Buying Argan Oil in Morocco: How to Get the Real Thing

To buy real argan oil in Morocco, choose a sealed bottle with a full label, from a women's cooperative or a seller who can tell you who pressed it. Decide first which kind you want: cosmetic oil, pressed from raw kernels, is pale and smells faintly of nuts; culinary oil, pressed from roasted kernels, is darker and smells of toasted nuts. A litre of good oil costs several hundred dirhams, and bottles over 100 ml go home in your hold luggage.

In short:

Buy sealed and labelled, from a seller you can trace.
Pick the right oil: cosmétique for skin and hair, alimentaire for the table.
Trust the source, not a trick: no home test proves purity.
Be wary of bargains: pure argan at a fraction of the usual price rarely is.

Where argan oil comes from

The argan tree (Argania spinosa) grows wild almost only in south-western Morocco: on the plains and hills between Essaouira, Agadir, Taroudant and Tiznit, and up the southern slopes of the western High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas. It survives where very little rain falls, and every part of it is used.

UNESCO declared this argan country, the Arganeraie, a biosphere reserve in 1998; it covers about 2.5 million hectares. In 2014 UNESCO also inscribed "Argan, practices and know-how concerning the argan tree" on its list of Intangible Cultural Heritage, noting that the know-how is passed on mainly by women, from mothers to daughters. Since 2021 the United Nations has marked 10 May as the International Day of Argania.

Essaouira sits at the northern end of the argan country, and our Essaouira page explains why the town deserves a day of its own. The goats you may see balanced in argan trees by the road are another story, told in our guide to wildlife in Morocco.

How it is made

Drying and pulping. The olive-sized fruit is dried, then its pulp is removed.
Cracking. The nut inside is extremely hard. Women crack it between two stones, one nut at a time: even in modern cooperatives this is still done by hand, and it is the slowest part. Each nut holds one to three kernels.
Roasting, or not. For culinary oil the kernels are lightly roasted; for cosmetic oil they stay raw.
Grinding and pressing. Traditionally the kernels are ground in a stone hand mill and the paste is kneaded with a little warm water until the oil separates. Many cooperatives now grind and press with machines. What remains, the press cake, feeds livestock.

How much fruit makes a litre? Sources differ, from about 20 kg to 40 kg of fruit and 15 to 20 hours of hand work. Either way, that slow work is what you pay for.

Cosmetic or culinary: which one?

	Cosmetic oil	Culinary oil
Kernels	raw	roasted
Colour	pale gold	darker, golden brown
Smell	faint, slightly nutty	strong, of toasted nuts
Word on the label	cosmétique	alimentaire
Use	skin, hair, nails	raw, on salads, couscous or grilled fish (not for frying); in amlou

In the Souss, culinary oil goes into amlou, the almond, honey and argan spread described in our guide to what to eat in Morocco. Don't cook with cosmetic oil: it isn't made or labelled as food. And culinary oil on your face will smell of toasted nuts all day.

How to tell real argan oil from fake or diluted

The honest answer first: nobody can prove purity in a shop. Finding sunflower or another cheap oil in argan takes laboratory analysis of its fatty acids, sterols or vitamin E, and even laboratories struggle to catch small amounts. In a 2020 study by the UK's Quadram Institute, 4 of 28 products sold as 100 % argan oil were not pure. Your best protection is a seller you can trace.

What helps

A full label: the product and its type, the producer (cooperative or company) with an address, a batch number and a best-before date. Food made in Morocco should also show the authorisation number of ONSSA, the national food-safety office: look for it on culinary oil.
The IGP "Argane" mark. Morocco recognised "Argane" as a protected geographical indication in 2009. It is held by AMIGHA, an association of women's cooperatives, and producers who use it are certified and checked every year. It's a good sign, but not every genuine bottle carries it, so its absence alone proves nothing.
Organic logos, such as Morocco's "Bio Maroc" mark (created in 2018) or the EU organic leaf. They certify how the oil is produced rather than its purity, but they mean an outside body inspects the producer.
Your nose. Cosmetic oil smells faintly of nuts or of very little; culinary oil of toasted nuts. A sharp, rancid smell means old oil; a perfumed one means something has been added.
A realistic price (see below).

