e-i-e-i-o**

Or, my adventures in argan oil and how I sort of wound up back where I started. Also, let’s all learn from my experience.

aka, as my brother put it, "And that’s what you get for being a hippie."

If we’re Facebook friends, you’re probably already aware of some of this.

As we left the last entry, I’d placed an order with Swanson for their brand of (virgin, certified organic) argan oil. Because, a.) they are an awesome company and the products they put their name on have always been great, in my experience and b.) $15 for 2 oz. was definitely a bargain compared to the $48 for 1.7 oz I’d be getting from Sephora.

It arrived, and I eventually got around to using it for the first time before going to bed one night. It… smelled weird. It was also a deeper gold color than the Josie Maran argan oil I’d been using. At the moment, in part because I just wanted to go to sleep, I chalked it up to possibly being like the difference between light olive oil and extra virgin olive oil. The latter being deeper in color and more pungent in fragrance.

When I used it again the next morning, and was again met with the weird smell, a smell I hadn’t quite placed yet (and didn’t really want to, given what I was already vaguely thinking of), I Googled a few variations on "smell of argan oil." I learned a few things pretty quickly. 1.) Virgin argan oils should be a rich gold color, though not tan/brown (an indication the nuts were roasted before the oil was extracted – which is good for eating, but not skin care), 2.) It was difficult to find a consensus on what argan oil smells like, though it does tend to have a scent, unless it’s been deodorized, and 3.) If it has a strong, unpleasant aroma, there is a high probability the nuts took a journey through a goat’s digestive tract before they made it to extraction*.

Uh… when it comes to my skin care routine, I’m not so much a fan of any of it involving goat poo. And it was in that moment that I came to terms with the fact that the scent I’d been smelling (and that would, thankfully, dissipate within a few minutes of application) was reminiscent of a livestock pasture. Obviously this called for information and an assurance one way or the other.

I went back to Swanson’s site. I read through the reviews again on their oil (there were only three at the time) and then the reviews for all the other brands they carry, checking to see if I’d missed anything about the scent previously. Not seeing anything, I wondered if the possibility was that my bottle had gone bad, and hoping it wasn’t because there were goats involved in the process. I decided to email customer service, hoping they could answer my questions and put me at ease. Even though it was late at night at the time, I had a reply within 15 minutes. The woman responding to me was on her second bottle of the same oil at the time. She noted the second bottle had a stronger unpleasant scent than her first bottle, but had figured it was just due to the variations that come with natural supplements/products. In the meantime, she’d put in a request to their product department to find out for certain whether or not there were goats employed in the production of their oil.

Over the next day, while I waited to hear back from her, I used the power of the internet to find out if I could ever use argan oil again without being utterly creeped out. Before I even got too deep into the information hunt, I’d recalled an article I’d read about a year ago regarding at least one company that definitely didn’t use goats. I emailed them anyway, since their site (the one translated into English) didn’t indicate this was a definite and on-going practice. I also emailed all the other brands that Swanson carries, in the event I had to make an exchange or return (Swanson has an awesome 12 month, 100% satisfaction policy). And I searched and read so many things.

I learned much. Such as, Swanson’s source does use goats in their process, as do a lot of the other manufactures on the market (even though you’ll readily see this mocked online – the claim is that it only happens in small pockets as a tourist attraction). If a brand doesn’t specifically know where they’re sourcing the oil from (most of the ones I contacted don’t), you’re running a risk of winding up with a bottle of goaty argan oil. Which can be more of a bottle to bottle gamble. This is an assessment based on the emails I got back from the brands I contacted and having run across reviews for the same brands at other sites. It seems like most of these companies have contracted for their oil from suppliers in Morocco. The suppliers likely get their oil from several different sources, some of them being places that use goats, resulting in the possibility of smelly oil. The one that seemed to consistently have the least reports (though there were still a few) of smelly oil was Acure. Of the various sites I saw it at, Swanson had the best price. If the oil you’re getting is from the UNESCO biosphere in Morocco, it will be goat-free, as goats are not allowed there because they strip the trees. There are a lot of smaller, independent companies selling argan oil online. They’re doing the same thing as the larger ones, for the most part, in that they’re contracting with producers/suppliers in Morocco. Since they’re smaller, usually the person running the site is also the person that went to Morocco to set these things up. So you’re closer to the source of the information regarding their supply and processing. However, their pricing is similar to those of bigger brands, which are usually easier to come by.

