Sea Buckthorn Oil for Skin, Eyes, and Beyond: A 12-Week Clinical Trial

Skin aging, dry eyes, and vaginal dryness rarely get discussed as related problems, but they share a common root: as estrogen and collagen production decline with age — especially around and after menopause — the tissue that depends on them loses moisture, elasticity, and barrier function almost everywhere at once. A 2024 randomized controlled trial in the Journal of Functional Foods tested whether a single oral supplement, sea buckthorn oil, could address all three simultaneously.

What Makes Sea Buckthorn Oil Nutritionally Unusual

Sea buckthorn is the only known plant source containing a wide spectrum of fatty acids across Omega 3, 6, 7, and 9 — including Omega 7 (palmitoleic acid), which is rare in the plant kingdom and makes up nearly a third of the oil’s fatty acid profile. It’s also rich in carotenoids, tocopherols, and tocotrienols, giving it meaningful antioxidant density on top of its fatty-acid content.

What the 12-Week Trial Found

Forty healthy women over 45 (mean age 52.5) were randomized to take a 500 mg daily sea buckthorn oil softgel or a placebo for 12 weeks, with skin, blood, eye, and vaginal-health measures tracked throughout.

Skin: Measurable, Not Just Reported

Using standardized instruments (not self-report), the sea buckthorn group showed statistically significant improvements by week 12: skin brightness up 2.2%, moisture up 8.5%, elasticity up 2.7%, and collagen density up 10.0% from baseline — the collagen and texture gains were significantly greater than the placebo group’s, not just present within-group. Skin texture scores improved 14.1%, and visible pore count dropped 14.6% on standardized facial imaging.

Inflammation and Antioxidant Markers

Blood testing told a consistent story: catalase, one of the body’s key antioxidant enzymes, rose 82.8% from baseline (significantly more than placebo), while TNF-α, an inflammatory marker linked to collagen breakdown, dropped 23%. HDL cholesterol — the “good” cholesterol involved in clearing excess cholesterol from the blood — increased 14.7%.

Eyes and Vaginal Health, By Self-Report

Participant questionnaires showed high satisfaction after 12 weeks: 90% reported improved eye moisture retention, and 65% reported less redness and less discharge. On the vaginal-health side, 70% reported less redness, 70% reported reduced odor, 75% reported less itching, and 65% reported reduced dryness — with several of these measures reaching statistical significance against baseline where the placebo group did not.

Where Sea Buckthorn Fits Into a Nooria Routine

Sea buckthorn extract is part of Nooria’s https://shop.nooria-swiss.com/collections/shop-all/products/sublimoor/?region=usd, positioned as a beauty and antioxidant formula alongside collagen peptides, Cynatine, and ginseng — ingredients that target skin, hair, and nail structure from complementary directions. It reflects the same underlying logic this trial tested: that oral, fatty-acid-and-antioxidant-driven support can move the needle on skin quality, not just supply a single nutrient in isolation.

The Bottom Line

The authors themselves are appropriately measured — they note more research is needed to confirm the mechanisms behind these results. But for a 12-week, well-tolerated, oral intervention with objectively measured skin improvements alongside self-reported relief in two commonly under-discussed areas of women’s health, this trial is a genuinely notable data point for what a single nutrient-dense oil can do.

References
[1] Chan, L.-P.; Yen, T.-W.; Tseng, Y.-P.; Yuen, T.; Yuen, M.; Yuen, H.; Liang, C.-H. “The impact of oral sea-buckthorn oil on skin, blood markers, ocular, and vaginal health: A randomized control trial.” Journal of Functional Foods 2024, 112, 105973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jff.2023.105973 (open access, CC BY 4.0)