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Fat and the Moon Face Oil

Face Oil

Helps regulate your skin's oil production to achieve a harmonious balance and natural glow. 
Uploaded by: neueragain on

Fat and the Moon Face Oil
Ingredients explained

Also-called: Calendula Extract, Marigold Extract;Calendula Officinalis Extract | What-it-does: soothing, antioxidant

The extract coming from the popular garden plant Calendula or Marigold. It's used traditionally as a skin-repairing and soothing plant extract

Click here to read more at the calendula flower extract

This ingredient name is not according to the INCI-standard. :( What, why?!

Also-called: Hemp Oil;Cannabis Sativa Seed Oil | What-it-does: emollient

We don't have description for this ingredient yet.

Also-called: Argan Oil;Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil | What-it-does: antioxidant, emollient

When it comes to cosmetic oils and hype, argan oil is for sure leading the way. Dubbed as the "liquid gold of Morocco", we have to admit we have some trouble determining why this oil enjoys such a special miracle status. Not that it's not good, it is good, even great but reading the research about argan and a bunch of other plant oils we just do not see the big, unique differentiating factor (though that might be our fault not reading enough, obvs.)

So, argan oil comes from the kernel of the argan fruit that comes from the argan tree that grows only in Morocco. The tree is slow growing and getting the oil is a hard job. The traditional process is that the ripe argan fruits fall from the tree, then goats eat them up and poop out the seeds. The seeds are collected and smashed with a stone to get the kernels inside. This part is the hard one as the seeds have extremely hard shells. Once the kernels are obtained, the oil is pressed out from them (the kernels contain about 50% oil).

As for skincare, argan oil is loaded with lots of skin goodies (but so are many other plant oils): it contains 80% nourishing and moisturizing unsaturated fatty acids, mainly oleic (38-50%), linoleic (28-38%) and palmitic (10-18%). It also contains a relatively large amount of antioxidant vitamin E (600-900 mg/kg, about twice as much as olive), small amounts of antioxidant phenols (including caffeic acid, ferulic acid, and epicatechin), as well as some rare sterols with soothing and anti-inflammatory properties. 

Thanks to all the above goodness in argan oil, it can greatly nourish and moisturize the skin and hair. It's also claimed to be able to neutralize collagen-damaging free radicals, help reduce scars, and revitalize and improve skin elasticity. You can even read that argan might help acne-prone skin, but being a high oleic oil, we would be careful with that

All in all, argan oil is a real goodie but we do not fully understand the special miracle status it enjoys.

Also-called: Jojoba Oil;Simmondsia Chinensis Seed Oil | What-it-does: emollient | Irritancy: 0 | Comedogenicity: 0-2

Jojoba is a drought resistant evergreen shrub native to South-western North America. It's known and grown for jojoba oil, the golden yellow liquid coming from the seeds (about 50% of the weight of the seeds will be oil).  

At first glance, it seems like your average emollient plant oil: it looks like an oil and it's nourishing and moisturizing to the skin but if we dig a bit deeper, it turns out that jojoba oil is really special and unique: technically - or rather chemically - it's not an oil but a wax ester (and calling it an oil is kind of sloppy). 

So what the heck is a wax ester and why is that important anyway? Well, to understand what a wax ester is, you first have to know that oils are chemically triglycerides: one glycerin + three fatty acids attached to it. The fatty acids attached to the glycerin vary and thus we have many kinds of oils, but they are all triglycerides. Mother Nature created triglycerides to be easily hydrolyzed (be broken down to a glycerin + 3 fatty acid molecules) and oxidized (the fatty acid is broken down into small parts) - this happens basically when we eat fats or oils and our body generates energy from it.

Mother Nature also created wax esters but for a totally different purpose. Chemically, a wax ester is a fatty acid + a fatty alcohol, one long molecule. Wax esters are on the outer surface of several plant leaves to give them environmental protection. 25-30% of human sebum is also wax esters to give us people environmental protection. 

So being a wax ester results in a couple of unique properties: First, jojoba oil is extremely stable. Like crazy stable. Even if you heat it to 370 C (698 F) for 96 hours, it does not budge. (Many plant oils tend to go off pretty quickly). If you have some pure jojoba oil at home, you should be fine using it for years. 

