Jojoba Oil – The King Of Natural Moisturisers For Acne Prone Skin?

If you’ve only just discovered the world of natural acne remedies, then heed this warning: there’s no greater minefield than natural, plant-based moisturisers.

Case in point – coconut oil. This “superfood” is so popular that Sumatran farmers have legions of trained monkeys to climb up and whack the coconuts out of trees. It’s made up of 48% lauric acid, an antibacterial fatty acid found elsewhere only in breast milk.

However, coconut oil also scores 4/5 on the comedogenic scale – it has a “high” chance of clogging skin pores. Cocoa butter is renowned for its fragrance and vitamin E, but also scores 4/5.

Olive oil, meanwhile, has decent softening and UV-protecting powers. However, they’re completely derailed by its 70% content of oleic acid, a fatty acid which disrupts the human skin barrier.

Many natural moisturisers have fatal flaws which no amount of miracle compounds can outweigh, but one great exception is jojoba oil.

 

The facts on jojoba oil

Jojoba oil is sourced from the spiky, 10 metre tall jojoba plant found exclusively on the American continent.

The seeds contain 50% oil, and the tree can survive for up to 200 years in the wild. The jojoba tree was first discovered by a Spanish missionary back in 1779, when he observed Californian Native Americans using the fluid for wound treatment.

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160 years later, jojoba oil’s next act was to deal Hitler a big blow. If you wanted to wage war in the 1940s, then your tanks, aircrafts and heavy guns required huge amounts of lubrication, otherwise they would break down. Jojoba oil was the perfect high pressure lubricant; even soldiers carried machine guns containing it.

Importantly, jojoba oil only flows naturally in northern Mexico and the south-western USA. All attempts to grow jojoba in North Africa have failed, and despite his dreams, Hitler never managed to conquer US shores. Consequently, the allies had a large supply of lubricating jojoba oil, while Hitler did not. Spoiler alert: he lost the war.

By 1971, your average teenager was still debating whether milk or chocolate caused acne. But 1971 was also the year of the sperm whale hunting ban. Most oils on earth, including olive oil, are made up of fatty molecules called triglycerides, but jojoba oil and sperm whale oil are actually liquid waxes. Sperm whale oil was the backbone of many industries, but by 1971, the whales were running out (and probably devising a plan to fight back).

Hence, jojoba oil stepped into its place. Jojoba oil replaced whale oil for lamps, factory machinery, and even keeping the hands in wristwatches ticking. Jojoba oil was cheap and abundant, and then the cosmetics industry cashed in. Jojoba oil rapidly invaded natural make-up, shampoo, conditioners, and moisturisers alike.

Sales of whole jojoba oil became huge too. In 2000, the International Jojoba Export Council estimated that sales would rise by 15% over the next five years, fuelled by DIY skincare fanatics.

You can eat jojoba oil without serious harm, but cannot digest it. It has an extremely long shelf life of 2 years, and rarely goes rancid.

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Jojoba oil is an attractive clear golden liquid in its unprocessed form. It makes for exceptional advertising fodder thanks to containing vitamin E, silicone, copper, zinc, selenium, iodine and chromium (the quantities are very debatable). But it’s the liquid wax properties which have got acne patients really excited; they speculate that jojoba oil has mystical powers.

 

Jojoba oil – the master of moisturisers?

This scientific study from 2008 began in its introduction by mentioning that “Jojoba Esters… have been shown to increase skin hydration and improve sensory skin “feel”” when included in skin and hair cosmetic formulations.

The hydration factor is the key. There are few studies which test jojoba oil directly as a moisturiser, but the scientists here obviously knew about unpublished research.

Then we have the study itself; the scientists applied a mixture of jojoba oil and glycerol to the lower legs of patients. The main area tested was trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL), the quantity of water lost through the skin’s outermost layer.

Effectively, they were testing how well jojoba oil traps moisture within the skin. The happy news is that TEWL was substantially decreased.

What’s more, this benefit persisted for up to 24 hours after the initial application, meaning that jojoba oil is a long-lasting moisturiser. We know that the jojoba oil was responsible, because the combination resulted in a significantly lower TEWL score than glycerol by itself.

