Argan Oil - The History
For centuries Argan Oil has been a well-kept secret, known only to the Berber women in Morocco who use it to nourish their skin, hair and nails.
Originally, the Berbers would collect the undigested Argan pits from goats’ waste. They would then grind and press the Argan pits to make a nutty oil, used for both cooking and for treatment of many skin and body conditions including eczema, chicken pox, scars, acne and psoriasis. Fortunately, production methods have moved on and Argan Oil by Simply
Argan is made from the kernels harvested directly from the Argan tree in a clean, and perfectly sanitary, manner.
Argan Oil was bought and sold in the Mediterranean by merchants long before the arrival of the Phoenicians in the 12 Century BC. However, as the years went on the Argan tree suffered from over grazing and deforestation for fuel. The tree that was once abundant across North Africa is now found in a small area of Morocco, close to the Atlas Mountains, together with some small pockets and farms in a few other countries. The last century has seen a further decline of the Argan tree with a more than 50 per cent reduction in the tree over the last 50 years alone.
The special qualities of Argan Oil and the rapid decline of the Argan tree led to UNESCO designating an area of circa 25,000 sq km between the Atlantic and Atlas Mountains as a reserve. This was combined with a push to extol the anti-ageing virtues of the oil to the wider world and instill in the local population the inherent value of the tree. The tree is one of the few surviving species of the Tertiary Period, which spanned 65 million to 1.8 million years ago. This is probably due to the tree’s ability to withstand long periods of drought and by living as long as up to 200 years.
Simply Argan’s oil is harvested by a local Berber woman’s co-operatives who work by hand in cracking the nuts to extract the pits. The kernels are removed and cold pressed. It takes approximately 32 kg of Argan fruit, and several days, to produce just one litre of Simply Argan Oil.
Simply Argan is then shipped to the UK where it is sent to a UK ISO 9001 certificated laboratory for testing for purity and safety. Only once each batch has passed this rigorous testing is the oil bottled and labelled for sale in the UK. Simply Argan’s oil is sourced from ethical and sustainable co-operatives to ensure that the local population continues to benefit from their remarkable local resource.
