Korres Olive Oil: What the Greek Skincare Brand Actually Sells
If you searched for Korres olive oil expecting a Greek cooking oil, the honest answer is short: Korres does not sell one. Korres is a Greek beauty company, and everything it makes carrying the word "olive" is skincare, body care or haircare. We went through the full Korres catalogue on 21 August 2026 — every published product across skincare, body and hair, fragrance, suncare, colour and its apothecary range — and there is no edible olive oil in it. That is not a criticism. It is simply a different business. What Korres does publish about the olive oil inside its cosmetics is unusually specific, and worth reading, so this article covers both what they sell and what to buy if you actually want an oil for the kitchen.
For our own oil, see our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil — a single-estate Moroccan extra virgin oil meant for eating.
The Short Answer
- Korres is a Greek cosmetics and skincare company. Its own site organises the range as skincare, body and hair, fragrance, suncare, colour and apothecary — there is no food category.
- Every Korres product with "olive" in the name belongs to the Pure Greek Olive range: shower gels, body creams, hand creams, shampoo, conditioner, a body milk, an olive stone scrub and a 3-in-1 nourishing oil.
- The closest thing to "Korres olive oil" is the Pure Greek Olive 3-In-1 Nourishing Oil, 100ml — a face, body and hair oil, described by Korres as silky and silicone-free. It is a cosmetic formulation, not a bottle of olive oil.
- Korres names its supply chain in real detail: Cretan extra virgin olive oil of the Koroneiki variety, from the Organic Farmers Cooperative of Messara, plus hand-picked organic olive leaves from a named grower in the village of Zounaki. That is far more specificity than most cosmetic brands offer, and we credit it plainly.
- In the published INCI list for the 3-in-1 oil, Olea europaea fruit oil is the seventh ingredient, behind five emollients and a denatured alcohol. In the Olive Blossom hand cream it sits near the end of the list. That is normal for cosmetics and worth understanding rather than being alarmed by.
- Cosmetic olive oil and culinary olive oil are governed by different rules and specified in different ways. A cosmetic has no free acidity limit, no peroxide value, no sensory panel and no grade.
- Sidr & Stone's olive oil is a food: single-estate, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed within hours of harvest near Marrakech.
What Korres Actually Sells
Korres is a Greek brand whose site signs off "KORRES GREECE. NATURE. SCIENCE". Its shop navigation runs across skincare, body and hair, fragrance, suncare, colour cosmetics and an apothecary section. Nothing in it is a grocery product.
Filtering the whole catalogue for "olive" returns a coherent family of cosmetics rather than a scattering. Here is what the Pure Greek Olive range contains, as listed on the Korres site when we checked.
| Product | What it is | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Pure Greek Olive 3-In-1 Nourishing Oil | Face, body and hair oil | 100ml |
| Pure Greek Olive Body Cream | Body moisturiser, in Rosemary Flower, Fig and Honey Pear | 200ml |
| Pure Greek Olive Shower Gel | Wash, in Rosemary Flower, Fig, Honey Pear and Olive Blossom | 250ml |
| Pure Greek Olive Hand Cream | Hand moisturiser, in Olive Blossom and Sea Salt | 75ml |
| Pure Greek Olive Nourishing Shampoo | Shampoo for dry or damaged hair | 250ml |
| Pure Greek Olive Nourishing Conditioner | Conditioner for dry or damaged hair | 200ml |
| