Jojoba is a shrub that is native to the deserts of Southern California and Western Mexico. The name is pronounced in the Spanish fashion,  “ĥoĥova”, with gutteral vocalisation of theletters J (like the  ”ch” in Scottish “loch”).Jojoba is also known as goat nut, deer nut, pignut, wild hazel etc.

The botanical name, Simmondsia chinensis, is rather surprising as the plant has nothing to dowith China. Wikipedia states, the “chinensis” came about because the botanist whogave the name misread a specimen label. of

Jojoba seeds have very high oil content, about half of their mass. In chemical terms, it is a wax rather than an oil as it is composed primarily monoesters of long-chain fatty acids (LCFA), most of them at least 20-carbons long. These molecules likely contribute to the plant’s adaptation to desert conditions. The liquid wax is extremely stable and withstands high temperatures,

Jojoba has been used for generations by Native American tribes, on the hair and skin, for treating burns, and for treating animal hides. Though the nuts are edible, humans and most other mammals are unable to digest the wax.

Jojoba oil/wax has found occasional industrial use as a lubricant and can in theory be used to make biodiesel, though this is not economically viable. However, Jojoba is cultivated commercially for use in skincare productsand has largely replaced the whale oil used in cosmetics a century ago.

The attractiveness of Jojoba for skincare products may be because its LCFA-esters are rather similar to natural fatty-acid esters inhuman sebum. Though not itself considered phytoactive, Jojoba gets teamed up with phytoactives in our @Green Mountain Biotech botanical extracts to make several of the @Kamedisproducts.

The bottom line is that Jojoba is good news for humans and maybe even better news for whales!

Further reading

Wikipedia 2022, Jojoba oil, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jojoba_oil&oldid=1084746604

Wikipedia 2022, Jojoba, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jojoba&oldid=1094748236

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