A soft compress in organic cotton, made to hold oil against the skin. Reusable, fully washable, and the practical answer to the one real problem with using castor oil on the body: it gets everywhere.
What it is for
Castor oil is thick, tacky and extremely difficult to wash out of fabric. A compress solves that. You warm a little oil, apply it, lay the cloth over the area, and the cotton holds the oil where you put it instead of on your sheets, your clothes and the sofa. Then you wash the cloth rather than throwing away a disposable pad each time.
That is the honest description of the product: it is a good, washable cloth that saves your laundry. One cloth instead of a drawer of single-use pads.
What a compress does, and what it does not
Cloths like this are usually sold as "a warm wrap for the deepest reset", part of a practice for "the belly", with instructions to "lie still and let it work". We would rather be straight with you than repeat it.
Castor oil packs are widely promoted for the liver, the gut, hormones, inflammation and "detoxing". There is no evidence for any of it, and there is no mechanism either — nothing rubbed onto the skin of your abdomen reaches your intestines or your liver. We take the same line on the castor oil itself, and it would be inconsistent to sell the cloth on a promise we will not make for the bottle.
What is true, and is genuinely worth something: a warm compress on your stomach or your lower back, lying still for twenty minutes with nothing else happening, is a pleasant and calming thing to do. Warmth on the abdomen is comforting. Twenty minutes of deliberate stillness is good for most people. If that is what you want from it, it delivers, and no further justification is needed.
Before you use it — two cautions
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If you are pregnant, talk to your midwife first. Castor oil is a uterine stimulant and should never be taken internally in pregnancy; for abdominal massage, ask rather than assume.
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Be careful with heat. If you use a hot water bottle or heat pad over the compress, make sure it is warm rather than hot and put a layer between it and your skin. Warmed oil plus a heat source on skin that is already occluded is how people get burns they did not feel coming.
How to use it
- Warm a small amount of oil between your hands — far less than you think.
- Apply it to the skin, not to the cloth, on the first use. The cloth will saturate over time.
- Lay the compress over the area. Add an old towel on top if you are using warmth.
- Twenty to thirty minutes. Then wipe the skin with a warm damp cloth, or a little bicarbonate of soda in water if it feels tacky.
Washing it — read this before the first wash
Castor oil does not come out easily, and the compress will discolour permanently. That is normal.
- Wash it separately, never with clothes you care about.
- Hot wash with a good degreasing detergent. A pre-soak in hot water with washing soda or a little washing-up liquid helps.
- Some people keep the cloth in a sealed glass jar between uses and wash it only occasionally. Both approaches are fine — but a stored oily cloth should be sealed and kept cool, and discarded if it ever smells rancid.
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Never tumble-dry an oil-soaked cloth, and never leave one crumpled in a warm pile. Oil-soaked fabric plus heat is a genuine spontaneous-combustion risk — this is why professional kitchens and workshops have rules about oily rags. Dry it flat, in the air.
Face & Body Oils
NOW Foods
NOW Foods
NOW Foods
