How to use jojoba oil on your face: drops, damp skin, shaving

This guide is about using it. If you want to know what jojoba is first, the short answer is a liquid wax that pours like an oil, which is why it spreads thin and feels light. Everything below holds for pure jojoba from a big bottle and for a finished face oil built on it, like ours, which is 82.5% jojoba.

One thing to do once: a patch test. A drop on the inner arm, left for a few days. If the skin reacts, don't use it. That goes for anything new, not just this.

Three to four. That covers a face, the jaw and the front of the neck. It looks like less than you think it should be, and that is the point: the men we spoke to were not afraid of dry skin so much as of grease. One said he would "rather be too dry than look like I just dug my face in a bowl of oil."

So the rule is a mirror, not a number. Start with three, and use four if your skin drinks them. If your face still looks shiny a few minutes after, use fewer next time: two, or even one on the days your skin is already doing its own work. The right amount is the one you can't see. A 30 ml bottle lasts about three months at three drops twice a day, a little less at four.

Because an oil adds no water of its own. What it does is sit on the surface as a thin film, and a film like that slows the water already in your skin from leaving. Pressed into damp skin, there is water there to keep. Pressed into a dry face, there is less.

Damp means just washed or rinsed and patted once with a towel: not dripping, not bone dry. It also helps the drops travel: on a damp face, they go further.

1. Wash or rinse your face with water.
2. Pat it once with a towel, so it is damp, not wet.
3. Put three or four drops in your palm.
4. Rub your palms together briefly, just enough to spread the oil across both.
5. Press, don't rub: palms flat on the cheeks, then the jaw, the forehead and the front of the neck, pushing upwards.
6. Look in the mirror a few minutes later. Shiny means fewer drops next time.

That is the whole routine. No second serum, no follow-up cream unless you want one; more on that below.

Yes. It can take the place of the aftershave some men put on "when I remember", in the words of one we asked. Shave, rinse with cool water, and wait until any sting has passed. Then pat dry to damp and press in three or four drops, the same way as above.

Two cautions. Use your palms, not fingertips dragged along the jaw: freshly shaved skin wants pressing, not rubbing. And if the skin is irritated, leave the oil out that day. That is not modesty; it is printed on the label: stop if the skin is irritated.

The same goes for any face oil after shaving. It is not an aftershave in the alcohol-splash sense: there is no alcohol on our label, and the oil adds nothing but the film.

With your fingertips. Put the drops in your palm as usual, then work them in against the direction of growth, so the oil reaches the skin rather than sitting on the hair. With stubble, press it in as you would on a clean-shaven face. With a full beard, part it as you go; some oil will stay in the hair on the way down, and that is fine.

This is a face oil, used for the skin under the beard. We promise nothing about the beard itself, how it grows or how it looks. If you want a beard oil, buy a beard oil; if you want the skin underneath looked after, this is the step.

Both, if you will keep it up: morning after the shower or shave, evening after washing your face. Once a day is fine if that is what you will actually do. A routine you abandon in March helps no one.

Evenings are the easy one to keep, since nothing goes on top. Mornings, give the oil a moment before sunscreen or a shirt collar. In winter, when the heating is on and the air indoors turns dry, that is when twice a day earns its keep; we wrote a separate page on dry skin in winter and why it hits harder in Germany.

With a moisturiser: cream first, oil on top. The oil is the film, so it goes last. For many faces three to four drops on damp skin is the whole routine, and the oil goes on instead of a cream; if your face wants more in winter, add the cream back underneath.

With sunscreen: oil first, sunscreen on top. There is no SPF in a face oil, ours included, so the sunscreen stays. Give the oil a moment before the sunscreen goes on.

A face oil changes how your skin feels: less tight after the shower, softer at the jaw, no shine at the right dose. That is the job. It is a cosmetic, not a treatment, and it promises nothing about any skin condition. For those, see a doctor or a pharmacist.

Sources

1. The Moisturising Elixir label: directions, warnings, and the 9M open-jar symbol.
2. Wikipedia: Moisturizer (occlusives keep moisture from escaping the skin).
3. Wikipedia: Transepidermal water loss.
4. Wikipedia: Jojoba oil (a liquid wax).