Oil In A Day's Tour

Tightening our shoelaces, we hop onto the SUV and drive for about 1.5 hours on dusty roads towards Kolayat, a village roughly 60 kilometres from Bikaner. I was travelling with the team from Desert Splendour – the only beauty brand in the country to produce pure jojoba oil – to take a tour of their plantations, and see firsthand how the oil, less explored until now in India, comes into being. The vehicle turns into narrower lanes and we eventually reach our destination – a plantation spread over 60 acres.

- Meghna Menon

Shiv Singh Mann, the co-founder of the brand, takes us around the area as rows and rows of woody and dense jojoba shrubs greet us, about eight feet in height and with thick waxy leaves that grow vertically. Pointing towards the shrubs, Shiv explains how the pollen from the male flowers fertilises the female flowers, which then bear hard, dark brown and oval seeds rich in oil. While we see that the plantations are equipped with solar-powered drip irrigation systems, Shiv adds that plant nutrients are administered to obtain optimal harvests.