Olive Oil is often eluded as almost being the holy grail of natural oils.  Olive oil is an emollient and does contain Vitamin E and polyphenols.  Of all the plant oils Olive Oil one of the few that contains polyphenols.  Olive oil is primarily composed of approximately 85% Oleic Acid; 9% Linoleic Acid and 1% Linolenic Acid.

So what?  It is full of essential fatty acids you say....

But it isn't you see...  Oleic Acid is also known as Omega 9 and it is not an essential fatty acid.  By definition Essential fatty acids can not be made by the body and must come from the diet.  Linoleic Acid (Omega 6) and Linolenic Acid (Omega 3) are the essential fatty acids in olive oil.  Yet they consist of only 10% of the oil.  Over 80% of the fatty acid profile of oil is Oleic Acid....and the problem with this is that Oleic Acid causes ACNE (1)

Oleic acid is classed as a triglyceride.  A triglyceride has 3 fatty acids and is attached to a backbone of glycerol.  On the surface of your skin triglycerides are hydrolysed (broken down) into free fatty acids and glycerol by the bacteria p.acnes (2).  These free fatty acids promote inflammation in the skin and cause acne formation(1)  If you have acne your skin already has abundance of inflammatory free fatty acids already, by putting on a cream or oil that contains olive oil you are just creating more free fatty acids and acne.

Applying Olive oil also creates scaly skin and abnormal keratinisation (3).  Abnormal keratinisation is the major reason for acne formation.  Olive oil has it's benefits in internal usage rather than external applications.   

What is dissappointing is that the rest of the Beauty industry are either unaware of these facts or don't care.  There are many products currently sold including natural that are incredibly flawed.   Use of these products is often creating other problems for your skin. 

Do I hate natural products?

Not by any means...  My own skin care range is natural.  I am however very picky about what natural extracts and oils I use.  I also don't malign synthetic ingredients as being evil or bad for you.  Yes some synthetics are toxic but not all of them are.  I am not into scare mongering tactics.  Everything I have to say is based on solid scientific fact. 

Eclogite only chooses to use ingredients that don't have side effects for your skin.  Side effects include acne, pigmentation and sensitivity.  Yet all you have to do is pick up just about any natural product and it seems they have shoved everything in there but the kitchen sink because it sounds good.  When they explain why they have put in certain ingredients their explanation is ambiguous at best.

The oil of choice by the way for acne is sunflower oil...but more on that in another article. 

References

1. "Advanced Skin Analysis" (2004) Florence Barrett-Hill

2. Dermatology Nursing (2002) "Overview of treatments for Acne"  Oprica; Emtestam; and Nord.

3. Journal of Investigative Dermatology (2005) "Unsaturated Fatty Acids induce Calcium influx into keratinocytes and cause abnormal differtiation of Epidermis" Katsuta; Iuda; Inomata; and Denda.