Anti-Aging Face Oil Recipe: Daisy's Frankincense Castor Oil

Chemical skin treatments gave Daisy an instant glow, but it faded each time. The pores, texture and pitted marks came back, and her skin got more sensitive and less protected from sun and pollution. She felt stuck in a loop, with a lighter wallet and no real change. So she looked for something gentler. After a year of trials, she settled on a simple night oil she calls her skin elixir.

Why Daisy stepped away from treatments

Daisy had acne-prone, pitted, textured skin for many years, and says her teenage acne lasted a long time. She says some dermatologists told her this was as good as it would get.

She says repeated treatments weakened her skin barrier. That made her afraid of the sun, which she found unnatural. She argues that sunlight helps vitamin D, mood, sleep and body clocks, and that hiding from it under scarves or sunscreen did not feel right to her. That is her personal view. If you burn easily or have a skin condition, ask a dermatologist about sun protection for your skin.

After about two to three months of the oil, she says a small crack on her face from a fallen pot (a matka) vanished. She also feels her skin is getting tougher with age. Besides the oil, she uses only niacinamide as a serum.

What goes into the oil, and why

Daisy says she could not find this blend sold anywhere, so you make it yourself.

Frankincense resin. This is the dried gum of the tree, used as incense in monasteries. Daisy says Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine used it for scars, stretch marks, pigmentation, eczema and psoriasis. She says its boswellic acids slow collagen breakdown and stimulate fibroblasts, the cells that make collagen. She uses the resin, not the essential oil.

Castor oil. She has used it for over 10 years and calls it “nature’s botox”. It is aranda yenne in the south. She says it carries the other oils deeper and keeps the essential oils from irritating the skin.

Rosehip seed oil. Daisy says it is rich in vitamin A and vitamin C, omega fatty acids, and helps with pigmentation and moisture. She prefers it to retinol creams, which she says make her skin more sensitive in the long run. It works more slowly, she says, but she likes the slow route.

Lavender, vitamin E, carrot seed and turmeric oils. Daisy says these support elasticity, healing and antioxidant protection, and that they are antibacterial and antifungal, so help prevent acne. She says turmeric oil also helps reduce unwanted facial hair, which makes makeup sit better.

How to make it

The recipe card above has the exact amounts. In short, you powder 15 g of frozen resin, infuse it in 100 ml of castor oil for 45 minutes, strain it, and stir in the other oils. Daisy says to cover the vessel so no water enters the oil.

How Daisy uses it

She applies the oil at night and massages it in. She does not wash her face with harsh cleansers, so a thin film of oil stays on her skin in the day. She says it gives a plump, hydrated glow with no highlighter, and that makeup melts into it. In practice she skips makeup about 90% of the time.

To protect the pillow, she puts a plastic cover under a satin pillow cover. She washes the cover in very hot water and replaces it every 3 to 4 months. Daisy also stresses that a good diet, gut health, sleep and hydration matter as much as anything you apply.

For a lighter daytime version, see Daisy’s anti-aging day cream, which she made from this oil.

What research says

Research on this exact blend does not exist. Some pieces have small studies behind them.

• In a small split-face trial, 15 women applied a cream with 0.5% boswellic acids (the active compounds in frankincense) to one side of the face for 30 days. Roughness and fine lines improved compared with placebo. That was a cream, not a resin-infused oil, and the group was small.
• In mice, topical curcumin reduced UVB-induced DNA damage markers. Curcumin is the main compound in turmeric. This was an animal study, and Daisy’s oil uses turmeric essential oil.
• On the caution side, the European Food Safety Authority’s animal-feed panel says turmeric oil is a skin and eye irritant and a skin sensitiser. That is a reason to patch test.

For castor oil, rosehip oil and carrot seed oil on skin, I found no solid human trials on the claims Daisy makes. Ayurveda has used these oils for a long time, but research is still limited.

Daisy’s tips

• Expect slow results. She says it is not for people who want an instant fix.
• It may not suit oily skin.
• Freeze the resin before grinding.
• Use a heavy-bottomed vessel and a lid.
• Store the blend in a glass bottle.
• Protect your pillow with a plastic cover under a satin one.
• Test a small patch first. This is a general precaution, not a step from the video, and it matters with essential oils.

Daisy shows every step in the video above. It takes about 11 minutes.