What Yellow Skin and Eyes Are Really Telling You

If you’ve ever seen a newborn baby with a yellowish tint to their skin or the whites of their eyes, you’ve seen the liver talking. It’s one of the first visible signs that a brand-new body is still learning how to do its job. And while most people associate that yellowing with babies, it shows up far more often than you’d think — in adults, too.

What That Yellow Actually Means

That yellow color is caused by a substance called bilirubin. It’s a yellow pigment your body naturally produces when it breaks down old red blood cells. Normally, your liver filters bilirubin out of the blood and sends it through bile into your digestive system, where it exits the body. Simple enough — when everything’s working well.

But when the liver is overwhelmed, underdeveloped, or struggling, bilirubin starts to build up in the blood. And when there’s too much of it, it shows. Your skin turns yellow. The whites of your eyes turn yellow. Sometimes even the inside of your mouth. That’s jaundice — and it’s the body’s way of waving a flag that the liver needs attention.

In newborns, it’s incredibly common. Up to 60% of full-term babies develop jaundice in their first week of life because their livers are still maturing. It usually resolves on its own. But the same signal shows up in adults under very different circumstances — and that’s when it becomes important to pay attention.

When Adults See Yellow

Yellowing skin or eyes in adults can appear after surgery — especially procedures involving anesthesia, which the liver has to process. It can show up during or after heavy medication use, since many drugs are metabolized through the liver. It’s seen in people dealing with hepatitis, gallstones, or bile duct blockages. It can follow periods of heavy alcohol consumption. And sometimes it appears during or after illness, when the body has been under significant stress and the liver is working overtime.

In every case, the message is the same: the liver is telling you it’s overloaded.

Why the Liver Deserves More Credit

The liver is the largest internal organ in the body and performs over 500 functions. It filters your blood, produces bile to help digest fats, stores vitamins and minerals, processes hormones, breaks down toxins, and plays a critical role in immune function. Every single thing you eat, drink, breathe, or absorb through your skin eventually passes through the liver. It’s your body’s main processing center — and when it slows down, everything else starts to feel it.

The reality is, in our modern world, the liver is under constant demand. Processed foods, environmental toxins, medications, alcohol, stress — it all adds up. And most of us never think about supporting it until something goes visibly wrong.

A Simple Way to Support It

This is one of the reasons we love dōTERRA’s Geranium essential oil. Geranium has long been regarded as a powerful liver tonic in the world of essential oils. It’s thought to support the liver by helping expand bile ducts, which assists the liver’s natural detoxification process — essentially helping the liver do what it’s already designed to do, more efficiently. Research has also shown that geranium oil possesses antioxidant properties that may help reduce oxidative stress, which is a major contributor to liver strain.

One of the most beautiful things about geranium is how gently it can be used. For adults, it can be applied topically over the liver area (right side, under the ribcage) diluted with a carrier oil. But it’s also gentle enough for little ones — many parents apply a drop of geranium diluted with coconut oil to the bottoms of their baby’s feet to support healthy liver function during those early days when the liver is still catching up. The bottoms of the feet are one of the safest and most effective places to apply essential oils on newborns because the skin is less sensitive and the pores allow for gentle absorption.

Whether you’re postpartum, recovering from surgery, on a long course of medication, or just living in a world that puts a lot on your liver — it’s worth thinking about what you can do to support it. The liver rarely asks for help out loud. But when it does, it’s worth listening.