The jojoba shrub is evergreen, resistant to drought and grows to a height that goes from 50 cm to 6 m and has a period of life of 200 years. It grows wild in the southwestern United States. (California, Arizona) and in northwestern Mexico (Sonora, Baja California). Attempts have been made to cultivate the shrubs in South America, Egypt, Israel, South Africa and Australia but, outside their area of ​​origin, has only been successfully cultivated in Israel and Argentina. The fruit of jojoba harvested from the wild shrubs also has some importance next to the fruit harvested from other plantations.

Johann Link first described the bush as Buxus chinensis in 1822. In 1844, Thomas Nuttall changed its name to Simmondsia californica and remained there until 1912, when the Australian botanist Camillo Karl Schneider named it Simmondsia chinensis. The plant acquired the name of ‘jojoba’ from the Indian term jojowi.

Its mature seeds, which are rough and have the size of an olive, have an oil content of 50-60%, and are harvested manually by collecting the brown capsules that fall from the bush. The clear, bright yellow oil (cold-pressed product) emits a characteristic odor, while the refined product is a clear liquid, similar to water, and virtually odorless. These two oils, which do not have a chemical composition of a mixture of triglycerides, but that of a liquid wax (a long chain of C18-C22 esters of unsaturated fatty acids), are set in a soft and light mass, granulated when they are a temperature below 10 ° C. Currently, the oil is used in the cosmetics industry, in hair care products (shampoos, hair tonics), in skin care products (moisturizers, facial cleansing agents, moisturizers for the body and shaving lotions), in sunscreens, in nail care products and in make-up products (lipsticks and make-up pencils, eye pencils), in bath oils and in soaps. In medicine, it is used for its bacteriostatic characteristics.

The chemical industry uses the oil after having gone through a process of subsequent transformation into products such as polishes or wax lubricants, in products with a not very high price. The product has not yet been used as table oil in diets for lack of the enzymes necessary for digestion.

Generally, the jojoba oil marketed by GUSTAV HEESS comes from Mexico / Arizona or Argentina. We sell cold pressed oil of golden yellow color, and also in refined grade.