Josie Maran and John Masters Organics both source their oil from the UNESCO biosphere. I haven’t used the John Masters Organics, but it seems to be the better value at $38 for 2 oz (on sale online for $35 at Vitamin Shoppe). I also heard back from Sivan S. M. (the company mentioned above) pretty quickly. They definitely don’t use goats at all in their process and they’re very stringent about their quality control. They also have the best value of 3.38 oz at $48 (including shipping). ("Best value" referring to the argan oils from nuts that have definitely never seen the inside of a goat. Your non-gamble brands, if you will.)

Clearly, if I find I may have inadvertently used something goat poop related on my face (or anywhere, for that matter), I get pretty obsessive about find out how to prevent this from happening again. And then I will gladly inform others how to avoid this, as well. 🙂

In the process, since Tarte’s Maracuja oil kept popping up as a related item, I discovered that’s just a fancy way of saying "passion fruit seed oil." That oil is lighter in texture, but seems to have a lot of benefits similar to those of argan oil. It is also never processed via goat. I read reviews that said Tarte’s version tends to smell rancid (it does, I tried it at Ulta). This company is less expensive, consistently provides a good product (based on reviews I read at MakeupAlley.com) and their oil has a slightly fruity scent (since it comes from passion fruit). You know, in case you were interested in trying argan oil, but I totally freaked you out with the goat thing. (Which, let’s face it, is pretty grody.)

Also, I feel I should mention that the smell and psychological aspect of the goat processed argan oil are the only deficiencies of that method. The oil itself works just as well as the Josie Maran oil I used (though I suspect the Josie Maran oil is further refined than indicated, between the lighter color and being less viscous than other virgin argan oils). So if you’re not totally wigged out by it, and can deal with the scent for five minutes (give or take) while the oil absorbs and the scent dissipates, save yourself some money.

*A more direct/thorough explanation of the goat processing that I’m copy-and-pasting from Facebook: The oil comes from nuts that are inside very hard to open shells that are within an olive-like fruit that grows on thorny trees. The goats do not care about any of these things, other than they like the fruit. So, they climb the trees and eat the fruit. Somewhere along the way, someone got the idea to try cracking the nuts after they’d travelled through the goats. They were easier to crack. And so the tradition began. (They say they wash the nuts first, but this does not make me feel any better. Also, the smell. Ew.) Since the goats strip the trees and the market for argan oil is rapidly expanding, the practice is falling out of favor. But apparently it is still happening (something I learned the hard way). http://webecoist.momtastic.com/2008/08/19/the-incredible-tree-climbing-goats-of-morocco/

**I realized I hadn’t linked directly to Acure’s information on their oil. In the process of remedying this, I saw something I’d missed previously (on another site, funnily enough, since I inadvertently clicked that one first). They state they use sustainably harvested argan. I also noticed that they’re the only brand offered at Swanson with a "vegan" classification. Additionally, in a brief checking of reviews again, it seems most people complaining about the scent are likely complaining about the natural scent of the argan oil, and not a digestive tract-infused scent. (The gateway of many is Josie Maran’s, offering which is basically unscented. Since it’s marketed as 100% virgin argan oil, any scent would likely be disconcerting in another product.) When it’s time for a new bottle, I think I may give them a whirl. If you’re similarly inclined, I’d still suggest going with Swanson, if for no other reason than their guarantee. If you first contact them regarding your issue, they’ll even pay for your return shipping if that’s the solution arrived at. Oh, also, if you’re now just deeply curious and live near a Sephora, you can go in and get a sample of the Josie Maran argan oil to try out without committing to anything. That’s how I got started. And we now all know that is goat poop free. So, yay! 😉