At some point in your life it’s likely you have had a bruise. One of the most common injuries, bruises occur due to bleeding under the skin. While most bruises are minor, not causing any lasting harm, they are often unsightly and can be painful. If you’ve ever wondered whether there’s something you can do to help combat bruising, you’ve come to the right place. This article will explore all the essential oils bruises. 

Why Do We Bruise? 

To understand how aromatherapy can act as a natural remedy to help minimize bruises, it’s important to touch on the root causes of bruising.  For anyone who lives an active lifestyle, bruises are an inevitability. We bump into things, fall, or just get discombobulated. Our reward for such blunders is that lovely colored welt.   

By definition, bruises are known as contusions. Contusions are dark patches that form on the skin—typically on the arms or legs—which can turn any combination of several colors:

• Violet
• Purple
• Green
• Yellow
• Blue
• Red
• Brown

When your muscles experience a collision or significant contact, the ensuing pressure causes subdermal blood vessels (capillaries) directly beneath the skin to rupture. Your body reacts to the blow or affected area the same way it would for a cut. The only difference is the skin is not broken; instead, the bleeding occurs and pools beneath the skin. 

This could be caused by a significant force being applied, such as banging your shin into a table, falling down and scraping your knee, or excessive exercise, which can cause tiny tears in the blood vessels beneath the skin. As we age, it is said that our skin becomes “weaker”, which is partially true. It does become thinner, which provides less padding for the blood vessels, making bruising more common.

Symptoms of Bruises 

The symptoms of bruises occur in stages. Initially, you might see a red mark on an area where you bumped or banged a part of your skin. This is due to inflammation, but not necessarily blood. When the color of the impacted area changes to blue, purple or black, that is caused by the pooling of blood. This is also often accompanied by tenderness of the skin, pain, inflammation, swelling or itching. Within a few days to a few weeks, depending on your age and how efficiently your body heals, the bruise will fade to a yellow or green as the damage begins to heal. The pain tends to dissipate as the color of the bruise lessens.

List of Best Essential Oils for Bruises

The application of essential oils for bruises is an excellent way to speed the healing process, reduce pain and inflammation, and improve the appearance of these temporary injuries.

There are quite a few effective essential oils for bruises. The following are the best essential oils for treating pain or discoloration related to bruising. These are particularly frankincense, rosemary, lavender, geranium, arnica oil, helichrysum and aloe vera.

Geranium Oil

This essential oil is known to stimulate the production of healthy, new tissue and also increase circulation to the site of a bruise. Although this may result in additional inflammation at first, the healing process will occur much faster when using this powerful oil. 

How to Use – You can blend geranium oil with any number of other carrier oils, such as almond oil or coconut oil, and then apply that to the area of your skin that has been affected for rapid results. Don’t use this oil in an undiluted form, as it can cause irritation.

Frankincense

Anciently prized and revered, frankincense resin has been used in everything from sacred religious ceremonies to anti-aging formulas. Frankincense is also recommended for reducing bruise appearance and size more quickly. Its anti-inflammatory qualities can help relieve pain as well. A trial put frankincense essential oil to the test for bruises, along with turmeric. Results found it was just as effective as over-the-counter sprays for bruise healing. While Frankincense possesses a myriad of other benefits, it is particularly rejuvenating to your skin. For this reason, it is a helpful oil to use on bruises. Apply a few drops of diluted essential oil to unbroken bruised areas twice per day.

How to Use – Unlike many other essential oils, you can use an undiluted form of this oil, but only a few drops are needed. Also, this oil has been deemed non-toxic and is even appropriate to use for children when they have fallen down and bruised themselves.

Helichrysum Oil

Helichrysum oil is a great anti-inflammatory and can offer gentle pain relief. It has been used for decades to help to heal all kinds of skin problems, including:

• Burns
• Age Spots
• Rashes
• Hives
• Bruising
• Scars

When you apply it to a bruise as it appears, you will likely notice a reduction in size and intensity of color. That’s because the helichrysum flower has anti-hematomal properties.

How to Use – You only need a small amount of this oil for it to be effective, and simply apply 3-5 drops of the oil directly on the bruised area approximately 6-12 hours after the initial injury.

Rosemary Oil

Rosemary oil is known to contain a number of powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory compounds, which can regulate the immune response to a bruise, help lower inflammation and decrease oxidative stress. This can help to open the way for faster recovery.

How to Use -you can add a few drops of rosemary oil to a carrier oil and topically apply to the site of the bruise, or put some of this oil in warm bathwater and soak in the tub, fully submerging the bruised area.

Pay attention to even minor bruises because sometimes they can be a symptom of something huge.

Lavender Oil

Most of us are familiar with the gentle, floral scent of lavender oil, and for good reason! This plant offers amazing therapeutic values. Applying a few drops right after an injury can reduce pain and bruise. Use a compress for this if you have never used the oil before.

Lavender promotes the healing of wounds, and can also help with relaxation and sleep.

How to Use – Highly effective when used right after the injury, you can put undiluted lavender oil (3-5 drops) on the area where you think the bruise will form for pain relief and prevention of bad bruising.

Arnica Oil (Arnica montana) 

Arnica flower is one of the most popular herbal remedies for bruising. It’s shown to speed healing, quickly reduce bruise size, and restore normal skin tone. Arnica is also pain-relieving. It has been proven that, surgery patients received topical arnica for ecchymosis, a type of bruising. The herb helped heal these bruises faster than a placebo.

Topically, arnica essential oil could help bruises heal faster. Twice per day, apply a few drops of diluted essential oil to unbroken bruised skin. Arnica is also available as a homeopathic remedy.

How to Use – Mix equal parts of arnica oil, lavender oil and tea tree oil onto the site of the bruise and let those three powerful oils get to work on reducing pain and improving the appearance of the bruised skin.

Aloe Vera

Famed for its anti-inflammatory properties, while this isn’t an essential oil, it is extremely effective in limiting the appearance of bruises and soothing the pain of the initial injury. The cooling nature of the aloe very can also lower swelling and provide numbness to the area of impact. 

How to Use – After an injury is sustained, apply 1 teaspoon of aloe vera gel to the site of the injury and massage gently until it is completely absorbed by the skin.

When should I see a doctor for bruising?

Most bruises aren’t a concern and can easily be treated at home. They also go away eventually on their own with no treatment.

You should see a doctor immediately (and avoid using essential oils for bruises) if:

• you have extreme pain, swelling, or edema
• your bruise has no obvious cause and you take blood-thinning medications
• you have bruises appear for no reason
• your bruise won’t go away or gets larger after three or four weeks
• your bruise is on an eye or your head with signs of concussion