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Next on the agenda, we have the endlessly repeated claims that being 97% wax esters makes jojoba oil an incredible moisturiser. This could be true, but sadly, there’s no evidence.

The oil’s most common waxes are the obscure eicosenyl octadecenoate and docosenyl eicosenoate, but because jojoba oil is their main source in the plant kingdom, there’s almost no scientific data on them. In fact, the same is true for other natural waxes. Many amateur skincare researchers are diehard fans of beeswax, for example, but scientists seem to be uninterested.

That said, jojoba oil is clearly doing something correctly, whether it’s the waxes or some other nutrient. The testimonials are extremely positive as well:

• “I love this stuff! Add a few drops to a moisturizer and BAM, fantastic feeling skin”.
• ”My rough skin had returned to its usual softness. The more I used jojoba oil, it became even softer”.
• “Jojoba oil makes my skin feel soft. Not dry, not oily, soft”.
• “I use jojoba oil after I wash my face twice daily, and I swear by it! I will never use another moisturizer again”.

The scientific evidence and the testimonials are in complete alignment.

 

What about acne itself?

Firstly, we have a German study conducted on 194 acne patients back in 2012. A combination of jojoba oil and clay was applied to each patient two to three times weekly. The results were excellent; a huge 54% reduction in acne after six weeks. Both inflammatory and non-inflammatory acne lesions had fallen.

These are astonishing results on the surface, but what was responsible, the jojoba oil or the clay?

The specific clay used wasn’t specified. However, in this article on bentonite clay, I covered how this touted miracle treatment can in fact annihilate p.acnes bacteria, but only with a big risk of sucking the moisture right out of your skin. Overall, I recommended against it, but coupled with jojoba oil, the drying dangers might be vanquished, while the antibacterial effect would be preserved.

Hence, we can’t tell whether jojoba oil really is God’s gift to skincare, or whether the clay was behind it.

That brings us to the user testimonials, but for acne specifically, they’re extremely mediocre. There’s good ones…

• “My skin is completely spot free and my red marks are healing fast”.
• “I immediately saw a huge difference in my skin. The acne that was present was minimized by the second day”.

…and terrible ones.

• “Jojoba oil gave me three to four whiteheads every day.”
• “After using jojoba oil once, I got 5 huge pimples in unusual areas on my face. I waited a week and got the same reaction.”
• “Jojoba oil has done nothing but make me break out horribly. Whiteheads and huge red painful acne EVERYWHERE.

Overall, the vast majority of testimonials praise the moisturising effects, but report virtually zero change in pimple counts.

 

The mystery – jojoba undeniably has promising powers

Elsewhere it’s mixed bag for jojoba oil. One study observed a large reduction in bacteria colonisation after 24 hours, but this time, the jojoba oil was combined with tea tree oil. The latter is one of the greatest antibacterial remedies available, so that makes the study useless for jojoba oil.

More positively, this study applied liquid wax of jojoba to a simple scratch wound, and detected accelerated wound closure and an increase in type 1 collagen formation. The happy consequence could be accelerated healing of old pimples and clearer skin at any given time. 

Meanwhile, there are claims everywhere about bountiful vitamin E levels, but these facts are dispensed with the brain on vacation and no check on concentration. Jojoba oil actually has a small vitamin E concentration of just 2mg per 100 grams, which is dwarfed by grapeseed oil at 28.8mg, or sunflower oil at 41.1mg. Other nutrients which websites mindlessly rattle off include zinc, chromium, and selenium, but to cure acne with those nutrients, you have to eat them (whereas vitamin E works in both ways).

But then we have this great study on rats, where jojoba oil reduced several pro-inflammatory chemicals in areas of swelling. Inflammation is the root cause of all acne.

Finally, we have the most common tale of all – that because jojoba oil is 97% wax, it can imitate sebum and trick your face into downregulating its own oil production. 

The truth? Here is the composition of healthy human sebum: 12% squalene, 41% triglycerides, 26% wax, and 16% free fatty acids. The composition is not identical at all. They both contain substantial amounts of wax, but jojoba oil isn’t a “complete replacement”, as some forum users insist.

