880: Castor Oil Clean Beauty: Unlocking Queen Cleopatra’s Ancient Beauty Secret With Marisol Teijeiro

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Castor Oil Clean Beauty: Unlocking Queen Cleopatra’s Ancient Beauty Secret With Marisol Teijeiro
Wellness Mama » Episode » 880: Castor Oil Clean Beauty: Unlocking Queen Cleopatra’s Ancient Beauty Secret With Marisol Teijeiro
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880: Castor Oil Clean Beauty: Unlocking Queen Cleopatra’s Ancient Beauty Secret With Marisol Teijeiro
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Today, I’m here with my friend Dr. Marisol Teijeiro to delve into an amazing beauty secret that’s been used for hundreds of years by so many women all the way from Cleopatra to our grandmothers! We’re talking about castor oil, an amazing oil you’ll want to add to your clean beauty skincare kit. Dr. Marisol is a world-renowned thought leader on all things castor oil. She has over a decade of clinical experience and has helped transform the lives of thousands of patients. She struggled to get her patients to use castor oil because it’s messy, so out of necessity, she developed a simple, clean, and convenient way to make it a staple in beauty and wellness cabinets.

Dr. Marisol shares the history of the use of castor oil and all the ways this amazing oil can improve skin, hair, oral health, and so much more. She shares the truth behind some of the most common viral beauty uses of castor oil circulating on social media these days, dispelling some myths. I share the ways I’ve used it over the years for my skin, my hair, and more.

Dr. Marisol shares a lot of great tips and takeaways. I hope you enjoy learning the ways you can incorporate castor oil into your health and wellness routines.

Episode Highlights With Dr. Marisol

  • How castor oil was Cleopatra’s ancient beauty secret 
  • Cleopatra was actually Macedonian, and how she likely used castor oil in her beauty routine
  • She was the first beauty influencer in the world using castor oil, and what we can still learn from her today
  • Marisol was a beauty queen, and beauty has always been an area of interest for her
  • What we can learn from grandmothers when it comes to beauty secrets 
  • The principle of like attracts like and why oil can be so helpful on the skin
  • How to use castor oil to nourish the skin, cleanse the skin, and as a deep moisturizer 
  • A super simple castor oil routine for nourished skin
  • How to use castor oil to remove eye makeup
  • Castor oil naturally contains vitamin E, which nourishes the skin
  • Why you shouldn’t add coconut oil to castor oil
  • Castor oil ranks very low on the comedogenic scale 
  • The real deal on castor oil plus baking soda and how to use this on skin
  • Understanding castor oil and dry brushing 
  • How to use castor oil for oil pulling and how it works faster than other oils! 
  • My top tips for using castor oil in the bathroom

Resources We Mention

More From Wellness Mama

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Katie: Hello and welcome to the Wellness Mama podcast. I’m Katie from wellnessmama.com and I’m here today with my friend Marisol to really delve into castor oil as an amazing resource for all kinds of clean beauty, even going back as far as Queen Cleopatra’s ancient beauty routines and things our grandmothers perhaps knew but that we’ve forgotten as well as really delving into the truth and the myths around some of the more common viral beauty uses of castor oil that are circulating on social media.

And if you aren’t familiar with her, Dr. Marisol is a world-renowned thought leader on all things castor oil and castor oil packs. She has over a decade of clinical experience in clinical practice and has helped transform the lives of thousands of patients through her work and now through the traditional use of castor oil. Because of the messy nature of castor oil, she had a struggle getting her patients and herself to actually use it. So out of necessity, she developed simple, clean, and convenient ways to make castor oil a staple in the beauty and wellness cabinets of longevity seekers, which we talk about today, as well as I share some of the ways I’ve used it over the years for my skin, for my hair, for lots of other ways as well. She gives a lot of practical tips and takeaways and dispels some myths. So let’s join Dr. Marisol and learn. Marisol, welcome. Thank you so much for being here.

Marisol: Hi, Katie. Thanks for having me on again. I just love chit-chatting with you about my passion for castor oil.

