Pumpkin has been a food staple across the Americas for thousands of years, but the oil pressed from those seeds is a more recent discovery in the skincare world — though Central and Eastern European communities figured it out well ahead of the trend. In Slovenia and Austria, cold-pressed pumpkin seed oil has been a kitchen (and medicine cabinet) fixture for generations, drizzled on everything from salads to skin. It’s the kind of ingredient that’s simultaneously ancient and newly fashionable, which tends to mean it was right all along.
The oil is rich and dark — a deep green that can tint a bar slightly — with a nutty warmth that fades once it’s incorporated. It’s high in linoleic acid, which is the fatty acid that tends to be depleted in skin that’s dry, stressed, or out of balance. Skin absorbs it readily, which is the opposite of that greasy, sitting-on-top-of-your-skin feeling that heavier oils can leave behind. For hair, it has a long folk tradition as a scalp treatment, and modern interest has started to catch up with that reputation.
Best Uses: Facial bars, hair and scalp formulas, dry or mature skin soaps, and any bar where fast absorption and skin-restoring qualities are the priority.
Here are a few of our products featuring this ingredient:
