My Root, My Inspiration

I am Amazigh ⵣ, born in Morocco’s Argan heartland, where the trees shape the horizon and breakfast always carries a little nutty sweetness. In our house, Argan oil wasn’t an exotic secret. It was normal life: a drizzle over bread and honey, a few drops smoothed through hair, a quiet step after a shower. I didn’t watch anyone making oil at home; I watched everyone using it.

Once, as a kid, I decided I’d help with the “real work.” I tried cracking Argan shells the way I’d seen the women in my family do it stone on stone, confidence way ahead of skill. I lasted minutes. My fingers didn’t. There’s a technique that lives in people’s hands, not in instructions. Around the same time, a few of us set off to “harvest” with village friends. We came back scratched, dusty and proud of a very small pile of fruit. We had more stories than nuts, which is probably the most honest summary of childhood.

When I later moved away, people kept asking for “the good oil,” and I understood what they meant. I missed the feel of it, the way a drop disappears into damp skin, and the scent that’s soft and real, not perfumed into silence. I sent bottles to friends. I looked at what was on shelves and online and couldn’t always find what felt familiar.

Arganical started there. Not from a business plan, but from wanting to share something I grew up trusting. I keep it simple on purpose: one oil, made the right way at source, bottled with care, and offered without filler stories. I don’t need to perform tradition I didn’t live. I did live the everyday: the taste at breakfast, the shine in hair, the comfort on skin, and that small lesson from a pile of stubborn shells, good things take skill, and you can’t fake the touch.

This brand exists so you can meet the oil that’s woven through my earliest routines. If it makes your day a little softer or your hair a little calmer, then I’ve done what I set out to do: bring a piece of where I’m from to where you are, honestly.

Hanane ⵣ Founder