Katie: Likewise, when I feel like you and I could and have just chat all day because you are so much fun to talk to. But in this episode, I’m specifically excited to really dive deep on the topic of castor oil as sort of an ancient beauty secret, because I know there’s some like surface level uses of this have gone viral on social media, but I feel like without really like the understanding and the context of just how incredible this stuff is. And I know I like first learned about this over a decade ago and experimented on my own. And then finding you really opened my eyes to like, oh my gosh, there are so many ways to use castor oil that I had no idea about. And we’re going to get to get into some of those today. But to start off, can you kind of walk us through the history of castor oil and how this was kind of considered even like Cleopatra’s ancient beauty secret?

Marisol: I love it. Yeah. So the thing with castor oil is it’s been around for absolute ever, right? And before this podcast started recording, we were talking about like, you know, ask your grandmother if you want to know like how to cook well, or ask your grandmother, hear her beauty secrets, and they’ll tell you, right?

And truly like this, this plant is so unique. It comes from the Mediterranean basin. So it’s, it’s, it’s unique to that area. And the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, including even like Hippocrates, the father of medicine, all loved and adored castor oil for its medicinal and both beautifying benefits. Like Cleopatra, as you know, she’s like one of the renowned beauties of the ages. I remember watching the movie when I was younger with Elizabeth Taylor, such an ancient movie. I don’t know if you ever saw that one, but it was like 1940s or 30s, it was filmed.

And, you know, Elizabeth Taylor probably was the best impersonation of her because what people don’t know about Cleopatra is that she was actually of Macedonian roots, not necessarily Egyptians. So she was a Macedonian roots. And so she had, like an olive colored skin. And then she had dark, straight, straight hair, thick, thick, thick eyebrows, eyelashes. And, you know, she owed her beauty to, you know, many of her different practices. She’d use all food as beauty tools, but castor oil was one of the ones that she, you know, owed her hair to, her eyebrows, her eyelashes, the whites of her eyes, and, you know, the, the glowing of her skin. So she just really was probably the very first, like influencer beauty, influencer in the world using castor oil in every, which place you could.

And so when I started delving into the castor oil journey, you know, I had heard all these different ways to use it. And one of the first ways I learned how to use it was something called the castor oil pack, which maybe we’ll have time to talk about later. But that usage I thought was kind of very woo-woo, which was, you know, apply oil onto a cotton cloth and put it on. But what I loved was all the cosmetic aspects to use it. Because, you know, for me, my background is, something you might know, I’m actually an ex-beauty queen. So I was like representing Canada at international pageants. Yeah. And so for me, beauty has always been an area where I was super interested in. And, and as I evolved, became a naturopathic doctor, then what I got interested in was really like, understanding, you know, what is in our beauty products and what is in our self-care products. Because at the time I had so many cleansers and, you know, toners and nighttime moisturizers and around the eye and then eyeshadow, makeup, mascara, everything.

And when I got the knowledge of understanding of things that are within our products, and I started looking at the ingredients within a lot of these formulas, I really started getting very, very scared. And, you know, I remembered about castor oil and I’m like, you know, I should really start to investigate and just start working with castor oil more and see if there’s ways that I can like, you know, switch up my routines and do it more naturally.

So then, of course, I started, you know, investigating ancient medicine systems like Ayurvedic medicines, Ayurveda, which comes from like India, and then traditional Chinese medicine. And they had all these different practices for beauty, things like slugging the hair, which is the term that you’ll find popular on social media. So which is basically the application of oil to the hair to nourish it, hydrate it, and reset it and really condition in a way that is deeper than any shampoo or any kind of leave and conditioner can do.

And then there’s also practices like facial slugging, which is the same thing, grandmothers, actually, they do right now, the trend is, which is kind of what I wanted to spell and let’s not use the use what people are using right now. People are using Vaseline on their face to oil slug, which means they’re basically applying petroleum or like gasoline onto there cause Vaseline, for those who don’t know, is basically made from, made from gasoline and they’re applying it to their, to their face and going to bed with that.