Second, jojoba oil is the most similar to human sebum (both being wax esters), and the two are completely miscible. Acne.org has this not fully proven theory that thanks to this, jojoba might be able to "trick" the skin into thinking it has already produced enough sebum, so it might have "skin balancing" properties for oily skin.

Third, jojoba oil moisturizes the skin through a unique dual action: on the one hand, it mixes with sebum and forms a thin, non-greasy, semi-occlusive layer; on the other hand, it absorbs into the skin through pores and hair follicles then diffuses into the intercellular spaces of the outer layer of the skin to make it soft and supple.

On balance, the point is this: in contrast to real plant oils, wax esters were designed by Mother Nature to stay on the surface and form a protective, moisturizing barrier and jojoba oil being a wax ester is uniquely excellent at doing that.

Also-called: Tamanu Oil;Calophyllum Tacamahaca Oil | What-it-does: soothing, emollient

An oil coming from cool places like Tahiti, Bora Bora, and the island of Polynesia. Similar to other more common plant oils, it's loaded with nourishing and moisturizing fatty acids (oleic acid: 40%, linoleic acid: 35%, palmitic acid: 15% and stearic acid: 11%).

Its unique thing is that it contains calophyllic acid that gives the oil extra healing and regenerating effects. A manufacturer even claims that tamanu oil can protect small capillary vessel and is recommended for redness and rosacea-prone skin

Also-called: Dog-Rose Seed Oil, Rosehip Seed Oil;Rosa Canina Seed Oil | What-it-does: emollient

The oil coming from the seeds of dog-rose, a wild rose species native to Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia. It's a nice emollient, moisturizing plant oil loaded with skin-nourishing fatty acids (linoleic acid - 51%, linolenic acid - 19% and oleic acid - 20%). 

If you start to dig a bit deeper into the rosehip oil topic, you will soon see that there are lots of species of rose, and it's all a bit confusing to know what the differences and similarities between the oils of the different roses are. As far as our research can tell, here is the gist.

In skincare two major types of rosehip oil are used:

1. Rosa Rubiginosa that is a synonym for Rosa Eglanteria and for Rosa Mosqueta. We will call it RR from now on. 

2. Rosa Canina, or RC

The oil content and composition of RR and RC is similar, but there are some differences: RR contains 8% of oil, while RC contains a bit more, 10%. However, the quality of RR oil seems to be a bit better: it contains 78% essential unsaturated fatty acids while RC contains only 71%. Also, the linoleic-oleic ratio of RR is better (3.3 vs 2.5) that might be important if your skin is acne-prone (as linoleic acid is good for acne and oleic is not). 

There is one more important thing to mention: RR oil is famous for containing the miracle active, tretinoin. Though Wikipedia puts RR and RC oil under the same article called as Rose hip seed oil, the referenced research about tretinoin content examines only Rosa Rubiginosa. We looked for a research paper explicitly stating that Rosa Canina also contains tretinoin, but could not find one, so we can neither deny nor confirm it. What we could find is a paper mentioning the tocopherols (vitamin E) and carotenoids (pro-vitamin A) content of Rosa Canina oil that gives it some nice antioxidant properties.

All in all, it is a great emollient plant oil with great fatty acids beneficial for any skin type. 

You may also want to take a look at...

what‑it‑does soothing | antioxidant
Marigold extract - used traditionally as a skin-repairing and soothing plant extract.  [more]
what‑it‑does emollient
what‑it‑does antioxidant | emollient
Argan oil - the "liquid gold of Morocco" that contains 80% unsaturated fatty acids (oleic and linoleic mainly), and antioxidant vitamin E and phenols. It's highly nourishing and moisturizing both for skin and hair. [more]
what‑it‑does emollient
irritancy, com. 0, 0-2
Jojoba oil - a wax ester (chemically not a real oil), that's very similar to human sebum. It's uniquely excellent at helping the skin with its protective barrier and helping it to stay moisturized. [more]
what‑it‑does soothing | emollient
Tamanu oil - a nourishing and moisturizing oil rich in fatty acids. Contains calophyllic acid that makes the oil extra healing and regenerating. [more]
what‑it‑does emollient
The oil coming from dog-rose. A nice emollient, moisturizing plant oil loaded with skin-nourishing fatty acids (linoleic acid - 51%, linolenic acid - 19% and oleic acid - 20%). [more]