skin is supported and helps regulate sebum production naturally rather than adding to it

• Rosehip fruit oil — about 45-50% linoleic acid, with vitamin A precursors that support healthy cell turnover and skin renewal

• Sea buckthorn (CO2-extracted) — one of the most nutrient-dense oils in the world, rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and rare omega-7 fatty acids that support tissue repair

• Carrot seed oil — rich in beta-carotene (a vitamin A precursor) that supports gentle cell turnover and skin renewal — like a botanical, self-regulating, non-irritating version of retinol. Also delivers strong antioxidant protection

• Frankincense and helichrysum — ancient skin-healing botanicals, deeply calming for inflamed and reactive skin

• Rose geranium and lavender — balance sebum production naturally and provide gentle aromatic support to the nervous system (because stress drives breakouts too)

• Non-GMO vitamin E — protects the oils from oxidation and supports the skin's own antioxidant defenses

Notice what isn't in there. No bergamot. No lemon. No grapefruit. No lime. No prostaglandin-altering citrus essential oils that can cause phototoxic reactions and pigmentation in sun exposure. No fragrance. No parabens. No phenoxyethanol. No fillers.

Just a clean, intentional, linoleic-rich oil designed to feed your skin what it has been missing.

Apply 3-5 drops to damp skin — this is important — after Aura Beauty Mist. The water-plus-oil combination locks moisture into the skin in a way that oil alone cannot. Most women notice their skin feels balanced, calmer, and more even within the first two to three weeks. Breakouts start to space out. Texture starts to smooth. The skin starts to look like itself again.

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But Topical Skincare Is Only Half The Story

If you've followed me for any length of time, you know I'm always going to bring you back to the deeper foundation. Because here's the truth no skincare brand will ever tell you:

Topical care is the finishing touch. The root cause is almost always internal.

Persistent, recurring, hormonal, jawline, chin, or premenstrual breakouts are rarely just a skincare problem. They're almost always a sign of something happening at a deeper level — usually in the gut or the hormones, and often in both. If you want to address acne at its root, you have to address what's happening underneath.

Here are the three internal foundations I'd start with.

1. The Gut-Skin Axis Is Real (and Probably Your Missing Piece)

Your skin is downstream of your gut. Almost every chronic acne case I've worked with in nearly 30 years of holistic practice has had a gut component — and the peer-reviewed research has now caught up to what holistic practitioners have been saying for decades.

When the gut microbiome is imbalanced, when intestinal permeability is increased ("leaky gut"), or when the body can't properly clear toxins and hormone metabolites, the skin becomes one of the body's overflow valves. Breakouts are often the body asking for help with something upstream.

Where to start:

• A high-quality multi-strain probiotic — particularly strains that have been studied for acne, like Lactobacillus acidophilus, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, and Bifidobacterium bifidum

• Spore-based probiotics — some of the most research-backed for inflammatory skin conditions

• Fermented foods daily — kimchi, sauerkraut, miso, kefir, yogurt with live cultures

• Eliminate or dramatically reduce industrial seed oils, refined sugar, and ultra-processed foods — these are some of the most inflammatory triggers in the modern diet, and they feed exactly the gut bacteria you don't want

• Bone broth and collagen-rich foods to support the gut lining

• L-glutamine for gut barrier repair

2. Estrogen Dominance and DIM

If your breakouts are predictable — they happen the week before your period, they cluster around your jawline and chin, they get worse during stress, they showed up with the pill or after coming off the pill, they accompany heavy periods, breast tenderness, or PMS — there is a very good chance estrogen dominance is part of your story.

Estrogen dominance is a state where estrogen is high relative to progesterone. It's increasingly common in modern women due to chronic stress, exposure to xenoestrogens (chemicals in plastics, conventional cleaning products, synthetic fragrances, and pesticides), hormonal birth control, and the modern food supply. It manifests as hormonal acne, mood swings, breast tenderness, irregular cycles, and stubborn weight gain.

DIM (diindolylmethane) is a compound naturally produced when you digest cruciferous vegetables — broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts. DIM helps the body shift estrogen metabolism toward the more favorable pathway (2-hydroxyestrone) and away from the more problematic pathway (16-alpha-hydroxyestrone). The result, for many women, is improvement in hormonal acne, PMS symptoms, and overall hormonal balance.

Eating cruciferous vegetables daily is foundational. For some women, a clinically dosed DIM supplement (typically 100-200mg per day, taken with food) is an additional support — particularly during perimenopause, post-pill recovery, or seasons of significant hormonal stress.

Please note: DIM is not appropriate during pregnancy or breastfeeding, and should be discussed with your practitioner if you have any hormone-sensitive conditions or are on medications that affect estrogen metabolism.

3. Minerals, Stress, and Sleep

Three quick foundations I want to name, because they affect skin more than most women realize:

• Zinc is one of the most studied minerals for acne specifically. It supports wound healing, antimicrobial defense, and skin barrier function. Most women are deficient

• Magnesium regulates the stress response, supports sleep, and is involved in over 600 enzymatic processes (many of them skin-related)

• Sleep is when your skin physically rebuilds itself. Poor sleep is one of the single biggest drivers of cortisol-driven breakouts and dull, congested skin

You can take a look at my Fullscript Acne-prone Collection HERE to shop for the best quality vitamins at a discounted price.

What I Want You To Take From This

If you're scared of oils, I understand. I was you. And if your skin has been broken out for years, I understand that too — I have been there, am still there in seasons, and I built this entire brand from the experience of trying to heal the same skin you're sitting in.

Here is what I want you to know:

Oils are not the enemy. The wrong oils, in the wrong formulations, on a stripped barrier, with a depleted gut and out-of-balance hormones underneath. Those are the enemy. Once you understand that, everything changes.

Your skin is not broken. It's been doing the best it can with what it had to work with. Give it linoleic acid. Stop stripping it. Address the gut. Support the hormones. Sleep. Get sunlight. Eat real food. And let your skincare do what it was always meant to do — support the skin, not punish it.

These rituals done consistently will transform your skin more than thirty done sporadically. Cleanse with our Illuminating Cleansing Oil. Heal the barrier with Heal All Oil. Feed the skin daily with Youth Beauty Face Oil. Add the internal foundations gradually. Give it time.

This is what skin longevity looks like in practice. Not a fight. A return.

More glow. More softness.
More confidence. More life.
Not younger. But better.

Don't want to commit to a full size yet? Try The Discovery Mini Kit ($48) — 9 hero products in travel-sized minis, including all three of the oils featured in this post.

A note from Jesse:

I'm a holistic health practitioner, not a medical doctor or dermatologist. The information in this post is educational and reflects my training, my practice, and the research available at the time of writing. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Persistent or severe acne should be evaluated by a qualified provider who knows your full health history. Always consult your practitioner before making changes to your supplement regimen, particularly during pregnancy or breastfeeding.