Of course, there’s all these issues like, you know, the oily Vaseline gets all over your pillow, but there’s ways to do this with castor oil that do it less mess. Cause this has been my prerogative is how can I make it less mess? How can I, how can I take this multi-use magical oil and really help women simplify their beauty care routines? And especially if you’re a woman who, you know, again, I don’t judge, we’ve had these conversations before. I don’t judge if you want to do things like Botox or filler or whatever the case may be. Or there’s, you know, I’m not perfect in my beauty routine either. I have a couple of things that I’m, you know, always looking for a substitute or alternative, but I’m not quite there yet. But what I do want women to know is that, you know, there’s ways you can simplify your routine that could be more beneficial for you and could really like help you, especially as you age, you know, nourish your skin, you know, that dryness, like really pull that dryness out and bring the natural luster that we’re really meant to have even as we age naturally.

Katie: I did not know that you used to be a beauty queen. So I learned something new in this episode. But so many important things in what you just said. To echo for sure, please, please, please don’t put Vaseline on your skin or anywhere else on your body. This was something that really led to me delving into making a lot of my own personal care products was just understanding how much what we put on our body gets into our body, which to me means the baseline should be sort of do no harm, put nothing on your body that’s going to hurt you.

But also means if we know things can cross that skin barrier, what if we put nourishing things on our skin and use that on our body as well, like supported ourselves from the outside in as well as the inside out. It sounds like Cleopatra was like way ahead of us on figuring this all out. But I love that you call it slugging. I had not heard that term for the hair, but that’s actually part of my sauna ritual with the high heat is I’ll put like castor oil in my hair and sometimes rosemary as well, and then put a towel on so it doesn’t get too hot. Cause I’m like, I’m sitting there anyway, might as well be like supporting my hair at the same time.

But I feel like, yeah, so many important takeaways in what you just said. And I would love to go deeper on, specifically in this one, like maybe skin uses and sort of like beauty uses that we, I know I have castor oil all over my bathroom and sort of all over my house. I use it all the time. But let’s talk about skin first. Cause I loved your concept of really helping just like support and nourish the skin in a natural, healthy way, sort of in alignment with what our body, like how our body knows how to work. But walk us through like, what is, where does castor oil come from? What’s in it? That’s so good for the skin. How do we support our skin with castor oil? All of it.

Marisol: Awesome. Awesome. What I love about castor oil is truly like it’s multi-use aspect and then just simplification. So there’s just so many ways that you can simplify your routine. So the first thing, the first place I started with was my face wash and nighttime routine, because, you know, I had learned a lot about soaps, how soaps can actually be astringent and negatively affect like the natural microbiome of your skin. And so I just wanted something that was more nourishing. And if you look, look throughout the ages in like, like skincare, what you notice is that when people have like combination skin and they have like maybe, you know, an oily T-zone or oily chin area, you know, if you look, according to traditional Chinese medicine, that actually connects to organ systems in the body.

But when you’re treating it or helping, not necessarily treating it, but self-caring for it topically, what you’re actually doing is you actually want to do like meets like. It’s kind of a homeopathic principle. So if you have too much oil, then you actually want to be adding oil because your body’s always searching for bioregulation. It always wants to balance things out. So if you’ve got oily skin, add more oil.

But the same is true is if you’re very dry, you don’t want to add more drying things, i.e. soap or any alcohol toners. You again need to add more moisture. And that comes into play, especially as we age. So when we’re younger, we tend to have more combination type problems within our skin. And then as we age, we tend to go dry. Like, I don’t know if you’ve started to notice it or experience it, but I have, I think I’m about a decade older than you. And so I noticed, you know, wow, like, like my skin just seems to be drying and just not holding that moisture.

So really, I couldn’t get away anymore as I aged with the moisturizers I was using in the past, which I was never really complicated. I was always very simple and just oils, like after my beauty queen days, I went natural. But with the castor oil, what I noticed is that the oil just does something completely different. So, so I don’t recommend castor oil as a daily, daily moisturizer because, it’s just a little bit too thick. But what I do recommend castor oil for is to wash your faces and to help like replace like toners or as a substitute for like toners and your nighttime moisturizer, because it can really lock in the moisture while you sleep and, and really hydrate and richly nourish the skin.

