Beautiful Benefits of Hemp Seed Oil

At Pharmacopia, we love bringing the best of plants to you and your natural body care routine. That’s why, when we discovered just how beneficial hemp seeds are, we knew we had to incorporate it into a product. Enter our Tangerine Lip Elixir. This bestselling 100% vegan lip balm is formulated with hemp seed oil—as well as with vitamin E, jojoba oil, olive oil, and more—to hydrate, soothe, and protect the lips.

But why is hemp seed oil so good for the skin? Hemp seed oil is rich in nutrients, is super hydrating, and serves as an anti-inflammatory, making it an effective way to soothe the itchy, dry, chapped skin that can often occur on the lips.

What are hemp seeds?

Hemp seeds are green-colored seeds found inside black shells or hulls. They’re found on the hemp plant, a tall plant (usually four to twelve feet in height) with long, narrow, skinny leaves with five to eight leaflets. Hemp seeds are typically harvested when the plants mature, which is usually in the Fall. 

Another thing we love about hemp: it’s a sustainable crop. Because hemp plants grow faster than other crops, they’re a more sustainable way of producing body care ingredients. Even more, hemp is carbon negative, meaning that hemp plants absorb more carbon from the air during growth than they give off during their production. Hemp plants also require less water to grow. Being all about sustainability at Pharmacopia—with 100% post-consumer recycled bottles and biodegradable ingredients for all our body care products—this makes us happy!

Learn more about Pharmacopia’s commitment to sustainable beauty.

These sustainable hemp seeds—also referred to as hemp hearts—are tiny, about two to three millimeters (about one eighth of an inch) thick. If eaten (and they can be eaten as they’re a rich source of myriad nutrients), they have a mild nutty taste.

Hemp seed oil is extracted from hemp seeds through cold-pressing. This means that no heat or additional processing is used to remove the oil from the seeds. Cold-pressing allows for maximum retention of beneficial plant-based compounds.

Jojoba oil is another super-hydrating skin oil found in our Tangerine Lip Elixir and our body care products. Learn more about how jojoba oil can benefit your lips.

Beauty benefits of hemp seed oil

Plants are rich in so many powerful plant-based compounds and hemp is no different. Here are some of hemp’s many skin-healing benefits:

• Hemp seeds are rich in beneficial aromatic plant compounds called terpenes. It’s these terpenes that protect plants from environmental aggressors, helping them to survive. (Lavender is another plant rich in terpenes though this is just another of many.)

Two terpenes in particular are found in hemp seed oil: β-Myrcene and limonene. Mercene has anti-inflammatory benefits; limonene helps prevent allergic skin reactions like atopic dermatitis or eczema. It’s atopic dermatitis that can cause red, cracked, dry skin, which is common on the lips particularly during the cool-weather months.

Learn more about the powerful benefits of aromatic plant-based compounds in our better-for-you Pharmacopia body care products.

• Hemp seeds contain healing antioxidant-rich flavonoids. Two potent flavonoids found in hemp seeds are cannaflavin A and B. These compounds offer anti-inflammatory benefits that help reduce skin dryness and itchiness.

• Hemp seeds are chock full of hydrating essential fatty acids. Hemp seeds contain over 30% fat, making them a valuable ingredient in any natural lip balm formulation. They are rich in both linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid, and alpha-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid. Both of these are healthy polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Why are essential fatty acids good for the skin? Scientists have found that essential fatty acids like those found in hemp seeds help maintain a healthy skin barrier. While many studies concentrate on the benefits of ingesting essential fatty acids, researchers have found that topical application of essential fatty acids—as through our Tangerine Lip Elixir—is an effective way of delivering essential fatty acids to the skin for powerful benefits.

What this means for you: hemp seed oil can help keep moisture in the skin and prevent moisture loss…  important benefits when it comes to having healthy, soft lips. 

• Hemp seeds are a valuable source of soothing vitamin E. We’ve already added this nutrient into our nourishing Lip Elixir, so hemp seeds add even more of this powerful anti-inflammatory vitamin. Vitamin E has been shown to help heal wounds like cracked, chapped lips. When applied topically, vitamin E may also help prevent water loss from the skin, keeping essential moisture in and helping to maintain soft, supple lips.

Can hemp get you high?

This is a common question asked about hemp and no, hemp cannot get you high. 

Here’s the background behind this question. Both hemp and marijuana come from plants in the Cannabaceae family. By law, a hemp plant is defined as a plant that contains 0.3 percent or less of THC or tetrahydrocannabionol, which is a plant compound called a cannabinoid. This is a minute amount, and it’s why it’s legal to grow hemp in the U.S.

By law, a marijuana plant, on the other hand, is defined as a plant that contains more than 0.3 percent of THC, which is the psychoactive compound in the plant that’s responsible for the “high” associated with cannabis. And it’s the flowering buds of the plant that contain the highest concentrations of this THC, not the seeds. 

So while having soft, hydrated lips all year long can make you happy, this good feeling is coming from the powerful benefits of hemp seed oil—found in our Tangerine Lip Elixir—not from any mind-altering effects. In fact, at Pharmacopia we’ve found that using natural, plant-based, sustainable products daily can make you not only feel better about the impact you’re having on the Earth, it can also help you have healthier skin and hair. And we know that tapping into these benefits on a daily basis can definitely make you happier long term!