Marula Oil in Skincare
Marula Oil in Skincare
Marula oil is a light, fast-absorbing oil cold-pressed from the kernels inside the stone of the marula fruit, which grows on Sclerocarya birrea, a tree indigenous to southern Africa and common across Limpopo, Mpumalanga and the wider Kruger region. It is one of the most useful oils in African botanical skincare, and one of the most stable.
What marula oil does for skin
Marula oil is roughly 70 to 78 per cent oleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid that is close in profile to the lipids skin makes itself. That is why it sinks in quickly rather than sitting on the surface, and why it suits dry and mature skin particularly well. It also carries linoleic acid, tocopherols and phenolic compounds, which give it unusually good oxidative stability: marula oil resists going rancid far longer than most cold-pressed plant oils, so a bottle keeps.
In practice it does three jobs. It replaces lost lipids on dry skin. It seals in water when applied to skin that is still damp. And because it is close to a single-ingredient product, it is a sensible choice for anyone trying to work out what their skin reacts to.
Where it comes from
Marula fruit has been used as food across southern Africa for centuries, and the nuts are cracked by hand to reach the kernels. Much of the commercial harvest is gathered and processed by rural womens cooperatives, which makes marula one of the few cosmetic ingredients where the supply chain is a genuine rural income rather than a marketing story.
Africology products with marula oil
- Marula Conditioning Body Oil, the purest expression of it
- Tissue Oil, for scarring, stretch marks and dry patches
- Body Butter and Conditioning Marula Oil bundle, the pairing for very dry skin
How to use it
Apply to damp skin straight out of a bath or shower, when it will pull water into the skin rather than sitting on a dry surface. Three or four drops is enough for a limb. On the face, marula suits dry and mature skin as a final step over a serum.
Read more about the botanicals Africology formulates with.