So an easy, easy routine to do, and we’re going to use the power of water as well too. So you take a steamed cloth, you soak it in, in hot water, this is what you would do at a spa, but now you bring it home. You place the, you place the wet towel over your face. Just let it sit for a bit. Again, water on its own is going to start to like clear up the skin. So, you wipe your face with that, with that water and that wet cloth. And then you take a small dime size to quarter size amount of castor oil and you rub it on your face. Alternatively, what you could do, we have these amazing rollers. They’re so simple, is you can just roll the castor oil on your face. I focus in on my eyes because again, eyes, oil, castor oil is a great eye makeup remover. So there you go. That’s another product that you don’t need to be purchasing as well. This is such a good thing to save money. I love saving money, honestly.

So, and then you take what you do, you just, you know, allow it to sit a bit, sit on your face. Then you take the steamed cloth again, you re-steam it, you wash it out, steam it again, have more water. And then you simply just wipe away the castor oil, focusing on the areas that you have more makeup. And it’s, it’s really just amazing. Like your skin feels like a baby’s bottom.

And I encourage women to try for seven days and see what happens because their skin will see changes. This is one of the biggest areas that I’m educating on now, because, you know, I go look at all, all these cleansers and face washes and toners, and they’re so astringent, like the alcohol, some have witch hazel in them. That’s not what our skin needs. Our skin needs to be loved and nourished.

And, you know, the, the wonderful thing with castor oil is another thing I see on trend on Instagram and, you know, TikTok and everywhere is people take castor oil and then they add in, vitamin E oil, which number one, you don’t need to do that because castor oil already is a high source of vitamin E. So that’s one of the benefits that it has for the skin.

Or alternatively, what they’ll do is they’ll add something like a coconut oil. Now that’s a really big no-no. And here’s the reason why. The beauty with castor oil, although this might seem completely counterintuitive, is that castor oil rates very low on the comedogenic scale. The comedogenic scale is the ability of the oil to create and block pores. This is a big concern, especially if a woman is suffering with things like acne or, you know, cystic acne, whichever kind of acne she may be dealing with, or, you know, just has a predisposition for that. Like she doesn’t want to be putting anything on her face, which could potentially block pores.

Now, castor oil is a one on that scale. Coconut oil is much higher, like a two or a three. So if you mix those two together, you actually get the reverse action of what you’re looking for, because you’re looking actually, even though castor oil is a heavier feeling oil, it’s actually lighter.

And the other misconception, which I find is also, you know, again, when you don’t know, you just, you just, you just don’t know. So this is why I’m here educating about it. People will mix coconut oil with castor oil to make it absorb, make castor oil absorb better. Again, castor oil does not need any help absorbing because it is the master carrier oil. So it absorbs very well on its own. And that’s likely probably one of the reasons why it’s unlikely to block pores as well.

So, you know, I encourage women, no matter what age you are, like if I could get the young TikTokers to start doing it right now, had I known what I know now, you know, I would have started, you know, at age 15 doing this practices because number one, it would have saved my bank account. Number two, I’m confident my skin would have had, you know, would have aged even better than it is now. Because I started around in my 20s and 30s, right, working with castor oil.

And so it’s really something that the earlier you can start, the better that it is. So teaching our daughters to do this. And then for the mature woman like myself, you know, it’s never too late either. Because again, castor oil is going to really help with like nourishing and hydrating and conditioning the skin in a way that other oils just can’t do it because they just don’t have, they just don’t have the same structure that castor oil has.

Katie: So many good points. And I will say with teenagers, that’s one thing I’ve been encouraging with my kids. And it helps seemingly a lot with like supporting their skin. And because it makes sense, you explained it’s non-comedogenic. It doesn’t seem to like really contribute to acne. And if anything, it seems to help keep their skin clear. And I find even my boys don’t mind using it because it’s an oil. It’s not gurgly. It doesn’t smell like anything flowery. So even my boys will use it.

One thing, so it makes sense to me, don’t add coconut oil. We don’t need to add anything to castor oil. I would love your take on the trend of castor oil plus baking soda. Because if you tell me not to do it, I will stop. But I have been experimenting with that. And it seems to really help my skin feel so soft and so smooth. So what’s your take on that?

