This article builds on our complete guide to prickly pear seed oil, which covers the main steps of the process without going into detail. Here, step by step, is how Hendiya® prickly pear seed oil is made, from harvesting the fruit to bottling.
Before talking about pressing or filtering, it helps to keep one figure in mind: producing a single liter of prickly pear seed oil requires an unusually large amount of raw material. This very low yield, whose economic reasons we detail in our article on the price of prickly pear seed oil, largely explains why every step of the process demands so much care.
It all starts with the harvest of the prickly pears, done by hand between July and September in several regions of Morocco, from the Rif to Beni Smir. This short, seasonal harvest window determines the availability of raw material for the entire year. To learn more about the geographic and cultural origins of this plant in Morocco, our article Prickly pear: a treasure of Morocco traces its history.
At Hendiya®, the fruit comes from a local supply chain, sourced directly from Moroccan cooperatives in the Inzegane and Aït Ba Amrane region, without industrial intermediaries.
Once harvested, the prickly pears are cleaned and then opened to extract the pulp, which contains the seeds prized for their oil. These seeds are tiny, barely visible to the naked eye, which partly explains the sheer amount of raw material required: it takes around one ton of fruit to obtain around 50 kg of seeds.
This extraction step, which separates the seeds from the pulp and fruit residue, is generally carried out carefully to preserve the integrity of the seeds before drying.
The extracted seeds are then dried before they can be pressed. This drying step reduces their water content and prepares the seeds for cold pressing, where any residual moisture could affect the quality of the extraction. The process generally involves gradual drying, away from excessive heat, so as not to degrade the active compounds contained in the seed.
This is the most emblematic, and longest, step of the process: first cold pressing. The dried seeds are mechanically pressed, with no heat and no acceleration, in a slow process that takes around 48 hours, drop by drop. This slowness is not an arbitrary choice: it is what preserves the vitamin E, phytosterols, and polyunsaturated fatty acids naturally present in the seeds, rather than degrading them through heat or accelerated extraction.
At the end of this pressing, one ton of prickly pears and around 50 kg of seeds yield around one liter of pure oil, a yield we detail in our dedicated article on the price of prickly pear seed oil.
The raw oil obtained after pressing is then filtered to remove solid residue and produce a clear oil, ready to be bottled. At Hendiya®, the oil is bottled in small quantities, generally in glass, to limit exposure to light and preserve its quality until use.
It is at the end of this complete process, from harvest to bottle, that Le Sérum Absolu is born: Hendiya®'s pure prickly pear seed oil, certified organic by Ecocert (MA-BIO-154).
Not all prickly pear seed oils are equal, even when they follow the same broad steps. At Hendiya®, four factors are closely monitored throughout the process:
It is this demanding, hard-to-replicate-at-scale craftsmanship that sets a quality prickly pear seed oil apart from a lower-grade oil, or one blended with other oils.
First cold pressing takes around 48 hours. It is a slow, drop-by-drop process, carried out with no heat and no acceleration, to preserve as much as possible of the active compounds naturally present in the seeds.
Cold pressing extracts the oil without exposing the seeds to heat, which helps preserve vitamin E, phytosterols, and polyunsaturated fatty acids. Accelerated or heat-based extraction tends to degrade some of these active compounds.
It takes around one ton of prickly pears to obtain around 50 kg of seeds, which yield around one liter of pure oil after pressing. This very low yield is a major reason for the high price of this oil, detailed in our article on the price of prickly pear seed oil.
A good-quality oil is generally pure (not blended with other oils), certified organic, obtained by first cold pressing, and produced through a short, closely managed supply chain. Le Sérum Absolu by Hendiya® meets these criteria.
To learn more about the skin benefits of this oil, see our article The benefits of prickly pear seed oil for the skin, or our article dedicated to its anti-aging action.
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