What Is Jojoba Oil?

Jojoba plant

Jojoba (pronounced “ho-ho-ba”) is a woody, grey-green shrub that’s native to the southwestern U.S., Baja California, and Mexico. It’s now also grown in some other countries, like Argentina, Australia, and Egypt, because it grows well in warm and dry climates. Jojoba’s scientific name is Simmondsia chinensis.

Jojoba fruit

Flowers of the jojoba plant can produce a fruit that starts out green and turns brown as it ripens. The ripened fruit looks like a large coffee bean or acorn. For this reason, you may hear jojoba called coffee nut or coffee berry, but you may also hear it called oat nut, goatnut, pignut, deernut, or a number of other names. Native Americans in the Sonora desert cooked the fruit and used the oil from crushed seeds to treat many skin and scalp conditions, such as psoriasis and acne.