Marisol: Yeah, so baking soda is an interesting ingredient because baking soda, I actually love it combined with castor oil. And this is actually like a really ancient old remedy that was done. Back in the day, people would mix castor oil with baking soda in order to really like, because baking soda in itself is alkalinizing, right? So when people say they’ll drink baking soda, it alkalinizes. Well, when you mix that with castor oil, it also can alkalinize it as well too.

So I think there’s a time and a place for baking soda. With baking soda, we just have to be careful that it can be a skin irritant for many people. So, you know, there was a whole trend again to like using these like baking type pastes that contain baking soda. But people were basically getting like skin irritations with it. So the baking soda mixed of castor oil, there’s a time and a place for it. I usually reserve it for times when like, you know, there might be a little bit more like redness or, you know, just so you could tell that things are just heated. That can just kind of help to calm things down. Baking soda, I look at it like a calming. It just calms things down. And then combined with castor oil, you can use it. So that’s a great way to use it.

So I don’t say nay on that one. I think it’s a good combination. And I think in certain cases, it might be like even better for certain skin types. So you have to play around with it. I think the lighter your skin, the less melanin, it might be more challenging. But the darker your skin, there could be a benefit to it even greater still. Speaking of that, can I share a little story with you?

Katie: Please do.

Marisol: Do you know, I have to share this because this is probably what really got me bought into the castor oil for cosmetic uses bandwagon and then probably leading the bandwagon and taking the horse out of the corral and spreading it to everybody was that when I was in naturopathic college, my actual very first patient that walked in was this gorgeous Black woman, just so beautiful. And, you know, I looked at her and I was just in awe. And. You know, I was like, wow, she’s got to be like 40. She just like glows. She just glows. So, so beautiful.

And then I opened up her chart and she’s in her 60s. And I was like, what? And I’m like, tell me your secret. I want to know because whatever you’re doing, I want some of that. And the words out of her mouth, it was just so amazing because castor oil was literally, you know, everywhere I would go, it was kind of stalking me. It was like popping up here at this clinic I’d go to, popping up there, you know, when I’d be talking to somebody, I’d be in class, I’d talk about castor oil, it was like kind of stalking me.

And then my first patient goes and says, I owe my beauty to castor oil. I lather it everywhere. I put it in my hair. I put it on my skin. I put it on my nails. I put it on everything. And so really like she, I think she was the biggest encouragement to just kind of be like, because I get it. You touch or smell or feel castor oil and it’s like, ooh, this is so gooey. And like, why would this be beneficial for me? But then when you start hearing and seeing people like benefiting from, you know, the beauty aspects of castor oil, and you can see it all over on the internet. You can see it on Reddit. You can see it on social media. You see it everywhere. And just having that social proof and other people just saying how good this oil is it’s like, it really is what got me to buy into the skin beautifying effects of it.

And so literally like that’s my nighttime routine. It’s how I wash my face every night. And I use, I use a lot less soap. It’s amazing how I used to use so much soap and now I don’t use that much soap. And I’m, I’m even investigating like less shampoo and, but your shampoo, I like, I like your shampoo. So that one I’ll use. But you know, sometimes when I don’t have that, I’m like, can I do no shampoo?

Katie: Wow. That’s amazing. And just circling back on the baking soda thing, I will say, I think your point you’re spot on. Like I do, I wouldn’t personally want to do that every day because of how it does seem to be like a little harsher, but if I do like a really long sauna session and I get that like deep sweat, I find it’s like really helpful in like cleaning my skin back off after that. So like, I agree, experiment time and a place.

But as you were explaining that, it brought up another question I had for you related to, so I have done dry brushing in some form for well over a decade and I do it just because I enjoy how I feel after I do it. Like, I don’t know, I just feel like I get some energy from that and I just feel good. And I know some people use castor oil in conjunction with dry brushing. What is your take on that? And if somebody wants to combine those, what’s a good way to do that?

Marisol: Awesome. That’s, that’s my morning practice. So my nighttime practice is wash my face with castor oil and we can talk about this sleep eye mask, but then my morning practice is actually dry brush my body with castor oil. So dry brushing really should be done in the morning. Cause as you, as you say, you know, dry brushing is, is very energizing. Like it is meant to be an irritant in the morning. You’re meant to like kind of boost up your cortisol so that that way you have energy for the day. It’s just our natural hormone balance that happens, right.

