Essaouira and Argan oil
Essaouira is a beautiful seaside town in Morocco steeped in history and is also a UNESCO world heritage site. It’s about 2 hours away from Marrakech so I made it a day trip. The main export from Essaouira are fishing(especially sardines) and Argan fruit products. The fishermen bring their catch to the shores where everyone is waiting for fresh seafood. The souks were a maze of stalls with colorful treasures, spices and of course argan products. The Medina was full of leather products, jewelry, pottery, beautiful kaftans and jalabiyas. I bought all of my argan oils, body scrubs, soaps and spices in the medina. A seafood lunch was also easy to eat in the medina.
Let’s talk about Argan oil. First forget everything you’ve seen that is said to contain argan oil. Lies and I mean huge ones! Ok fine, maybe a drop per litre is in that shampoo sis.. ? ? ? ? Essaouira to Agadir has an argan corridor of about 300km of argan trees. Argan trees are found only in morocco across 4 cities but the best ones are in Essaouira. June, July and August is Argan harvest season. Argan nuts start out harvested green in color, turn yellow and finally brown. There are 3 ways of harvesting argan fruit.
- By hand when ripe ,yields best quality
- By machinery (companies are here now) this yields medium grade
- Goats in tree – Goats in trees eat the shell off the fruit from the tree and regurgitate the nuts. It yields the lowest grade. This removes the first stage of processing
There are 2 types of argan oils, cosmetic and edible. You need about 40kg of fruit to yield 2.5kg edible Argan oil and 60kg of fruit yields 5kg of cosmetic oil. So edible argan oil is more expensive than cosmetic. The women in the cooperative work in 2 shifts morning and evening. We were told the ladies rest when off shift. According to the guide they allegedly get 50% of the profits. There are so many products made from the argan fruit. Oils, shampoos, soaps, conditioners, lotions and much more.
Argan oil manual extraction process. The outer shell covering is crushed between two stones revealing the nut. The argan nut is cracked between 2 stones to remove the seed (looks just like shelled almond). The shell is used as a fire accelerant. The seeds are roasted and then crushed in a hand spinner extractor to create a paste. The paste is later separated by hand to reveal the oil. Argan ladies extracting oil video The left-over brown paste after this process is mixed with Olive oil extraction by products to make black soaps. This black soap is used in hammams and I can testify your skin will be baby soft and glow when used. The edible argan oil is mixed with honey and almond in a paste called Amlou. It can be spread on breads and pastries. I bought a good amount to take home. Every part of the argan fruit is used for something. Watch Moroccan woman talks everything Argan -video
