Jojoba Oil

What is jojoba oil?

The jojoba plant is a long-lived, drought-resistant, perennial shrub native to arid and semiarid regions including Southern California, Southern Arizona and Northwestern Mexico (R, R). Unlike the seeds of other plants which contain predominantly triglycerides (R), the seeds of the jojoba plant contain over 50% jojoba oil by weight (R).

Jojoba oil is comprised of liquid wax esters, esters of long-chain alcohols and long-chain fatty acids that function as a seed lipid energy reserve (R, R).

Is jojoba oil stable?

Due to its low triglyceride content, jojoba oil is highly resistant to oxidation (R). This gives it an advantage over other plant oils that are used in cosmetics such as sunflower oil and soybean oil, which have limited shelf-life during storage due to their tendency to quickly oxidize (R).

Does jojoba oil get absorbed?

Jojoba oil is able to penetrate the superficial layers of the stratum corneum (R, R). This is not surprising as the long-chain wax esters of jojoba oil are highly lipophilic, which should aid its permeation though the similarly lipophilic stratum corneum of the skin (R). It also explains why jojoba oil works well as a penetration enhancer (R, R).