And so, you know, you can encourage it and it’s important, especially in women who have things like burnout, because it’s just a subtle way of doing it rather than taking a big cup of coffee. So dry brushing is one of those things. Cindy Crawford is a huge proponent of, she loves dry brushing. She’s talking about it all the time. And no doubt, I understand because it just feels that good.

But when you do it with castor oil, the whole purpose of doing it with castor oil is number one to kind of, you know, bloom two flowers with one seed, right? You’re already taking the time to dry brush, may as well put some beautiful oil that is going to moisturize your skin and actually function almost like a oily exfoliant for the body. So all you do is, again, same typical dry brush routine that you guys have all heard online everywhere. You know, of course, you have to open up all the lymph zones with very, very light pressure. There’s seven to eight zones that you want to be making sure that you open up.

And then all you do is you just apply castor oil into the palm of your hand, mix it between your hands, and then start brushing the same way that you would brush with the brush, but just do a wet brush first before the dry brush. And you do that, you know, starting on your upper limbs, and then you go into your chest area, you do all your breast area, you know, abdomen, pelvic region, and the legs. And then you go and you follow that up with, and you keep on adding castor oil as needed. So don’t only use one handful, keep on adding castor oil so there’s enough of a layer.

And then take your dry brush and then do your same routine with the dry brush. So again, going towards the heart, starting at the arms, into the chest area, into the abdomen, pelvic region, into the legs and up. And then you’re done. And then all you do is I typically shower off because then that way, you know, people are worried always, oh, if I put castor oil all over my body, there’s going to be like it’s going to go into my clothing. I haven’t really found that because I find in the stage of life that I’m at, my body just soaks it up. So I don’t, I wouldn’t need to go into the shower. So sometimes I do that after the shower on like days I don’t shower. But on the days that I do shower, I try to do it before I shower. And then that way it just kind of sets me up. And if you’re worried about like clothing or expensive clothing and you don’t want to get any oily residue on it, that’s the best way to go.

But, you know, it, castor oil just creates, like a beautiful, I think it’s like a, I can’t even claim this because it doesn’t, it doesn’t create this, but it just, it just feels like it just nourishes things in such a different way than other oils that you’re, there’s an entire different aspect to your how your body feels. And again, like as, as we get older or women who have thyroid problems, you know, their skin starts to show the signs of it. And one of the areas where women with thyroid problems will show the signs of it, it will be on their shins. Their shins will get really, really, really dry. And I found for me, that has been a way to help the dryness of the skin on the shins and just balance things out. So, because otherwise I would look like a dry desert on my shins if I wasn’t, I wasn’t doing dry brushing with castor oil.

Katie: That’s interesting. I didn’t know that with the thyroid, but that makes sense. And that’s a great tip to add in. And I know we’re going to get to do another follow-up episode to really delve into the hair side of this, whether it’s eyelashes, eyebrows, hair, all of it. But for this episode, before we wrap up, I would love to also just touch on using castor oil for oil pulling, because oral health has been an interesting research topic of mine for the last 10 years. I’m fascinated by oral health and how much it impacts the whole body. And I think if we’re talking about how anything that goes on our skin can get in our body, that’s even more true when we’re talking about the mouth. So to me, this is very important to understand and very important to be not just non-toxic, but like health supporting in what we put in our mouth. So what’s your take on using castor oil for oil pulling, like pros and cons, anything to know if we’re going to try it?

Marisol: Yeah, I just, again, I love it. And then here’s the reason why I love castor oil with oil pulling. Number one, again, so many of the natural or not even natural, like the unnatural products that we’re using, like conventional toothpaste, everything is meant is done to dry things out. I don’t know what the focus is on drying things out. It’s just a really very clear, like, you know, from mouthwashes to the toothpaste that are like unconventional, you know, thank God for Wellnesse, which has like some good, good options for people to be doing.

But, you know, where I place castor oil for oil pulling is it’s an alternative to mouthwash, or not necessarily an alternative, but it’s a different type of self-care practice that you can use to really, again, nourish and hydrate the mouth. The thing with castor oil as compared to like what was traditionally used in Ayurvedic practices and other ancient forms of self-care and healing was that they would use sesame oil was typically the oil of choice, sesame oil mixed with coconut oil.

