Olive Oil

A natural history

The olive is one of civilization's oldest cultivated trees, native to the Mediterranean and sacred to the Greeks. Legend says the goddess Athena won the patronage of a great city by striking the ground and raising the first olive tree, judged a finer gift than a spring of seawater because it gave food, oil for lamps, medicine, and wood. The city took her name, Athens.

For the ancient world olive oil was nothing less than liquid gold, the phrase Homer used for it. Athletes rubbed it on their skin before competing, kings and priests were anointed with it, and at the original Olympic Games the only prize was a wreath of wild olive cut from a sacred tree. From the kitchen to the temple, the olive sat at the heart of Mediterranean life.

What it does for your skin

Olive oil is rich in oleic acid and carries antioxidant polyphenols, squalene, and vitamin E. In a small clinical pilot, formulas with the olive polyphenol oleuropein, applied around ultraviolet exposure, were linked to less redness and water loss in the skin.^[1] One honest caveat: because olive oil is so high in oleic acid, a study found that neat olive oil can slightly weaken the skin's surface barrier compared with sunflower oil, so it is best used as a measured emollient within a balanced formula rather than slathered on alone.^[2] Used that way it is a softening, antioxidant rich oil for dry skin.

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