Marula Oil: We love it, but we refuse to call it a miracle

Why a beautiful South African botanical earns its place in our formulas, just not by doing all the work itself.

Marula oil has a marketing problem, and it is this: it is genuinely lovely, which makes it very easy to lie about. Liquid gold. Superfruit secret. Ancient beauty ritual in a bottle. You have seen the language. Somewhere out there a product is promising that marula oil will fix your skin, your sleep, and possibly your relationship with your mother.

We are not going to do that. Marula oil comes from the kernels of the marula fruit, Sclerocarya birrea, a tree woven into southern African landscapes, food culture and generations of traditional use (Bvenura and Kambizi, 2024; Import Promotion Desk, 2018). The romance is real. But we are far more interested in what this oil actually does inside a well-built formula than in how poetic it sounds on a label, because skincare ingredients almost never do their best work alone. Marula oil is not the whole routine. It is one beautiful lipid in a well-run team.

First, what marula oil actually is

On an ingredient list, it shows up as Sclerocarya birrea seed oil.

Crucial detail: it is not an essential oil. It is a fixed plant oil, made mostly of fatty acids, which means its job is to be an emollient: the ingredient that softens skin and improves how the surface feels (Import Promotion Desk, 2018). It is not there to perfume your skin or act like a high-strength serum. It is there for lipid comfort, slip, softness, cushion, and a gentle sealing quality (what scientists call 'occlusive') that helps a product feel genuinely nourishing rather than just oily.

The chemistry behind the glow (spoiler: it is not magic)

The most consistent finding across the marula literature is its high oleic acid content, the same monounsaturated fatty acid that makes olive oil feel the way it does. In marula kernel oil, oleic acid is the clear headliner at around 70 to 78 percent, trailed by smaller amounts of palmitic, linoleic and stearic acids (Komane et al., 2015; Bvenura and Kambizi, 2024). This is the entire secret: oleic-rich oils feel soft and nourishing, and a plant oil’s fatty-acid profile shapes how it behaves on skin (Lin, Zhong and Santiago, 2018). So when you hear marula oil gives you 'glow,' here's what's really happening: it smooths the surface and softens dry, tight areas so light catches your skin more kindly. Not sorcery. Lipid chemistry. Arguably more impressive, because it is true.

What the actual research says

The most useful study for anyone who buys skincare, looked at marula oil’s irritancy, moisturising effect, hydration and occlusivity in healthy adult volunteers. Under the study conditions, it was non-irritating, and showed moisturising and hydrating effects on lipid-dry skin plus occlusive effects on normal skin (Komane et al., 2015).

That is a genuinely good result, and also a modest one, which we would rather tell you than oversell. It supports marula oil as a useful moisturising, skin-comfort ingredient. It does not prove that marula oil reverses ageing, cures eczema, or replaces sunscreen. We would rather be straight with you than oversell, because you deserve to know what your skincare can and can't do. Its strength was never that it does everything. It is that it does a few things beautifully when given the right company.

Why a good oil is about more than a good tree

Marula oil has a quiet advantage that rarely makes the marketing copy: it is naturally stable. Although its make-up is similar to olive oil, it resists going rancid far better, roughly ten times better in testing, thanks to its high oleic acid content and natural antioxidants like vitamin E (Komane et al., 2015; Import Promotion Desk, 2018). In practice, that means an oil that stays fresher in the bottle for longer, which is exactly what you want in a product you will use over months.

But even a naturally stable oil can be let down by careless handling, and this is the part the romance skips. A beautiful marula oil depends on a beautiful supply chain: the kernels have to be dried properly, pressed carefully, filtered, and stored away from heat and light. Treat it carelessly and even an elegant, stable oil can turn tired and lose the very skin feel that made it worth using (Import Promotion Desk, 2018). This is why "natural" is not enough of a sentence on its own. Freshness, traceability and responsible sourcing all matter, and for a South African brand, so does the question of how the oil was sourced, who benefited, and whether the resource was treated with respect (Import Promotion Desk, 2018; Bvenura and Kambizi, 2024). Ethical sourcing and fair value for harvesters are not optional extras bolted on for the website. They are part of what makes a natural ingredient genuinely beautiful.

How it fits into Upenya

Your skin does not need one dramatic hero ingredient riding in to save the day. It needs a sensible routine that supports hydration, comfort, barrier feel, antioxidant care, and, above all, consistency. In our formulas, marula oil is part of that bigger architecture, there for emollience, softness and lipid comfort, sitting alongside humectants that pull in water, antioxidants for environmental care, and functional ingredients that keep everything performing (Komane et al., 2015; Lin, Zhong and Santiago, 2018). A single ingredient can be beautiful. A finished formula should be more than a collection of beautiful ingredients: it should have a texture, a purpose and a skin feel that actually make sense together. That is the job.

Our honest take

Marula oil is not interesting because it is trending. It is interesting because everything about it, the traditional use, the fatty-acid profile, the early clinical research and the sourcing story, all quietly points the same way: a gentle, elegant oil that supports dry-skin comfort when used thoughtfully in a well-balanced formula (Komane et al., 2015; Bvenura and Kambizi, 2024; Import Promotion Desk, 2018).

It does not need to be a miracle. Its value is quieter and more trustworthy than that: softness, comfort, nourishment, and a reminder that the best skincare is rarely one ingredient doing everything. Marula oil may not be magic, but in the right formula it is quietly excellent, and quietly excellent is what actually works.

Frequently asked questions

Why does Upenya use marula oil?

Because it contributes softness, emollience and lipid comfort to formulas meant to feel nourishing on the skin. Clinical evidence supports moisturising, hydrating and occlusive effects under tested conditions (Komane et al., 2015). We use it for what it genuinely does, not for what sounds good on a label.

Is marula oil the “main active” in your products?

Not really. We don't believe in one magic 'hero ingredient' that does all the work. Marula oil is one part of a broader formula where different ingredients each play their role. Teamwork, not a solo act.

Will marula oil make a product too oily?

Not when it is used at a sensible level and balanced with the rest of the formula. How a product feels depends on the whole recipe, the oil phase, water phase, emulsifiers and humectants, not on one ingredient acting alone.

Can marula oil help with ageing or photoaging?

We are a teenage skincare brand, so we really don't think anti-aging should be a main consideration at this juncture. BUT, it may help skin look softer and more comfortable by easing dryness and smoothing the surface within a formula. It is not a proven stand-alone anti-ageing active, and we will not pretend otherwise. For photoaging, sunscreen and other evidence-backed ingredients remain far better supported (Komane et al., 2015).

Does marula oil protect skin from the sun?

No. A marula-containing product is not a sunscreen unless it has been specifically formulated and tested as one. If you use marula skincare in the morning, sunscreen is still non-negotiable.

References

Bvenura, C. and Kambizi, L. (2024) ‘Chemical profile and potential applications of Sclerocarya birrea kernel oils: analysis of volatile compounds and fatty acids’, Molecules, 29(16), 3815.

Import Promotion Desk (2018) Marula oil for cosmetic use in Europe. Product Fact Sheet. Bonn: Import Promotion Desk.

Komane, B., Vermaak, I., Summers, B. and Viljoen, A. (2015) ‘Safety and efficacy of Sclerocarya birrea (A.Rich.) Hochst (Marula) oil: a clinical perspective’, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 176, pp. 327–335. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2015.10.037 (Accessed: 22 June 2026).

Lin, T.-K., Zhong, L. and Santiago, J.L. (2018) ‘Anti-inflammatory and skin barrier repair effects of topical application of some plant oils’, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 19(1), 70. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms19010070 (Accessed: 22 June 2026).