One of my favourite vegetable oils to work with is argan oil, especially when it is authentic argan oil (INCI Argania spinosa). There is not much scientific research about its cosmetic properties, but from my personal and professional experience I can say it is a fantastic skin savior and hair conditioner as well.
Many of you probably know this already. The reason why I m writing about argan oil is because I have recently realised that not all products on the market claiming to be pure argan oil are of good quality or even authentic argan oil at all. Usually these products have an irresistible price, but as they say in England if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.. Well we are not monkeys and we buy argan oil because we know it is great for our skin and hair. Here I m going to show you how to spot authentic argan oil.
Goats like to eat argan nuts from which the oil is extracted, so they could certainly help us spotting the authentic argan oil from the bogus one. I realise it is not very practical solution (my greatgrandma would not have had a problem with that) so I m going to share with you a very simple test you can do in the comfort of your home. All you need is a fridge, well your fridge is your goat, but not as smelly (I hope!). I shall demonstrate the method with a “pure certified organic” argan oil I acquired luckily, for free.
I put the argan oil sample into my lab fridge and leave it overnight. The morning after I compare it to my pure and certified argan oil which I regularly keep in the fridge. You can see that the organic argan oil I have, show a waxy precipitate which is rich in phytosterols, essential to the argan oil activity and goodness. The sample I acquired for free is as clear as a bell despite being bioactive, natural and organic. There are 2 possibilities here:
-it is a highly refined argan oil
-or it is argan oil cut with a cheaper oil.
To measure its bioactivity I run another simple test where the sample was used as a shaving oil (to see if it retained the usual benefit of preventing razor rash). Not only it did not help with that but it also gave a burning sensation as if there was something else in it (fragrance?). Whatever the answer the sample did not seem very beneficial to the skin and therefore a very expensive investment…
Thanks to the goat in the fridge method you can spot if a pure argan oil is truly pure or active as claimed on the bottle. Enjoy it and please let me know what you find…