What doesn't

Home tests: the fridge or freezer test, oil that "absorbs in 30 minutes", rubbing a drop between your fingers. If laboratories need instruments to detect dilution, these can't.
Colour alone: it depends on roasting and filtering, and it can be faked. A WIPO case study on argan describes olive oil coloured to look like argan.
Unlabelled bottles on roadside stalls or souk counters: the same study warns of unofficial roadside sellers near the cooperatives selling diluted oil.
"Argan" creams and shampoos without reading the ingredients. Argan oil appears as Argania Spinosa Kernel Oil; ingredients are listed from most to least, so if it comes near the end, there's very little of it.

Cooperatives: what to expect and what to ask

In Morocco a cooperative is a legal form, entered in a public register; the central register is kept by the Office du Développement de la Coopération (ODCO). Women's argan cooperatives spread from the 1990s, and some joined forces: the Union des Coopératives des Femmes de l'Arganier (UCFA), founded in 1999, brings together about 1,200 women in the Souss. A visit usually means watching women crack nuts and grind kernels, a tasting, then the shop.

Not every stop called a cooperative is one. Le Routard has warned that some places on the Essaouira road, built for coach tours, employ salaried staff and sell products made elsewhere. That doesn't make their oil fake, but you pay for the show and sometimes for a commission. Questions worth asking, politely:

Is this a registered cooperative, and how many women are members?
Is the oil pressed here, and where do the nuts come from? South of Marrakech, on the roads to the Ourika valley or Imlil, you are outside the tree's natural range, so the nuts or kernels come from further south-west.
May I see the label before I choose?

A demonstration never obliges you to buy: a warm thank-you is enough. In the Marrakech medina, argan oil is sold both in fixed-price shops and at stalls where you bargain: our guide to the souks and how to bargain explains how to tell them apart.

What argan oil costs, and why

We found no reliable price survey for 2026, so here are the latest figures reported by the press (€1 ≈ 11 MAD, October 2026):

Source	Price reported	In euros
AP, July 2025	about 600 MAD a litre	about €55
Cooperatives at the International Argan Fair in Agadir (Morocco World News), December 2025	about 650–800 MAD a litre	about €59–73

That works out at about 60–80 MAD (€5.50–7.30) per 100 ml for good oil. Small bottles and gift packaging usually cost more per millilitre. Thirty years ago, AP noted, a litre sold for 25 dirhams.

Years of drought have cut harvests and the oil each fruit yields, while new competitors have crowded the market. Jamila Id Bourrous, president of the UCFA, told AP that few cooperative members earn more than the minimum wage, and that four intermediaries can stand between the woman in the village and the final buyer. In May 2026 the magazine TelQuel reported that the rains had brought new life to the cooperatives around Essaouira; our article on Morocco after the drought explains what the rains changed.

So a litre of "pure argan" offered for a fraction of these prices deserves questions: it may be diluted, old, or not argan at all. Is argan oil cheaper in Morocco than at home? Sometimes, but the real advantage of buying here is knowing who made it, and buying directly from a cooperative cuts out some of the intermediaries.

Taking it home

Anything over 100 ml goes in the hold. On flights from Morocco, liquids in hand luggage must be in containers of 100 ml or less, in one transparent, resealable one-litre bag per person (Royal Air Maroc's rules).
Pack it like a liquid that stains: tape the cap, seal each bottle in a plastic bag, then a second one, and wrap it in clothes in the middle of your suitcase.
Customs: argan oil is a plant oil, not an animal product, so the EU and UK bans on bringing in meat and dairy don't apply to it; US Customs lists oils among foods that are generally admissible, as long as you declare them. Our guide to what to buy in Morocco covers allowances and food rules for the rest of your shopping.

See it made on the argan road

Watching a nut being cracked explains the price better than any label. Our day trip to Essaouira takes the argan road and stops at a women's argan oil cooperative on the way. On the Imlil day trip you stop at a cooperative of Berber women on the drive back to Marrakech, and on the Ourika Valley trip you can visit one on the way back too. With more time, the 5-day coastal tour stops at a cooperative between Taghazout and Essaouira. Our comparison of the best day trips from Marrakech helps you choose, or ask us which one fits your days.