Rosehip seed oil has been called everything from a pimple-clearing powerhouse, a natural solution to ageing, to the arch enemy of acne scars, and the reality is that many of these rumours are true.
Its most famous power is as a source of provitamin A, in the form of carotenoid antioxidants, which provide the classic orange colour. Rosehip seed oil is like sea buckthorn oil: it can downregulate the activity of your sebaceous glands, and significantly improve oily skin. Carotenoids are also excellent for your skin tone, providing a natural, healthy yellowness after entering your cells.
Rosehip seed oil is also promising for wound healing, with one study on 10 Spaniards observing much faster wound closure compared to a placebo group. It’s even a strong source of antioxidants, with a 783.55 µg content of phenolic compounds like p-coumaric acid.
Additionally, rosehip seed oil is a high quality natural moisturiser. Its fatty acid profile consists of 54% linoleic acid, which strengthens your skin barrier and increases hydration, while levels of the irritating oleic acid are low, at 19%. It also has a comedogenic score of just 1 out of 5, compared to the pore clogging cocoa butter and coconut oil at 4 (which are excellent foods for acne, but terrible topical treatments).
But which is the best brand? If you buy a weak or diluted brand, then despite the label reading “rosehip seed oil”, none of these benefits will come to pass.
That’s why today, we will discuss the top 10 rosehip seed oil brands available. For a shortcut, Fushi and Valentia are the ultimate brands here.
Let’s get started:
One – Valentia
Valentia is completely pure, featuring just one ingredient: unrefined rosehip seed oil. This is a cold-pressed oil, kept far away from industrial factories and toxic chemicals, and cold-pressing guarantees that the natural nutrition isn’t damaged. This is particularly important with rosehip seed oil, since it relies on its easily-damaged carotenoid antioxidants for success.
Valentia sources their oil from Chile, South Africa, and Ukraine, extracting the oil from wild rosehips to guarantee that the nutrition is high. If you store the bottle in a cool, dark cupboard away from sunlight, Valentia’s rosehip oil has a shelf life of up to 3 years. Its ecstatic user reviews are another advantage. Reviewers have called the smell mild, earthy and herbaceous, while the colour has been described as the correct orange. Valentia has some of the best user reviews of any rosehip seed oil.
Valentia also comes in dark, amber glass bottle, to keep out sunlight, and prevent UV radiation from oxidising the oil and weakening its acne-clearing abilities. A dark plastic bottle is also acceptable, as long as it’s BPA-free, but glass is the material of elite brands. This purity and power all comes with a relatively affordable price.
Valentia meets every requirement for an acne-clearing, skin-enriching rosehip seed oil.
Amazon link: Valentia Organic Rose Water.
Two – Fushi
Fushi is another certified organic oil, this time by the UK Soil Association. It’s in an amber glass bottle again, a 100ml bottle for a strong supply. Fushi sources their rosehip seeds from Ukraine, the natural heartland of both rose water and rosehip seed oil production, where the villagers have generations of traditional knowledge at hand.
It takes Fushi 2kg of whole, wild sourced rosehip seeds to make this oil. Most importantly, Fushi has the best testimonials of any rosehip seed oil. Seasoned users describe the smell as subtle, fruity, and authentic. Tales of rosehip oils which have gone rancid during the delivery are exceedingly rare, unlike poorer quality brands.
Its colour is properly intense and orange, indicating high levels of acne-clearing nutrition. Fushi is also a well-trusted skincare oil brand, with their grapeseed oil being among the best you could buy. It’s manufactured in the UK, but sold in Canada and the USA as well.
The final advantage is the most important: Fushi is unrefined, cold-pressed, and never exposed to any harsh chemical solvents. It’s made by crushing the rosehip seeds with high strength expellers, to literally press the oil out, a more expensive route but a much healthier one.
Fushi is an organic rosehip seed oil which simply cannot be beaten.
Three – Poppy Austin
Poppy Austin begins by being cold-pressed and unrefined, using traditional extraction techniques. Each batch of rosehip seeds is harvested in small quantities, to guarantee quality. Poppy Austin’s rosehip seeds are even triple filtered, for maximum purity.
Poppy Austin also comes with an inbuilt dropper, for easy dispensation, and most customers are very pleased with the quality. What does the perfect rosehip seed oil for acne look like? Firstly, it should always be colourful, with an orange colour rather than yellow. The carotenoid antioxidants are what provide the red to orange pigments in rosehip seed oil and they’re also the special compounds for acne.
