Growing wild in Northeast Brazil, babassu oil is pressed from the babassu palm tree, which can grow to a height of 20 meters. The fruit of the babassu palm forms several clusters that bear 500 or so fruits which look like small coconuts.

Unrefined babassu oil has a cream coloured tinge with a wonderful nutty scent and is solid at room temperatures (below 24° C), but melts readily upon contact with the skin.

Babassu oil has been prized in South America for its great moisturising quality and beneficial effect on the skin. A deeply penetrating moisturising oil, it is a great coconut substitute - it saponifies easily and yields a mild soap with good lather. It is a superior emollient, beneficial for both dry and oily complexions, gently moisturising the skin without contributing to an oily sheen, often to treat dry, itchy and inflamed skin.

OUR GUIDE FOR HAIR USE
• Dry hair
• Fragile hair
• Soothes itchy scalp
• Helps promote growth
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• Helps promote thicker hair
• Works on both high/low porosity hair

The unrefined babassu oil is directly purchased from remote indigenous community in the Médio Mearim region of Maranhão by a nonprofit organization headed by women babaçu collectors and rural workers. This helps to preserve the natural habitat and directly improves local economic conditions and sustainability.
The name Babassu comes from the Tupis (an Amazonian tribe), whereas its genus name “Orbignya” comes from the French paleontologist A.D. d’Orbigny who first discovered the palm in the early 1800’s in South America.

FROM WIKIPEDIA: This plant has commercial value because its seeds produce an edible oil called babassu oil, which is also used in cleaners and skin care products. The fruit is used to produce products such as medicines, beauty aids, and beverages. Traditional communities of the Maranhão region also produce a flour from the fruit and this is commercialized as a nutritional supplement. The leaves are also used to provide thatch for houses and can be woven into mats for constructing house walls. The stems are used for timbers. The Babassu palm is considered a weed in pasture areas of Cerrado vegetation in Brazil.

SAP VALUES: .175 (NaOH) .245(KOH) 

INCI : Orbignya oleifera
COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: BRAZIL