So, just what’s involved in making this stuff? This post is pretty technical and some may find it boring, but for all you who really want to know, let’s begin…
1) Quality of oils – not all oils are created equal, and not all oils are obtained equally. When it comes to buying the oils I use in Return to Eden products, I look for the following:
- where’s it from – I like to get ingredients grown & made in the US when possible simply to reduce the carbon footprint due to shipping – of course, this is impossible with shea butter and several others, but some – beeswax, wheat germ oil, and sunflower oil for instance – are readily sourced in the US
- who harvests it, and are they paid a fair wage
- is it a sustainable oil AND is it harvested in a sustainable manner
- what’s the oil’s quality – how is it extracted (cold pressed or pressed [higher heat generation] or solvent/hexane extraction)? is it refined? if so, how? is it certified organic? if not, why? what is the free fatty acid content (a measure of the oil’s rancidity – the lower the value the better) and anisidine value (again, a measure of it’s rancidity)?
You want to start off with oils that have low free fatty acid values and anisidine values – how the oil is extracted and refined plays a large role in these values – a lower extraction temperature better preserves an oil’s quality as the triglycerides in the oil have a smaller chance of breaking down into by-products that you don’t want. Oils can also be extracted via solvents, typically hexane, and I don’t like this method of extraction.
Refinement of oils is NOT necessarily a bad thing. For instance, many oils are steam refined to remove impurities that can lead to more rapid degradation and therefore a decreased product shelf life.
Cocoa butter & jojoba oil, along with a host of other oils and butters, may be steam refined to remove characteristic odors (i.e. the chocolate-y scent of cocoa butter). However, too much refinement and certain types of refinement leaves you with an oil that has little to no benefits – for instance, hemp seed oil can be completely stripped of all of its nourishing chlorophyll through a refinement process – I want my hemp seed oil a deep, rich shade of green, which proves the chlorophyll is still in the oil. The same for my pumpkin seed oil, evening primrose oil, and grape seed oil – they all have deep characteristic colors indicative of their chemical make-up – too much refining can leave them light yellow, an undesirable trait in these oils.
With refining, just as with extracting, it is important to avoid refining processes that utilize solvents such as hexanes.
