Most of the time—absolutely. The belief that certain products are only suited for certain parts of our bodies is usually just an excellent bit of marketing to get you to purchase 4 different lotions instead of one. I’ve used beard oils to moisturize my face, body butters as lip balms, hair serums as hand lotions, and all my homemade soaps usually end up playing shampoo, shave, face, and hand soap.
There are a few exceptions:
- Anything containing toxic essential oils, like wintergreen or tea tree essential oil, should not be used around the mouth or nostrils for obvious reasons!
- Scrubs for the body are generally too harsh for the face
- Some essential oils taste just awful, which makes things made with them less that ideal for use around your mouth. My Honey Coconut Body Butter is a great example of this—yuck!
- Anything containing lots of essential oils (like tiger balm) or irritating essential oils (like menthol, peppermint, cinnamon, cassia, chili seed, etc.) should be used with caution/not at all around the face and mucous membranes. Be very careful putting those sorts of essential oils in bath products as well—combining a more irritating essential oil with hot water and then submerging yourself in it (this usually includes your genitals in a bath situation) can be a very bad idea.
Now, just because you can put something pretty much anywhere on your body doesn’t mean you’ll like the experience of doing so, or that it will work. You’ll probably find a thick body butter too heavy for your face, and lip balm too sticky for your hands, but who knows—you might also love it!
Posted in: General Usage