If your rosehip seed oil is pale yellow, like a cheap bottle of sunflower oil, then it was probably extracted using chemical solvents and high heat. Texture-wise, rosehip seed oil should never be thin; it should be smooth, but reasonably thin.
Finally, the smell should be never be overwhelming like tamanu oil, but it shouldn’t be as mild and odourless as natural jojoba oil either. Rosehip seed oil has a distinctive grassy or earthy scent. Poppy Austin meets these special requirements, and its final advantage is a dark brown, glass bottle for keeping UV radiation away.
Poppy Austin is one of the best topical treatments full-stop for enriching your skin tone and eliminating acne.
Four – Eden’s Samilla
Another brand which is a cut above the competition. Eden’s Samilla sources their rosehip seeds from the wild, from two locations: Eastern Europe and South Africa. The oil is traditionally produced, with special care to preserve the important phytonutrients.
Eden’s Samilla rejects any mindless chemical bombardment in a factory, being free from any chemicals, hexane, and the free radicals of harshly heated oils. This rosehip oil is made in a Good Manufacturing Practises (GMP) certified facility, while the customers have reported on a properly grassy smell.
The only official downside with Eden’s Samilla is that it’s in a plastic bottle rather than glass, but the colour is dark amber, and much more protective than the average plastic bottle. It also comes with a built in pump, making it easier to rub into your face. Also, the testimonials aren’t quite as delighted as with Fushi, but there’s always going to be a few rogue batches.
While we’re here, the most important pitfall to avoid with this topical treatment is incredibly basic – don’t confuse rosehip seed oil with rose oil! While they both originate from the rose bush growing in Ukraine or Chile, they’re completely different. Rose oil is an essential oil, not a fat based oil. It’s a distillation of the rose flower’s petals into an oil-like liquid, which is also popular for skincare. It works well, since it inhibits pro-inflammatory neutrophils on the skin’s surface, but its powers are completely different.
Rose water, meanwhile, is also sourced from rose petals, but steeped in water first, effectively being a more diluted rose oil. Rose water is a popular flavouring in foods like Turkish delight, as well as a great topical treatment. Never get confused!
Anyway, Eden’s Samilla is almost the best rosehip seed oil around (Fushi and Valentia win).
Five – Slice Of Nature
Slice Of Nature comes in a 4oz bottle, and is completely unrefined and cold-pressed. There’s only one ingredient: rosehip seed oil, with no reports of diluted or adulterated oils arriving in the post like with dodgier brands. In fact, Slice Of Nature is a trustworthy skincare company overall, selling a top quality sea buckthorn oil (great for oily skin).
Like Fushi, Slice Of Nature comes in a dark, amber glass bottle for maximum protection against the elements. Again, UV radiation protection is particularly vital with rosehip seed oil. Firstly, its all-important carotenoid antioxidants are fragile in the face of heat or radiation, as are any smaller phytonutrients with benefits that we don’t know about yet.
Secondly, rosehip seed oil is fairly high in linoelic acid at 54%, and as a polyunsaturated fat, linoleic acid is prone to oxidising and generating toxic free radicals. Both are also reasons why you should never buy a factory-heated, solvent extracted rosehip seed oil.
Another great feature is that numerous customers have reported on Slice Of Nature’s orange colour, and natural earthy smell. There’s only one downside – not being certified organic, but Slice Of Nature is effectively organic, with all of their production techniques being natural and carefully considered.
Can Slice Of Nature’s rosehip oil be beaten? Only with great difficulty.
Six – Kate Blanc
Kate Blanc sources their rosehip seeds from Chile, while the oil has a reddish orange colour. Kate Blanc is also a AAA+ grade rosehip seed oil, while having the classic rosehip scent.
Every single great characteristic is present: Kate Blanc is certified organic by the USDA, packaged in a dark, amber glass bottle, and cold-pressed and unrefined. It even comes with an inbuilt dropper for simple distillation, rather than making a massive mess. It’s perfect for combining with other acne-clearing topical treatments.
What would be a good choice? Possibly combining rosehip seed oil with cinnamon; rosehip seed oil is an effective moisturiser thanks to its linoleic acid, while cinnamon increases collagen formation via its cinnamaldehde compound.
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Combining these powers will hydrate and replenish your skin very well. Alternatively, you could double down on rosehip seed oil’s powers for oily skin, and combine it with turmeric or green tea, or use it in isolation.
Whichever path you choose, Kate Blanc is a perfectly formulated rosehip seed oil for acne.
Seven – US Organic
US Organic is indeed officially organic, which each bottle bearing the green and white USDA organic certification. The bottle itself is confirmed to be made from glass, and quite clearly a dark amber rather than the blue used by cheaper brands, which defends against UV radiation less effectively.
