Argan oil is currently a bit of a fad among the crunchy types who are into looking pretty (or it seems that way to me). You rub it into your skin and hair. This makes your skin and hair better than before, presumably.
I can’t seem to find any real information on why argan oil, specifically, is good. Why is it better than:
random face cream or conditioner
olive oil
rubbing lard all over yourself? :dubious:
I mean, maybe it is really good, but I can’t find anything that explains why. Well no, that’s not true. I can find sources that tell me it’s good because it’s natural, therefore magical (to be fair, so is lard). I can also find articles that tell me people used it a long time ago, which also makes it magical, I think. Neither of these says what this oil has that is particularly good for the skin/hair, and how that differs from other stuff.
So is there anything to this argan oil thing, or is it just expensive olive oil?
It appears to have a higher concentration of squalenethan olive oil, and also is less prone to oxidize/go bad.
I think that last point makes it better than lard or straight-up olive oil.
The “natural”-ness of it might make it better for some people whose skin reacts to different chemicals found in manufactured lotions.
I use a face oil, which is not argan oil it’s “sesame, sweet almond, olive, and jojoba.” My face was getting hella dry in the winter and almost every lotion I tried made my cystic acne flare up. It also didn’t seem to add any “glow” to my skin.
It does seem very strange to be slathering straight-up oil on your face, especially if you’re acne prone! But here I am
I use Josie Maran, 100% pure argan oil on my face every night, after I wash with my Clarisonic. I love it and it doesn’t clog up my pores. I also have sensitive skin and it’s really gentle.
You’re probably not going to find any hard science on this stuff because there is no incentive to spend the money to do the research.
One thing to keep in mind is that people are different and they react to these kinds of products differently. What works wonders for some may do nothing for others (legitimately).
I’ve been taking aspirin for years and it works great for me, but it makes my sister break out in hives.
You won’t know for sure how well or not this works for you until you try it.
I got some from Puritan’s Prideon a whim a while back, and actually love it. So does my husband. It’s become our standard skin stuff. Just an anecdote, but if you want to try it, they have it pretty cheap if you buy a lot.
Edit: Oh, and hair. I don’t do oil in my hair. Every time I’ve tried it’s been a disaster. YMMV.
True, but we might know things like “it contains more Magic Beans than olive oil, and Magic Beans have been shown to be good for the skin” - like Zipper JJ said about squalene. Or we can make other guesses like “it’s pretty much the same stuff as olive oil, so probably little difference besides the squalene” or “face creams are designed specially for human skin so they contain loads of squalene and other stuff that is good for skin”.
I keep reading about how good it is for psoriasis, which also makes me wonder. I do have some argan oil. It moisturises, feels like olive oil. It doesn’t do anything for the psoriasis, but neither does normal moisturiser, and I doubt olive oil would help (or lard for that matter). Maybe it is better for my skin than other creams, or maybe it’s the same. I honestly don’t really know, and don’t know how I would reliably be able to tell unless the difference was huge and I was very sure it wasn’t down to other factors. The way my skin is mostly seems pretty random to me. And then I’d still have to test against using olive oil and lard in the same way, and under exactly the same circumstances (diet, sunlight, pollution), to answer my own question. And then there’s pumpkin seed oil, sesame oil, jojoba oil, motor oil. Surely we know something? Like vitamin E, that’s good for skin, right? Is it really? Which oil has the most of that? If you have to choose between lots of squalene and lots of vit E, which is more important?
(Just to be clear, I’m not really asking in order to know if I should, in practice, be putting lard and motor oil on my face, or how I can stay young forever. I’m just curious about the science, and curious about what we do know.)
