Seed Oils, The Good , The Bad , THE TRUTH

The Seed Oil Conversation I Didn’t Want to Have (But Here We Are)

I didn’t think I would have to have this conversation… and I really didn’t want to.

But there is definitely confusion right now, and so here I am, attempting to shed some light on the seed oils situation:

the good, the bad, and the truth.

Because “seed oils” has become one of those internet phrases people fling around like a curse word, without realizing they’re often using one label to describe two completely different worlds.

And if we’re going to be women who lives in truth—in our bodies, in our choices, in our discernment—then we don’t outsource our intelligence to slogans.

So let’s clean this up.

Part I — The Food Oils: How Something That Once Looked “Good” Got Corrupted

When most people say “seed oils are bad,” they’re usually talking about industrial cooking oils—commodity oils that flood packaged foods and restaurant kitchens:

canola

soybean

corn

cottonseed

sunflower / safflower (often)

grapeseed (often)

And the real issue usually isn’t “seeds.”

It’s what the industrial model did to them.

1) Industrial agriculture + scale changes everything

This is the part nobody can bypass:

When a crop is grown to feed a machine, mass monocropping, commodity supply chains, “efficiency-first” systems, everything about the end product tends to shift toward:

shelf stability

uniformity

yield

profit

That doesn’t automatically make something “evil.”

It just means we should stop pretending it’s the same as a small-batch, traditionally made fat.

2) Extraction + refining: the factory pipeline

Most commodity oils are not gently pressed and bottled like a sacred offering. A large portion of them are pushed through modern extraction and refining processes designed to create something neutral tasting, uniform, and shelf-stable, perfect for manufacturing, not necessarily ideal for daily human consumption at high volume.

3) Heat + repetition + oxidation: the fryer reality

Then comes the way these oils are used:

high heat

repeated heating

long storage cycles

constant exposure through packaged and restaurant foods

So it’s not just what oil.
It’s how often, how heated, and how industrialized the delivery system is.

4) Even “premium oils” can be diluted or stale

And here’s where people feel truly played:

Even when someone tries to “upgrade” from commodity seed oils to “better oils,” the marketplace isn’t always clean. Sometimes oils are old. Sometimes they’re diluted. Sometimes labels are more marketing than truth.

So yes, people aren’t only reacting to seed oils.

They’re reacting to a food system where trust has been broken.

Bottom line on food oils:

If you want to reduce industrial seed oils, the biggest lever isn’t obsessing—it’s stepping out of the factory diet:

fewer packaged foods

fewer fried restaurant meals

more home cooking with intentional fats

That’s the “bad” side of this story: industrial scale + heavy processing + constant exposure.

Part II — The Beauty Oils: The Seed Is Where the Plant Begins

Now here’s where the internet loses the plot:

People hear “seed oils are inflammatory” and then decide:

“No seed oil should touch your skin.”

But skincare seed oils, when they’re truly high quality, are a completely different category.

And I want you to hold this image:

A seed is the plant’s original vault.

A seed is not a random ingredient.

A seed is the beginning.

It’s what carries life through darkness, drought, cold, and time, until conditions are right for the whole botanical to emerge.

So what does Nature store inside a seed?

Nourishment. Protection. Intelligence.

The seed oil is not “empty fat.”

It is stored vitality, the building materials that help the plant become… the plant.

When we work with seed oils in skincare, we’re working with that concentrated medicine.  You are anointing the skin with a true seed oil, you’re working with that original botanical blueprint.

The nutrients and phytonutrients in true seed oils

When a seed oil is cold-pressed, unrefined, fresh, and protected from heat / light / oxygen, it can carry a living spectrum of constituents that skin actually recognizes.

And this matters because “seed oil” isn’t one thing.

It’s a category so wide it’s almost meaningless until you get specific.

There are so many seed oils because there are so many plants , and each seed is designed to do one sacred task:

carry life forward.

A seed is a vault.

It holds the plant’s “startup kit”, the building materials, protection, and resilience compounds the plant needs to germinate, root, rise, and become the whole botanical.

So when we use true seed oils on the skin, we’re not just rubbing on “grease.” We’re working with the plant at its Genesis point,  where it stores what it values most.

Now… what does that actually mean in the language of skin?

1) Essential fatty acids: the barrier builders

Many seed oils are rich in essential fatty acids, and for skin, one of the most important is linoleic acid.

This is the kind of lipid your skin barrier understands.

A healthy barrier isn’t just “moist.”

It’s structured. It’s resilient. It knows how to hold water. It knows how to keep irritants out. This is one reason certain seed oils can feel like they “repair the terrain”:

less tightness

less reactivity

more softness

a calmer, steadier feel to the tissue

And it’s also why the right seed oil can be supportive for very different skin types depending on what the skin is missing and what the skin is overproducing.

Translation: not all oils behave the same. Not even close.

2) Vitamin E (tocopherols): the guardian of oils + skin lipids

Many seed oils naturally contain forms of Vitamin E (tocopherols).

This matters because your skin surface has its own lipid environment, and that lipid layer is constantly facing stressors: wind, dryness, friction, pollution, sun, time.

Vitamin E is one of Nature’s ways of bringing protective companionship into that lipid realm.

So when a seed oil is fresh and properly stored, it can offer not just softness,  but a sense of protection.

3) Carotenoids (pro–vitamin A family): the sun-gold pigments

Some seed oils carry carotenoids, those warm, “sun-gold” pigments that are part of the plant’s protective chemistry.

This is one reason some oils are naturally amber, golden, or richly tinted.

Carotenoids are part of how plants carry resilience, and that’s why these oils are often loved for supporting a more vital-looking, luminous tone over time.

4) Phytosterols: plant sterols that support feel + barrier comfort

Many seed oils also carry phytosterols, plant sterols that live in the architecture of plant cell membranes.

In skincare language, sterol-rich oils often feel like:

comfort for thin or stressed skin

softness for dryness

“less raw” when the barrier is disrupted

a supportive cushion when skin feels depleted

5) The “unsaponifiables”: why some oils feel like medicine

Here’s a piece most people don’t know to name, but everyone can feel when it’s missing: Beyond fatty acids, unrefined botanical oils contain a small fraction of “minor” compounds, things that don’t show up in a basic fatty acid breakdown, but can meaningfully shape how an oil behaves on skin.

This is one reason overly refined oils often feel… flat.

And why true, well-made botanical oils can feel like they have a pulse.

6) Each seed oil has a personality (because each plant has a strategy)

Because seeds are designed for survival, different plants store different “strategies” in their oils:

Some oils feel light, fast-absorbing, airy

Some oils feel plush, sealing, deeply emollient

Some feel balancing, grounding, protective

This is why there are so many seed oils available:

because there are so many botanical ways of being alive.

The most important truth: freshness is everything

A fresh seed oil can be nourishment.

A stale, heat-exposed, oxygen-damaged oil becomes something else:

oxidation ,  and oxidation on the skin can mean irritation, congestion, and inflammation.

So the question is never “Are seed oils good or bad?”

The real questions are:

Is it cold-pressed and unrefined?

Is it fresh?

Is it protected from light/heat/oxygen?

Is it chosen for your skin type and your current terrain?

Is it blended/formulated with intelligence, rather than thrown together as a trend?

Because seed oils are not a meme.They are plant intelligence,  and plant intelligence demands respectReal beauty is not a gimmick.It’s terrain.

Part III — “Natural SPF” from Seed Oils: Yes, It’s Real 

Yes, seed oils have been tested for SPF, and some do show measurable UVB protection in lab testing.

So let’s say it plainly: There is nothing wrong with a little sun-support from Mother Nature in your skincare routine. A beautiful seed oil can offer a kind of supportive veil, and for everyday life, that’s a lovely part of a holistic routine. Because it makes perfect sense that seeds would carry protective compounds. A seed is life in a small vessel. Protection is part of the design.

SPF results vary wildly depending on:

the specific oil

how it was extracted or refined

the testing method (in vitro vs. in vivo)

and how much is actually applied on the skin

Which is why different oils will show different levels of protection—because different plants store different strategies in their seeds.

So no, there is nothing wrong with adding a little sun-support from Mother Nature into your skincare ritual.

That is sane.

That is natural intelligence.

That is relationship with the living world.

And here’s the only nuance that matters

Different oils vary widely, and the level of protection depends on the oil, the quality, and how it’s used, so think of seed oils as supportive sun companionship.

Because sun wisdom has never been one product anyway.

Sun wisdom is:

timing

shade

hats

covers

and what you choose to layer on your skin

And I’m not interested in selling you fear about the sun.

I’m interested in helping you build a relationship with it, 

one rooted in intelligence, not hysteria. we all need a natural source of Vit D

Support is beautiful.

Replacement is a different claim.

The Seed Oil Truth in One Breath

Food oils became a problem largely because industry scaled them into a constant, processed, overheated flood, often delivered through packaged foods and restaurant meals.

Skincare seed oils, when fresh, cold-pressed, and well-formulated, can be part of restoration, because they come from the plant’s beginning: the seed it blue print of intelligence .

And I’ll say this plainly:

I’m not interested in fear campaigns.

I’m interested in truth, quality, and what actually supports the body.

At Narayan Beauty, we work with plants as living medicine, not as marketing props.

That means freshness (because life force fades), protection (because light, heat, and oxygen change everything), and formulation wisdom (because throwing trendy ingredients into a bottle is not the same as crafting medicine for skin).

And this is where it becomes something deeper than “skincare”:

It’s all in the alchemy.

Alchemy is the difference between ingredients and an intelligent blend.

It’s knowing that plants don’t act alone, they act in relationship.

It’s understanding extraction, synergy, ratios, energetics, and timing… and respecting the invisible line between an oil that simply sits on the surface and an oil that truly supports the terrain of the skin.

I bring over 25 years of lived experience in organic botanical beauty formulation, years of research, testing, refinement, and relationship with the plant world. Not a weekend certification. Not a trend cycle. A true apprenticeship with Nature.

So when we choose a seed oil, we’re not choosing it because the internet is obsessed with it this month.

We’re choosing it because we know what it does:

how it behaves in the skin’s lipid world

how it supports barrier intelligence

how it pairs with other botanicals to calm, soften, and fortify

how to protect it so it stays fresh and potent

how to blend it so it becomes more than the sum of its parts

That’s formulation.

That’s craft.

That’s devotion.

At Narayan Beauty, ingredients are selected for function, not trend… and blended with the kind of wisdom that only comes from years of working with plants as allies, teachers, and medicine.

Because real beauty isn’t manufactured.

It’s cultivated, patiently, precisely, and reverently.

be well N