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Sebum is vital for delivering nutrients, maintaining the acid mantle, and even repelling rainwater in cold weather (it’s not completely evil). Production won’t casually shut down. The human body is a complex and intelligent organism. Even if jojoba oil contained exactly 26% wax, it’s highly doubtful that it could mistake its own product for a random plant oil from nature.

What’s more, there isn’t any hard evidence. It’s a cool idea, but that’s the point; it’s just a theory that sounds sensible upon first thought and is exciting enough to spread like wildfire.

 

The jojoba judgement

What we can be confident about, however, is that jojoba oil is a top notch natural moisturiser.

How does it compare to other natural oils? It’s definitely inferior to grapeseed oil. The two have an equal comedogenic rating of 2 out of 5, meaning a “moderately low” chance of clogging skin pores. However, grapeseed oil has far more vitamin E, and is comprised of 64% linoleic acid, a fatty acid which is reduced in the skins of many acne patients.

That said, jojoba oil dominates olive oil, emu oil, coconut oil and cocoa butter (both too comedogenic) and avocado oil. Olive oil and avocado oil have promising powers, but are completely scuppered by their high oleic acid content, of 70% and 65.4% respectively. Oleic acid is effectively an anti-moisturiser; it increases trans-epidermal water loss, whereas any good oil should decrease it.

In jojoba oil, just 3% of the triglyceride portion is oleic acid, and since jojoba oil is mostly waxes, the overall oleic acid content will be more like 0.3%. Jojoba also contains 77% of its triglyceride portion as gondoic acid, which jojoba oil is the main source of in nature. Like the waxes, this could easily hold undiscovered properties.

While there’s the occasional negative report of “purging” or “healing crises”, grapeseed oil and jojoba oil are the king and prince of acne-friendly moisturisers. Either is a great alternative to the other in case of sudden unexplained breakouts.

 

Your guide to the best jojoba oil product

Before you retreat to your acne lab, however, watch out! You must pick the right product, or your plan could backfire badly.

Firstly, there’s refined jojoba oil. This is simply raw jojoba seeds blasted into oblivion with chemicals until they come up with something that can be sold. What began life as jojoba oil is “deodorised, degummed, neutralised, de-colored, and stabilised”, with synthetic vitamins and nitrogen later added in.

The alternative is unrefined jojoba oil, which is expeller pressed, and processed using nothing more than minor pasteurisation and filtering.

The latter is what you want. The difference between the two is clear as day.

Unrefined jojoba oil is golden with a fatty odour. Refined jojoba oil is clear and odourless. Apparently this is more appealing to customers, but I think that the opposite applies nowadays. More and more people are smartening up and realising that any natural product which lacks the texture, smell and appearance of nature is surely a scam.

Also keep a close eye out for second-press jojoba oil, a particular sneaky product. This version is expeller pressed, but derived from seeds already subjected to one session of expeller pressing. This second generation of oil is far darker and has a stronger smell.

The solution? Massive chemical refinement. Another booby trap is blended jojoba oil, where they combine the featureless refined jojoba oil with the overly strong second press, to balance the two.

Unrefined, organic jojoba oil is what you want, everything else is a sideshow.

This one, US Organic Jojoba Oil (amazon link), fits the bill. It’s in a dark bottle, to prevent incoming sunlight from oxidising the antioxidants and fats. Compared to tea tree oil, jojoba oil is already sunlight resistant thanks to its waxes and stability, so this product should last for years in a dark cupboard.

 

Conclusion

Jojoba oil is an excellent natural moisturiser, without the side effects of 1) commercial moisturisers, and 2) olive oil, coconut oil, and cocoa butter.

I always recommend top nutrition first, particularly zinc and vitamin C, since zinc decreases excess skin cell turnover and vitamin C enhances collagen formation.

But jojoba oil has a high chance of having undiscovered benefits, due to the rare goindoic acid and waxes which occur nowhere else. Hence, jojoba oil is a particularly great natural acne remedy for experimentation.

NEXT: get the complete strategy for clearing acne naturally

 

 

 Thanks for reading!