What's the difference between cold pressed and refined oils?

There are so many terms in the cosmetic and food oil world. In this video, Thomas Kerfoot, founder of O&3 looks at the difference between cold pressed and refined oils, and what chemical treatment, deodorisation and winterisation affect oils.

Cold Pressing
Cold pressing is a natural and chemical free extraction method. This is when a screw press grinds down seeds or nuts to squeeze the oil out of them. This creates the oil but also creates a meal or seed cake. This can be used as an exfoliator in skin cleaning and body scrubs or as a natural fertiliser or animal feed.

The press is temperature controlled to make sure that heat doesn't make the oil oxidise quickly which would reduce its shelf life. After it is pressed the oil goes through a series of filters to remove any seed husks.
Cold pressed oils contain all of the natural, unaltered benefits of the raw plant. Pressing doesn't change their essential fatty acid or vitamin profile, meaning that they can provide deep hydration for skin and hair. Cold Pressed Oils also retain their colour and fragrance, as well as some wax content. Each batch may be slightly different depending on the harvest or region of origin.

Refined Oil
Refined oils take cold pressed (also known as crude oils) to remove some or all of their colour; taste, fragrance or wax content. This happens through various stages including:

Bleaching - a chemical process that minimised colour pigments and remove contaminants. This makes the colour more transparent or completely clear and removes its taste.

Deodorisation - this uses heat and steam to remove aromas within the oil to make it odourless.

Winterisation - this is a crystallisation process through temperature control that removes excess wax so that products don't solidify or go cloudy at cold temperatures.

Refining can include some or all of these processes and result in oils that are more stable at higher temperatures and are consistent in colour, aroma and taste. They have less nutritional benefits than cold pressed oils but can be used much more widely in cosmetic formulations.

Natural oils supplied by O&3 - www.oand3.com