Argan oil: which bottle for a precious oil
Argan oil is one of Morocco's best-known products, in cooking as in cosmetics. It is rare, expensive and fragile. Its bottle is not a mere container: it is what keeps the oil as it was pressed.
By Tecmom editorial team · 2 min read
An oil, a heritage
The argan tree grows in south-western Morocco, where an oil is drawn from it through know-how handed down from generation to generation. In 2014, UNESCO inscribed "Argan, practices and know-how concerning the argan tree" on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
There are two uses, and therefore two sets of rules: culinary oil, made from roasted kernels, falls under food contact rules; cosmetic oil falls under the EU cosmetics regulation when sold in Europe.
What damages it
Like any oil rich in unsaturated fatty acids, argan oil oxidises: in contact with oxygen, under light and heat, it loses its qualities and eventually turns rancid. The bottle can slow each of these three factors.
- Light: an amber or opaque bottle filters short wavelengths. See amber bottles.
- Air: a tight closure, and a bottle size matched to use, so the oil does not spend months facing a large volume of air.
- Heat: here the bottle can do nothing; it is a matter of storage.
The material in contact with oil
An oil is a fatty product, and fats challenge a plastic more than water does. It is no accident that the EU regulation on plastics in contact with food uses a vegetable oil as the simulant for fatty foods in its migration tests. See what migration means.
For cosmetic oil, the product's safety report must include information on the packaging material. In both cases, compatibility is checked with the oil itself, in the bottle that will be sold.
Dosing a precious oil
Argan oil is used drop by drop in cosmetics and by the spoonful in cooking. Hence formats that are often small, and closures that dose: dropper, pump, pouring spout. See eye dropper bottles and cosmetic packaging.
An oil pressed by hand deserves better than a bottle chosen at random. Protected from light, air and unsuitable materials, it reaches the buyer as it left the press.
Glossary
- Oxidation
- The reaction of an oil with oxygen, sped up by light and heat, which turns it rancid.
- Unsaturated fatty acids
- Components of vegetable oils that are sensitive to oxidation.
- Simulant
- A reference liquid that stands in for food in migration tests.
- Intangible heritage
- Practices and know-how recognised by UNESCO as part of humanity's heritage.