When it comes to food, natural sunflower oil is an excellent oil of choice. It is light in taste, odorless, and rich in health essential fatty acids. However this oil is also sensitive to heat so you may want to exclude sunflower oil from baking or frying to receive it's maximum nutritional value. It can used with healthful herbs and spices as an excellent salad dressing and works great in any other "cold" recipes.

In skin care products, sunflower is one of the favorite of softening emollients. It is rich in vitamins A, D, and especially in vitamin E and essential fatty acids. Sunflower oil has a light texture and is easily absorbed by skin, making it excellent for use in lotions, creams, massage oils, and other topical applications.

For many soapmakers, sunflower oil is the moisturizing oil of choice in soap recipes. Being high in linoleic fatty acid it can make a gentle skin softening soap, but the only downside is those linoleic acids also comes with a shorter shelf life than many other oils. That's why it is important that sunflower oil is balanced with other oils in proportions so that the benefits can be felt without increasing the likelihood of spoilage in soaps or any other cosmetic applications.

Use of natural preservatives such as additional vitamin E, rosemary extract, or grapefruit extract also helps recipes with higher amounts of sunflower oil to slow down the oxidation process which helps the overall product last significantly longer. Sunflower oil also comes in a "high oleic" formula that gives the oil an extended shelf life for cosmetic applications, although the benefits may feel somewhat different since it's essential fatty acid composition becomes slightly similar to olive oil at that point.

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