Save your skin with sea buckthorn: this powerful remedy has made its way from Europe to North America and is the latestemerge in cutting-edge trendy ingredient to beauty and supplement products.(INSIDE & OUT: PERSONAL CARE)

Sea buckthorn berry (Hippophae rhamnoides) has been known as a European, Mongolian and Chinese food and medicine for centuries. Supposedly, the ancient Greeks used it as food for race horses, thus the botanical name Hippophae ("shiny horse").

The bright orange fruits are intensely sour, with up to 16 times as much vitamin C as kiwifruit, plus flavonoids, vitamin E, vitamin A and several other carotenes, including beta-carotene, lycopene and zeaxanthin. "To these, add essential fatty acids and vitamins B1, B2 and K.

Sea buckthorn is the Swiss Army knife of supplements. More than 200 products are manufactured from sea buckthorn berry, including body oils, creams, soaps and shampoos, juices, jams, candies, elixirs, wine and beer. Seed and fruit "pulp oil" is the main active ingredient, but the whole fruit is also used in some preparations.

Rub It In, Why Don'tcha?

Sea buckthorn seed oil, with qualities very similar to evening primrose oil, is popular in high-end European skin-care lines. As a cosmetic and skin-care ingredient, sea buckthorn's nourishing and tissue-healing properties stem from healthful compounds called phytosterols, which have been researched since the 1920s. Rich in various essential fatty acids, sea buckthorn oil also has a high content of the rare palmitoleic acid, which is also a natural component of skin fat.

Sea buckthorn seed oil is used for dry skin, abrasions, burns, sunburns, acne, eczema, hemorrhoids, ear infections, genital inflammation, radiation burns and even cataract prevention.

A 2005 Indian animal study discovered that a water extract of the leaves promotes wound healing, apparently because of increased antioxidant levels in the tissues as they heal. Another 2005 paper from the same group of Indian scientists concluded that sea buckthorn reduced inflammation in animal arthritis. Sea buckthorn berry extract reduced radiation damage to mouse cells in another study.