The thing with sesame and coconut oil is that you’ve got to use at least one to two tablespoons, and you need to do that for at least like 20 minutes to actually get like benefit from it. With castor oil and oil pulling, because of the natural nature of the castor oil, how thick it is, you really only need one to two teaspoons, and you don’t need to do it more than two minutes. So again, it’s like a simplification of your self-care routine. And if only for that, it just makes it simple.

The way that I do it is I do it at nighttime, so at nighttime, I like to brush my teeth with Wellnesse toothpaste. Well, I floss and then I brush my teeth. And then I oil pull because I actually want to go to bed with that oil, like, like hugging my teeth, so to say, right, because I don’t want to lose it completely. Of course, when I oil pull, I spit it out, I don’t swallow the oil, you’re not to drink, drink castor oil.

But in the morning, when I oil pull, I actually do it before I brush my teeth. So I just change up my routine a little bit. So at night, I do it after because I want to go to bed with moisture, like with a good moisturized mucosa. One of the reasons why people, you know, get cavities is that they get really dry in their mouth, especially if they are mouth breathers, right? Dryness and the lack of saliva actually encourages the bacteria in the mouth. So if you have hydration from like, say, castor oil, that can help with potentially support for the health, the wellness of the mouth.

And so in the daytime, well, because you know, I’m typically drinking or I’m speaking with people and, you know, I’d rather the minty flavor of the toothpaste throughout the whole day. So then I’ll do that in the morning. So that’s kind of my workaround.

Some people do also include essential oils within their oil pulling technique. So they might, typically it’s either a peppermint mixed with clove, or some people use cinnamon. So if you don’t love the flavor of castor oil, that’s the way to get around it. But again, you know, I’m at that point in my life now where if I know it’s going to be doing my body good, it’s going to be a good way to self-care, I’m going to do it irregardless of the taste.

But honestly, I find if you get a good, very good high quality oil, like Queen of the Thrones is an example, even our smell is different from other oils. It’s like a mild nutty smell. And the flavor is like, it’s because it’s an oil that is, you know, checked to not be rancid and to be like the best of the best. So I think that matters when you’re choosing your castor oil too.

Katie: Definitely agree. And I need to do a video actually on Instagram of just like all the places in my house where I have castor oil. Cause I have like the roller on my nightstand. I have at least three or four different bottles in my bathroom, including in a shower. So I can do oil pulling while I’m showering, like kind of two birds with one stone kind of thing.

But I think on the oil pulling side is like, I talked before about most mouthwash we want to avoid because it can be so bad for our oral microbiome. It can mess with our nitric oxide production and using natural alternatives like castor oil are a great way to support your mouth without like bypassing how the body’s meant to work, which I think is really the important thing.

And like I said, we’re going to get to do a whole nother episode on the hair side, which is how I actually originally discovered castor oil to begin with. I will make sure I link to everything we talked about cause you have so many resources about this, those will all be in the show notes. Marisol, you are an absolute joy to talk to you. Thank you so much. And you guys stay tuned for our next episode together.

Marisol: Okay. Thank you for having me. I’m excited for the next one.

Katie: And thank you for listening. And I hope you will join me again on the next episode of the Wellness Mama podcast.

If you’re enjoying these interviews, would you please take two minutes to leave a rating or review on iTunes for me? Doing this helps more people to find the podcast, which means even more moms and families could benefit from the information. I really appreciate your time, and thanks as always for listening.

Thanks to Our Sponsors

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Katie Wells Avatar

About Katie Wells

Katie Wells, CTNC, MCHC, Founder of Wellness Mama and Co-founder of Wellnesse, has a background in research, journalism, and nutrition. As a mom of six, she turned to research and took health into her own hands to find answers to her health problems. WellnessMama.com is the culmination of her thousands of hours of research and all posts are medically reviewed and verified by the Wellness Mama research team. Katie is also the author of the bestselling books The Wellness Mama Cookbook and The Wellness Mama 5-Step Lifestyle Detox.

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