US Organic is cold-pressed, unrefined, and according to the company, sourced from either South Africa or Europe depending on the supply. People have reported that the smell is authentic while the colour is reportedly orange with just a few tales of yellow oils. This rosehip seed oil’s characteristics are all in order, although slightly less consistent than with Fushi.
Each bottle weighs in at 4oz, for a lengthy supply. How long will rosehip oil take to change your skin? Longer than some topical treatments, since its carotenoid antioxidants will take time to integrate themselves into your skin and improve its tone. The reduction in oily skin will also take longer; there’s no official reason why, but in studies, lowering sebum production always tends to take longer. Meanwhile, the moisturising properties could work much faster.
Overall, I would recommend sticking with rosehip seed oil for at least 4 weeks, which is how long it took the likes of green tea, sea buckthorn oil, and turmeric to start improving oily skin. US Organic easily provides enough supply, and you can rest easy knowing that it’s purely produced and filled with dense nutrition.
US Organic is a prestigious skincare company, making some outstanding jojoba oil and lavender oils, and their rosehip seed oil lives up to this greatness.
Eight – Molivera Organics
Molivera Organics isn’t officially certified organic, but its production methods are perfect. Molivera Organics is cold-pressed, and unrefined as it should be. Molivera Organics is explicitly free from any chemicals, preservatives, fragrances and hexane.
Molivera Organics is a Chilean rosehip seed oil, later packaged and distributed in the USA. In your travels, you’ll notice that Chile, South Africa, and Ukraine are all sources. Which is superior? None of them, because wildness, altitude and processing techniques are more important than any specific country.
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Wild rosehip seeds are denser in acne-clearing nutrition, since they haven’t been domesticated and allowed to lose their nutrients due to the protection of farmers. High altitude rosehip seeds are similar, with thinner air and soil forcing the plant to create more nutrients for its own survival, to ward off wolves and bears.
If you’re interested in rosehip seed oil’s acne-clearing powers, Molivera Organics is a top quality brand.
Nine – Kosmea Skincare
The result is again a pure, toxin free oil, far superior to oils extracted from the seeds using hexane. Kosmea Skincare is manufactured using 100% supercritical extraction, rather than a blend of different extraction methods.
It is therefore just as rich in acne-clearing nutrition as other brands here, and its other characteristics are on point: Kosmea Skincare is organic, soured from wild rosehip seeds in Africa, and packaged in a dark, glass bottle. The other big difference is utilising the whole rosehip, including the fruit, the seed and the skin, giving it a different nutritional profile.
The only downside is the higher price, but Kosmea Skincare is an interesting choice for experimentation.
Ten – Better Shea Butter
This bottle is completely natural, and cold-pressed using modern expeller pressing technology. Each bottle contains 4oz of acne-clearing goodness and the bottle itself consists of dark, amber-coloured glass, meaning that the rosehip oil could last for years if you store it a dark and cool cupboard as well.
Better Shea Butter is a rare brand with double organic certification, from both the USDA and Ecocert, thus guaranteeing the oil’s freedom from toxic pesticides and herbicides, chemicals which can deplete antioxidants on your skin.
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This rosehip seed oil is sourced from rosehip seeds grown high in the Andes, indicating particularly dense nutrition. The smell is on point, being light and like tea according to reviewers, while the colour is orange. Rosehip seed oil is the only ingredient in this; it isn’t diluted with any cheap soybean or canola oil.
If rosehip seed oil is what you need for your skin, Better Shea Butter will do the job.
Conclusion
If you can sense that rosehip seed oil is the solution to your acne, nothing now stands in your way.
Fushi and Valentia are the victors, since they combine perfect specifications with the most positive customer reviews, but every brand here has potential.
As for the rosehip seed oil market, it’s easily less of a minefield than with grapeseed oil or jojoba oil. Rosehip oil’s orange colour is so distinctive that they can’t just blend with it a cheap soybean oil easily, and any oil that they can blend it with while maintaining a crafty disguise is going to be orange itself, like sea buckthorn oil, and therefore extremely beneficial for acne itself.
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Thanks for reading!
Hi Richard do you if rosehip oil can protect against skin cancer? Because I keep getting burnt even when I apply sunscreen.
Hi there. Your website is very helpful. I noticed however, with the Valentia brand which you claim as #1 for rosehip oil, have 2 different websites. One is valentia.com and one is valentiaskincare.com The logos and bottles look different and one is US certified organic whereas the other doesn’t really say. Can you please clarify which is the correct number one on your list. Thank you.
They’re the same company.