Conditioning oilOmega-7 fruit oilIn two skin-type blends

Hippophae Rhamnoides (Seabuckthorn) Fruit Oil

Hippophae rhamnoides · INCI Hippophae Rhamnoides Fruit Oil

Sea buckthorn oil is pressed from the small, bright orange berries of Hippophae rhamnoides, a hardy shrub of cold coastlines and mountain slopes. It is one of the more distinctive oils in the Dry and Dry Sensitive blends, both for its colour and for an uncommon fatty acid it shares with your own skin.

We use the fruit oil for its omega-7 and its antioxidants, and we keep clear of the bigger claims, most of which come from swallowing it rather than smoothing it on.

Sea buckthorn fruit oil, deep orange from its carotenoids.
Sea buckthorn fruit oil, deep orange from its carotenoids.

What it is

There are two oils in sea buckthorn, and the difference matters. The seed oil is lighter and richer in the everyday omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids. The fruit oil, which is the one we use, is the deep-orange oil from the berry flesh, and it is unusually high in palmitoleic acid, an omega-7. That is the point of interest, because palmitoleic acid is one of the fatty acids your own skin makes, so the oil reads as familiar to the barrier rather than foreign to it. Alongside it come carotenoids, which give the oil its colour, and tocopherols.

Where care is needed is with the setting of the evidence. Much of the well-known research on sea buckthorn tested it as something you swallow, which is a different question from what a cold-pressed oil does on the surface of the skin.

What it does in our formulas

Three things, one plain and two the research treats as promising.

01

It conditions the skin

A rich fruit oil, sea buckthorn softens and conditions the skin in the reliable way of a good emollient.

Well characterised
02

Its omega-7 suits the barrier

Sea buckthorn is one of the few plant oils high in palmitoleic acid, an omega-7 the skin makes for itself, so it slots readily into the barrier lipids rather than sitting on top. The research treats this as a plausible barrier support rather than a settled effect.

Emerging evidence
03

It brings antioxidant carotenoids

The deep orange colour is carotenoids, carried alongside tocopherols, and together they give the oil a genuine antioxidant character on the skin.

Emerging evidence

What the research does not show

Sea buckthorn attracts some bold claims, and the compounds behind them are genuinely interesting. The catch is where they were studied.

Marketed as Proven for eczema, dry eye and skin ageing
The strongest studies behind those claims used sea buckthorn taken by mouth as a supplement, not applied to the skin. Those are oral results, and they are not ones we carry onto a moisturiser.
Marketed as A microbiome active
The microbiome signals come from laboratory work, with nothing shown on human skin, so we leave that claim out.

So we keep to what topical use supports: a conditioning fruit oil whose omega-7 suits the barrier and whose carotenoids lend an antioxidant note. That is why it is in the Dry and Dry Sensitive blends.

On the label and in the range

Sea buckthorn appears in the Dry Sensitive and Dry blends, in the middle of the ingredient list at a modest level, since a little of an oil this strongly coloured goes a long way. On the label it reads by its INCI name, shown with its common name, and marked as cold-pressed and organic. The exact percentage is published on each product page.

Is it suitable for me?

Sea buckthorn fruit oil is well tolerated and suits a vegan routine, with no restrictions under UK or EU cosmetic law. Its deep orange comes from carotenoids, and while the neat oil can leave a temporary tint, at the modest level it sits at in the blend it does not stain the skin. It is gentle enough for the sensitive types in the range, which is why it is part of the Dry Sensitive blend.

Vegan-friendlySensitive-skin suitableNo known safety concerns

As with anything new, if your skin reacts easily it is worth patch testing first.

Natural
Natural
Gentle, skin friendly
Gentle, skin friendly
Formulation Clear
Formulation Clear

The research behind this page

We review the published literature. We do not conduct the studies below.

  1. Zielińska A, Nowak I. Abundance of active ingredients in sea-buckthorn oil. Lipids Health Dis 2017;16(1):95. "https://doi.org/10.1186/s12944-017-0469-7", "url"=>"https://doi.org/10.1186/s12944-017-0469-7"}" rel="nofollow">→
  2. Gęgotek A, Jastrząb A, Jarocka-Karpowicz I, Muszyńska M, Skrzydlewska E. The Effect of Sea Buckthorn Seed Oil on UV-Induced Changes in Lipid Metabolism of Human Skin Cells. Antioxidants 2018;7(9):110. "https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox7090110", "url"=>"https://doi.org/10.3390/antiox7090110"}" rel="nofollow">→
  3. Balkrishna A, Sakat SS, Joshi K, et al. Cytokines Driven Anti-Inflammatory and Anti-Psoriasis Like Efficacies of Nutraceutical Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) Oil. Front Pharmacol 2019;10:1186. "https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2019.01186", "url"=>"https://doi.org/10.3389/fphar.2019.01186"}" rel="nofollow">→
Found in the Dry Sensitive and Dry blends Shop the range