What’s your morning routine? For me, I brush my teeth, wash, put my contact lenses in, and I might put on a face cream with SPF. But for some social media influencers, it goes a lot further – they engage in the ‘morning shed’.
Confusingly enough, the morning shed actually starts the previous night, with a nighttime routine – it might mean putting your hair into some sort of heatless curl contraption and putting on a face mask or under-eye mask to wear overnight, meaning there are things to remove when you wake up. Hence the morning ‘shed’ of your overnight treatments or styling devices before you start the day.
I’m not going to criticise women for doing things overnight that make them feel a bit more like themselves in the morning, or that save them time when they’re getting ready the next day. However, I do worry how it might affect people’s sleep and sleep position, if they’re angled into particular directions because of additional products in their hair or on their faces.
It’s probably no surprise that some of these overnight treatments include things that aren’t evidence based. Many of the morning shed videos I’ve watched start with the influencer removing their mouth tape – a practice used by people who hope it will stop them snoring, but that can actually be quite dangerous (especially when the tape is covering the whole mouth), and at best is just plain pointless.
But the thing oddest thing I’ve seen frequently referenced in the morning shed is the removal of a castor oil pack, either as a large fabric pad tied to the belly or a smaller sticky patch worn directly over the belly button. According to Healthline, a castor oil pack is a piece of wool or a cloth soaked in castor oil that you can apply on the skin, which people use in the belief it can combat “skin conditions, blood circulation problems, and digestive issues.” What’s more, according to Women’s Health: “many people are turning to castor oil to help get rid of unwanted belly fat and to tone the stomach area.”
Users go even further with their claims, this with Instagram influencer Millie Mae explaining:
WHAT DOES THIS DO?
The natural compounds in castor oil help to stimulate the lymphatic system, reduce inflammation, and support detoxification processes in the body.
If you experience hormonal acne (especially around your period & ovulation), this is often due to the liver struggling to detoxify excess hormones & toxins, castor oil supports the liver, to improve this!!
Castor oil packs are incredible at reducing period cramping too!!
There are even claims that castor oil packs will improve fertility with another Instagram user claiming:
Elevate your fertility journey naturally with castor oil packs! 🌺 Dive into these 5 game-changing benefits:
1. Bid farewell to cysts and fibroids,
2. Boost ovarian function,
3. Break through fallopian tubal blockages,
4. Tackle inflammation head-on
5. Regulate your menstrual cycle for smoother sailing towards conception!
Embrace the power of castor oil packs and unlock your path to parenthood!
Even if I weren’t already skeptical of these products, the sheer number of conditions they’re claimed to treat is enough to set my alarm bells ringing. As a general rule, the more conditions a product claims to treat, the less likely it can treat anything at all – especially if there are lots of unrelated health complaints, or very generic claims.
What actually are castor oil packs? Healthline explains that to make a homemade castor oil pack, you cut wool or cotton flannel into rectangular pieces of around 12 inches by 10 inches, soak one pieces in castor oil, lay it on a plastic sheet and soak further pieces, piling them onto each other. That’s essentially it. Although, from the videos that I’ve seen, people seem more likely to purchase pre-made packs, rather than making their own.
Once you have your oil-soaked cotton, you simply press it against the area to be treated. According to Healthline:
For example, for constipation or other digestive problems, you’ll likely place it over your stomach area.
Some people believe that the key is to apply castor oil to the belly button – hence the smaller, stick on belly button patches. This version is sometimes called navel pulling, or navel oiling, and traditionally involved massaging oil into the belly button to help with weight loss as well as detoxification, lymphatic draining and improved digestion.
The practice is derived from Ayurveda – traditional Indian holistic medicine – which promotes the belief that the belly button contains 72,000 veins and a non-existent gland called the Pechoti gland. None of this is true; the belly button is just a remnant of where we attach to the placenta in the womb. Once the umbilical cord is cut, the belly button is formed from the wound. There are some veins there, from the umbilical cord, but nowhere near 72,000 of them.
