Pequi fruit oil

Pequi, Caryocar brasiliense, is a tree of the Brazilian cerrado — the vast inland savanna. Its fruit has a pronounced aroma and a firm place in local cooking; the oil comes from the pulp rather than the seeds, which sets it apart from most of the other oils in our range.

The colour is striking. The deep orange to amber tone comes from carotenoids naturally present in the pulp. So when the night balm is not the colour of clear water, that is neither a fault nor a colourant — it is the material itself. The same holds for the day serum, where the colour comes from coenzyme Q10 and pomegranate.

By composition, pequi belongs to the oils dominated by oleic acid. That means a denser, nourishing touch and slower absorption than light linoleic oils such as prickly pear or passion fruit. This is not a shortcoming but a different role. Evening care has reason to be richer than morning care: nothing goes on top of it overnight, and the skin has time.

Dense and light oils therefore complete one another in a single formula. A balm built on pequi alone would be heavy and slow to absorb; one built only on light oils would lack the nourishing layer that evening care exists for.

In our range, pequi appears only in the No4. Midnight Mineral Pressed Serum, where it forms the denser part of the oil composition beside maqui, Kakadu plum, cacay, cucumber and prickly pear. Floral waxes of jasmine and damask rose give the balm its body, with bakuchiol and the vitamin C ester as the conditioning ingredients.