Oils - Let's Talk About Them

Our formulas begin with the MOST fresh, unrefined, organic oils. And I don't use the term, "fresh" lightly. The standard oils often used by many organic product makers are cheaper and easier to work with (because they're stripped of their natural aromas, color and are already oxidized) and don't need protection to maintain their integrity. Unfortunately, the result of refining oils is a product that's devoid of any nutritive value for your skin.

You can have the most exquisite herbal medicine but if it's been blended into a low-quality and/or oxidized oil, it's not worth using, in my opinion and why I'm so incredibly choosy about the oils we use in our formulas.

Refinement- many "natural" oils used by skincare companies are refined with toxic hexane gas to remove the aroma and color to produce a more "standardized" product. Hexane is incredibly toxic and removes the vital phytosterols in oils.

Heat- When seeds, nuts and beans are pressed to extract an oil, it's much more cost-efficient to use machines that press the oil quickly. Unfortunately, this creates high heat, especially with hard beans like jojoba. This is why cold-pressed oils are much more expensive. But cold-pressed oils retain their phytonutrients. Heat destroys these delicate nutrients, yielding an oil that has little to no nutritive value for your skin.

Our jojoba producer, Kirk, invented his own oil presses to ensure that his oil is never subject to high heat. It's this dedication to quality ingredients that makes all the difference and why I personally choose the farms that we work with.

Oxidation- Oils easily react with oxygen from the air and oxidize, leading to changes in their chemical structure. This process is accelerated by exposure to light and heat, causing the oil to break down and form free radicals, peroxides and aldehydes. All are inflammatoy to your skin.

You'll see in our ingredients lists that we often use Vitamin E and oils with extraordinarily high antioxidant values like meadowfoam seed oil, not only because they're amazing for your skin, but they also protect the more delicate oils in the product from oxidizing.

Organic- Fun fact: Organically grown plants have about 40% more phytonutrients than non-organically grown plants. And this transfers right to the quality of the oils!

Fresh- The stability of oils, especially our cold-pressed oils, changes over time. While they have some built-in preservative systems (some much more than others), they are plants and not meant to last forever. And that's precisely why we use FRESH oils. We buy in small quantities and some of our oils, like our Jojoba Oil, are cold-pressed right when we order them.

Freshness and potency are so important to the nutritive value of our formulas that we make most of our extracts in-house. We infuse fresh, potent herbs into fresh, cold-pressed organic oils resulting in ingredients that truly feed your skin.

Your skin's health is why we are in this business. It's why we obsess over each and every ingredient we use - from the seeds planted, how they're grown and processed to how fresh the oils are when we receive them. Because you matter. And we love you.

xo, Angelina

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