So why do people think castor oil has magical, near-panacea qualities? Some users simply say it’s because castor oil is great for all things – Google it, you’ll see plenty of claims. But some go further, and try to explain what’s so special about castor oil. According to some, it’s all about the ricinoleic acid present in castor oil. Castor oil is made from the castor plant’s seeds, and around 90% of the fatty acid content of these seeds is ricinoleic acid. As one paper explains:
Castor oil is unique among other vegetable extracts due to containing a hydroxylated fatty compound, namely ricinoleic acid
This compound is particularly sought after, by (according to the review) the “pharmaceutical, oleochemical, cosmetic, medicine, biodegradable polymers, lubricants, coatings, adhesives, and nanoparticle synthesis capping agent industries, respectively”. And that’s for good reason – it is useful because it is chemically quite flexible; it can be synthesised into lots of different compounds, many of which are useful for the manufacturing of a variety of products.
Castor oil is also used in the beauty industry as an emollient, and in the food industry as a mould inhibitor. It is even used in medicine, but typically its used as a vehicle for fat soluble medications such as hormone treatments.
Castor oil is also an excellent laxative. This is something that has been known for thousands of years, with an early mention in a papyrus from 1550 BCE. It was used to treat pain in labour according to an 18th Century midwifery manual, but it’s fair to say it was probably the laudanum it was supplemented with that actually did all the work.
The laxative effect of castor oil might explain why people think it’s an effective treatment for digestion and weight loss. However, the laxative effect is obviously only present when the oil is taken orally, not when it’s slathered on the belly or massaged into the belly button. Also, there are now far better treatments for constipation than castor oil. The laxative effect of castor oil, particularly in high doses, can cause diarrhoea so explosive that castor oil has historically been used as a punishment or for torture and humiliation, including most famously under Mussolini in fascist Italy. And that’s before you take into account that the castor seed is the source of the deadly toxin, ricin.
While applying castor oil to your skin is unlikely to cause deadly levels of explosive diarrhoea, and is probably relatively safe for most people, that doesn’t mean it has no side effects when applied topically. Topical castor oil, especially when applied in a concentrated form, can cause skin irritation and allergic reactions.
Topical castor oil may improve the skin due to the emollient effect, for the most part there is no evidence applying castor oil packs will do anything at all. And of course, when we’re loading our skin with oil overnight, there is an increased risk of acne – especially if packs aren’t washed as frequently as they should be or are used too many times.
But are there any benefits to using castor oil packs?
One article includes an interview with an expert who appears to be very much stretching to find a way to be charitable to the practice. Speaking to Healthline, Dr Gabrielle McCauley said:
Science supports the idea that reducing stress levels is important for whole health, due to stress hormones that can be released like cortisol and adrenaline which have downstream effects on parts of the body and hormone levels… Therefore I would not be surprised if a relaxing activity such as navel pulling helped to reduce stress levels as part of a holistic approach to wellness, and in turn have a positive effect on your overall wellbeing.
Notably, she’s talking specifically about navel pulling – laying back and massaging your belly button, which may well be quite relaxing. The same can’t quite be said for applying a oil-soaked cotton pack before bed, and then removing it in the morning.
Some ‘morning shed’ influencers may well talk about how relaxing and empowering it is to spend some time in the evening doing something for yourself – applying masks and treatments, hair curlers and castor oil packs, and then undoing those treatments step by step the next morning. And perhaps the ritual of that could allow for some quiet reflection, some time to yourself away from the doom scrolling.
But I can’t help but think that if you spend a significant portion of your evening and your morning preparing for ways to make yourself more attractive, to make yourself thinner than you are, to correct your imperfections and enhance yourself, rather than empowering yourself, you’re spending time, money, and mental effort just to be aesthetically acceptable to the world.
While some people might well think that these sorts of practices are just self-involved navel gazing, I actually think they’re a symptom of a societal insecurity, and this need to self-improve every single part of ourselves – perpetuating the toxicity that led us into this unhealthy mentality in the first place.
