If You Have Itchy Skin, Make Sure You’re Getting Enough Of This Ingredient

If you frequently deal with itchy, tight, inflamed skin, you likely have a few hero ingredients on lock. Perhaps you always keep a vat of shea butter on your bedside table or never leave home without a tube of aloe—when itchy skin strikes, it helps to have the immediate skin-soothers close-by. 

Allow me to add another skin savior to the roster: oat oil. If you haven’t yet tried this smooth, liquid gold of an ingredient, you’re in for a treat.  

Oats have major skin care benefits—some people even swear by soaking in a lukewarm bath steeped with oats. But if you don’t feel like brewing an oatmeal bath, using oat oil-infused products can give you a lot of bang for your buck. 

How so? Well, oat oil is extracted from the highly nutritious seed kernels of the Avena sativa or oat plant, which means it has a remarkably high lipid content. “The lipid component of colloidal oatmeal is oat oil,” says board-certified dermatologist Hadley King, M.D., about the ingredient, so by extracting the nutrient-rich oil, you’re getting the most out of its fatty acid content. 

And fatty acids are beloved skin care heroes, especially for those who have a weakened lipid barrier (people with itchy skin typically do). Oat oil is particularly high in linoleic acid, a fatty acid that “helps regulate and promote healthy functioning of the skin barrier,” adds board-certified dermatologist Tiffany Jow Libby, M.D. In other words: Slathering on oat oil can be just as powerful as sinking into an anti-inflammatory oatmeal bath. Just, you know, way less work. 

You can always apply straight oat oil onto your skin post-shower—just make sure the skin is damp, so the occlusive has some moisture to trap. Or you can find an oat oil-infused body lotion for a hit of hydration any time of day. The fatty acid-rich oil is a star ingredient in our postbiotic body lotion, along with other skin-conditioning agents, like coconut oil, shea butter, squalene, aloe, and moringa seed oil.

Plus, the cutting-edge pre- and postbiotic combo nurtures your skin microbiome, which improves epidermal framework and soothes inflammation—perfect for those with itchy, irritated skin. No lie, whenever I massage it onto the backs of my arms (which tend to become dry and itchy), I audibly sigh in relief.