If you have ever come across Baobab oil in a skincare product, you have met just one small part of one of the most extraordinary trees on earth. The Baobab — Adansonia digitata — is Africa's Tree of Life, and that name is not poetic exaggeration. It is a literal description of what this tree does for every living thing around it.
We source our Baobab oil directly from communities in Ghana who have pressed it by hand for generations. But the tree itself deserves a story of its own.
What Does a Baobab Tree Look Like?
Nothing quite prepares you for seeing a Baobab in person. Ancient Baobabs can reach 25 to 30 meters in height, but it is the trunk that stops you in your tracks — some grow to over 10 meters in diameter, giving the tree a swollen, almost surreal silhouette against the African sky. The bark is smooth and silvery-grey, soft enough that elephants strip and chew it to extract the moisture stored inside.
For much of the year, Baobabs stand completely leafless — which is how they earned their other nickname: the upside-down tree. With bare branches reaching into the sky like roots, the ancient legend goes that the tree was planted the wrong way around by a mischievous god. During the dry season, this bare silhouette is unmistakable. During the rainy season, the tree bursts into leaf almost overnight.
Baobabs are long-lived beyond almost any other tree. While many live for 500 to 1,000 years, some individual trees have been dated at over 2,500 years old. They were already ancient when the pyramids were new.
How a Baobab Stores Water
The Baobab is technically a succulent. Its trunk is not wood in the usual sense — it is fibrous and spongy, capable of absorbing and storing tens of thousands of litres of water during the rainy season. This internal reservoir allows the tree to survive the long African dry season and produce fruit when almost nothing else around it can. Communities have long known how to access this water in emergencies, making the Baobab a literal lifesaver.
The Fruit: A Superfood That Dries on the Tree
The Baobab fruit is unlike any other. It is the only fruit in the world that dries naturally on the branch. By the time it falls, the pulp inside has already dehydrated into a chalky, tangy powder — no processing required. The hard outer shell (which looks like a large, velvety green or brown pod, up to 30cm long) simply needs to be cracked open.
The dried fruit pulp — what we know as Baobab powder — is genuinely extraordinary from a nutritional standpoint:
- Vitamin C: 6x more than oranges
- Calcium: 2x more than milk
- Iron: more than red meat, gram for gram
- Fibre: nearly 50% of the powder by weight
- Potassium, magnesium, B vitamins: all in meaningful amounts
In West Africa, the powder has been dissolved into porridge, added to soups, stirred into water for a refreshing drink, and used as a leavening agent in bread — much like cream of tartar — for centuries. Today it is sold globally as a superfood supplement, added to smoothies, energy bars, and wellness drinks. We do not sell Baobab powder ourselves, but if you come across it, it is worth trying.
The Leaves: From Soup Pot to Skincare
In communities across West and Central Africa, Baobab leaves are a staple food. Young leaves are harvested during the rainy season, then boiled like spinach or dried and ground into a powder that is stirred into soups, stews, and sauces. In Ghana, Senegal, and across the Sahel, leaf powder — called lalo in some regions — is used daily as a thickener and nutritional boost for communal dishes. It is high in protein, calcium, and iron, and is especially valued as a food for pregnant women and young children.
Nothing is wasted. Even dried, the leaves are stored and used throughout the dry season when fresh vegetables are scarce.
The Seeds: Oil, Food, and Fermentation
The seeds inside the fruit are where FairTale Ghana's story begins. Cold-pressed, they yield the golden Baobab oil we use in our products — rich in vitamins A, D, E and F, with a fatty acid profile that mirrors the skin's own lipid structure.
But seeds are used for much more than oil. Roasted, they can be eaten as a snack or ground into a coffee-like drink. Ground into a flour, they act as a thickening agent in soups and stews. Fermented, they become a condiment similar in use to locust beans — deeply savoury, pungent, and rich in flavour. In parts of Mali and Benin, fermented Baobab seeds are a traditional flavouring ingredient passed down through generations.
The Bark: Rope, Cloth, and Medicine
The fibrous inner bark of the Baobab has been woven into rope, mats, baskets, and even cloth for thousands of years. It is strong and flexible when fresh, and was traditionally used for everything from building materials to fishing nets. Medicinally, bark extracts have been used in traditional African medicine for fever, inflammation, and as an antimicrobial treatment. Modern research has begun to confirm some of these properties.
Elephants, who know the tree well, strip the bark during the dry season to access the moisture stored in the fibres underneath. A single elephant can do significant damage to a large tree — but Baobabs are remarkably resilient and often heal over completely.
The Wildlife: An Entire Ecosystem in One Tree
A mature Baobab does not just support life — it creates an entire ecosystem around itself. Nearly 300 documented uses of the Baobab tree exist, and wildlife accounts for a significant share of them.
- Elephants strip the bark for water and eat the fruit
- Baboons and monkeys feast on the fruit pulp, spreading seeds across the savanna
- Fruit bats pollinate the large, white flowers, which open only at night and have a sweet, fermenting scent
- Bushbabies (Galagos) lap up the nectar from the flowers
- Warthogs eat fallen fruit from the ground
- Weaver birds, owls, hornbills, and kestrels nest in the branches and hollow trunks
- Lizards, snakes, and insects shelter inside the cavernous hollow trunks of ancient trees
The flowers themselves are spectacular — large, white, and waxy, they hang from long stalks and open at dusk, attracting pollinators through the night before wilting by morning. The entire pollination cycle happens in the dark.
The Baobab in Human Culture
Across Africa, Baobab trees are meeting places, landmarks, and sacred sites. Some ancient individual trees have been used as shelters, storage spaces, and even as a bush bar and post office (there is a famous hollow Baobab in South Africa large enough to hold dozens of people). They are central to folklore and spirituality in many communities — trees that have watched over villages for longer than anyone's memory reaches.
For the communities in Ghana that harvest our Baobab oil, the tree is not a product. It is part of the landscape they grew up in, the source of food their grandmothers cooked with, and the tree their children play under. When we say our oil is sourced directly from these communities, this is the context — a relationship with the Baobab that goes back further than any certification or supply chain.
The Oil: Where Ancient Meets Everyday
Baobab oil is cold-pressed from those same seeds — the ones that have fed communities, been fermented into condiments, and roasted into drinks for centuries. The oil contains the same richness the tree is known for: vitamins A, D, E, and F, a balanced fatty acid profile, and a lightness that makes it absorb into skin without leaving a greasy residue.
It is used on faces, bodies, and hair — the same oil the same communities have applied to skin and hair for generations before it had an INCI name or appeared on a beauty shelf.
If you want to try it, our cold-pressed Baobab oil is here. And now you know exactly where it comes from.
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