Sea Berry Therapy

About Sea Berry Therapy

Sea Berry Therapy is SIBU’s supplement line, and the whole range comes from one plant. Rather than a broad catalogue, it is sea buckthorn in two formats — a concentrated berry oil taken by the dropper, and a juice blend — with the same oil forming the base of the brand’s separate skincare products. SIBU works with the Turkestanica subspecies, hand-harvested from wild-grown plants in the high Himalayan valleys and CO2-extracted rather than solvent-extracted.

What sea buckthorn is

Sea buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) is a hardy thorny shrub that fruits in dense clusters of small orange berries. It is unusual among fruits in that both the berry pulp and the seed yield oil, and the two are different: pulp oil is where the omega-7 concentrates, while seed oil runs higher in omega-3 and omega-6. It also goes by sea berry, seaberry and sallowthorn, which is why the same plant turns up under several names.

Omega-7

Omega-7 is palmitoleic acid, a monounsaturated fatty acid. It is uncommon in the diet — the main food sources are macadamia nuts and some fish — and sea buckthorn pulp is one of the few concentrated plant sources, which is most of the reason the berry is sold as a supplement at all. It is a different fatty acid family from the omega-3s in fish oil, not a substitute for them.

Oil and juice

The oil is the concentrated form, taken by the dropper, and it is where omega-7 sits at its highest proportion. The juice blend is the berry as a drink, diluted and mixed with other fruit, so it is a lower concentration in a form people find easier to take daily. Neither is stronger by definition — compare what is on the label.

Sourcing and the T7 designation

Sea buckthorn oil is widely adulterated, because demand outruns a difficult, hand-picked supply and much of the world’s material is diluted before it reaches a bottle. SIBU’s response is to run its own lab testing and to market a T7 designation for its Turkestanica oil. The berries are hand-harvested from wild-grown plants at roughly 12,000 feet in the Himalayas and CO2-extracted. Sea Berry Therapy products at Vitamart are licensed for sale in Canada — look for the NPN on the label — and ship from our Ontario warehouse.