“I’ve never had but one wrinkle, and I’m sitting on it,” Jeanne Louise Calment famously quipped. Jeanne Louise Calment was a French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human life span in history, living to the age of 122 years and 164 days.
Jeanne Louise rubbed Olive Oil into her skin on a daily basis and credited Olive Oil with her youthful appearance and longevity.
Olive trees are famous for their longevity and are amongst the oldest living things in the world. A grove of sixteen olive trees in Lebanon known as “The Sisters” or “The Sisters Olive Trees of Noah“ are estimated to be between 5,000 to 6,000 years old and still produce fruit and Olive Oil to this day.
Ancient civilizations revered the Olive for it’s longevity, life sustaining powers and skin regenerating properties. They believed that the qualities inherent in Olive trees, that allowed them to live for thousands of years, were contained in the fruit and oil of the tree. And that these qualities could be passed on to the peoples of the Earth who consumed Olives and it’s precious oil.
When the people of Athens asked the famous Greek philosopher Democritus, legendary for having lived more than one century himself, how to preserve one’s health and live a long life, he responded, “Let us bathe our insides in honey, and our exteriors in olive oil.”
