Skocktail #2 Wait, Kalamata what?

Before we jump into gushing about how natural and beneficial Moisjito just is for your skin, let us just prove it to you by sharing with one-half of our first secret: the Kalamata olive.

Consider this our low-down on the ultimate skin superhouse:

While its more popular siblings serve as a controversial pizza topper, salad topping and even bob in tall glasses of martinis, the Kalamata olive or the ‘King of the Olives’ , is a rich and dark purple when ripe that is born and bred from the Peloponnese peninsula of Southern Greece. Maybe its all that warm Grecian sun its soaking up, that will send your skin on long, deserving holiday you didn’t even know it needed.

Naturally you’d put two and two together to deduce that olives in skincare possibly means oils, and we all know excess oils can greatly imbalance your skin’s natural sebum to cause breakouts. In fact, olives are packed with rich antioxidants like Vitamin E that works hard to repair the skin’s under layers while keeping the surface healthy with a glowing shine - one worthy of a Greek island getaway perhaps! Simply put, rather than unwanted oily sheen, your skin is left kissed with a soft silkiness.

But of course we wouldn’t expect you to coat your face with a thick gooey-ness and call it a day.  Instead after extraction, the olives are refined through a process of hydrogenation that transforms it into a squalane. Now here’s when we slip on our white robes for a bit of scientific tidbit. Squalane or squalene are naturally found in many natural plant sources, olives namely, and us - in our skin, staring with around 12% when we’re and gradually diminishing to 5% as we grow older .

While both offers well-desired properties of hydration and protection for the skin, its best not to mix up the two because while Squalane (hydrogenated squalene) is an odourless, colourless, shelf-life-of-two-year moisturising master, squalene (first found and extracted for shark’s liver) is kind of like its temperamental sister -  an unstable double bond with a short shelf life and known to clog pores when exposed to oxygen.

So why is squalane so popular in skincare? That comes down to its texture and innate skin-rejuvenating properties.  A lightweight emollient, squalane mimics the structure of our natural skin and swiftly penetrates it with ample moisturisation at around a shocking speed of 2mm/second. Literally instantly quenching any thirst no matter how bad your drought is.  Also throwing in the bonus of of plumping up your skin with elasticity and flexibility for a good, trampo-worthy bounce.

If you’re one of those blessed with naturally-oiled skin, and say you don’t need any more moisture, squalane also feeds the other good stuff that not only prevents moisture loss, but regenerate and revitalise the skin to restore full suppleness. Because you can never take too much care of your skin.

And for those of us who enjoy a little outdoor fun, sun-soakers can rejoice knowing that squalane prevents sun UV damage that can cause unwanted age-spots or wrinkles from forming.  Mix in sweat and any other nastier environmental stressors? You’re still good-to-go. Rather than building more oils into the skin, squalane diminishes oil production, which also makes it the perfect skin savour for anyone with acne, other skin-related issues like psoriasis, eczema, allergies, and facial scarring.

So while olives are great in your cocktail, its raging benefits are even better in skincare. Shaking up your skincare routine with a triple-threat product that hydrates, smooths and soothes your skin, if you’re still looking for your skin’s bestfriend, the olive squalane is a serious contender.