Grape Seed Oil

A natural history

Grape seed oil is one of the quiet graces of the vineyard. Long after the wine grape, Vitis vinifera, was first cultivated thousands of years ago in the lands around the Caucasus, someone discovered that the tiny seeds left behind when grapes are pressed for wine hold a pale, faintly green oil. Pressed cold, it became a prized light beauty oil, a second life for what the winery would otherwise discard.

The seeds give up their treasure sparingly. They hold only a little oil, so it takes roughly forty kilograms of grape seeds to make a single liter, which is part of what makes the oil feel special. Light, fast absorbing, and faintly nutty, it has become a favorite facial oil for skin that wants nourishment without heaviness, the grape's elegant gift to the dressing table.

What it does for your skin

Grape seed oil is a light oil rich in linoleic acid, vitamin E, and the grape's signature antioxidants, the proanthocyanidins. In laboratory testing on human skin cells, grape seed proanthocyanidins helped buffer ultraviolet driven oxidative stress and supported the cells' own defenses.^[1] Compositional analysis confirms the oil is rich in unsaturated fats and vitamin E.^[2] In a formula it is a light, conditioning, antioxidant oil that helps skin look defended and refined, absorbing without a greasy finish. That antioxidant defense is well documented in laboratory studies of the grape's proanthocyanidins.

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