Borage Seed Oil Claims, Weighed Honestly

Sep 11, 2026

By Marianella

The honest summary is that borage seed oil is a reliable softening oil with more gamma-linolenic acid (GLA) than any other plant oil, and there is reasonable evidence that GLA helps skin hold on to moisture. The bigger claims you will read, that it calms reactive skin, rebuilds collagen or is the "gold standard" botanical, rest mostly on capsule studies, animal work or medical trials with mixed results. Here is how the evidence sorts out, from solid to shaky.

What is well established

Start with the chemistry, which nobody disputes. Borage seed oil is pressed from the seeds of Borago officinalis, the blue-flowered herb known as starflower, and GLA makes up roughly 20 to 26 percent of it. That is about two to three times the GLA in evening primrose oil, the plant oil it is most often compared with.

It is also well established that GLA is an omega-6 fatty acid, that skin has little ability to make GLA for itself, and that fatty acids of this kind belong to the lipid layer between skin cells that keeps water in. Cold pressing keeps those fatty acids intact; heat and light degrade them. And on skin, borage is a light, fairly dry oil that absorbs without a greasy feel. None of that is controversial.

The capsule study everyone cites

The most quoted human numbers come from a study of 29 healthy older adults, average age 68.6, who took borage oil capsules every day for two months, supplying 360 or 720 milligrams of GLA. By the end, the water their skin lost to the air had fallen by 10.8 percent on average. The share of participants who described their skin as dry fell from 42 percent to 14 percent.

Those are real, cosmetic results, and they fit the idea that GLA supports skin's moisture barrier. Three things are worth keeping in mind, though:

It was a capsule, not a cream. The oil was swallowed, so the study says more about diet than about a product you put on.
It was small. Twenty-nine people is a starting point.
Not everything moved. Moisture loss improved, but the study did not measure a significant change in skin hydration itself.

When an article quotes these numbers to sell a borage face oil, it is borrowing them from a different kind of study.

What the animal and lab work adds

In a guinea pig study, animals fed borage oil built more of a GLA product into the ceramides and other lipids of their outer skin than animals fed comparison oils. Ceramides are the main lipids holding the skin barrier together, so this is a plausible explanation of how GLA might help. It is still an animal study.

Lab tests have also found antioxidant activity in compounds from borage, and some extracts slowed enzymes that break down collagen. Those tests used extracts made with solvents, not the pressed oil, and they were done in test tubes. They are interesting, but they are not evidence that a borage cream firms skin.

Where the evidence is mixed

Many of the strongest claims you will see, about calming chronically irritated or reactive skin, come from medical trials. Reviews of those trials found the results inconsistent: some showed a clear effect, a similar number showed none, and some were mixed. The fair reading is that borage oil may help some people and not others, and that it is not a reliable fix. Those are claims for doctors to weigh, and we do not make them for our products.

Claims that go too far

"Nature's most powerful soothing oil." Borage has the most GLA of any plant. That is not the same as being the most soothing, which no study has measured.
"Boosts collagen." Based on lab enzyme tests with extracts. Moisturized skin looks smoother; that is the supportable version.
"Every result shows it works." The trial record is mixed, as above.
"More GLA is always better." How a product feels and performs depends on its whole formula, not on one fatty acid.

So what can you expect?

Used regularly in a well-made cream or oil, borage seed oil should help dry skin feel softer, more supple and more comfortable, and over several weeks it may help skin hold water a little better. That is a modest promise, and a worthwhile one.

It is also how we use it. Borage seed oil is one of the oils in our Hydrating Hand Cream with Kalahari Oil and our Rejuvenating Body Cream with Kalahari Oil, where it adds suppleness beside Kalahari melon seed, jojoba, avocado and argan oils. We describe what it does in those terms and no bigger ones. You can read our plain description of borage in the Ingredient Library.

What to look for in a borage product

Cold-pressed oil. Heat damages the fragile fatty acids that make borage worth using.
A leave-on format. A cream or oil stays on skin; a wash rinses off.
A considered blend. Fatty acids tend to work best alongside other oils and humectants such as glycerin and aloe.
Careful storage. Borage oil is highly unsaturated, so the product should be kept closed, cool and out of the sun.
Modest claims. A label that promises to fix skin conditions is promising more than the evidence supports.

Questions people ask about the borage evidence

Is borage oil better taken as a capsule or used on the skin?

Both have been studied, and many of the human numbers come from capsules. We only use borage on skin, in our hand and body creams, where it works as a softening oil, and we make no claims about supplements.

Is borage seed oil safe to use every day?

For most people, yes, in a finished cream or oil. As with any new product, try it on a small patch of skin first.

Does borage seed oil firm the skin?

There is no good evidence that it does. The firming claims come from lab tests on extracts. What it can do is leave skin moisturized, and moisturized skin looks smoother.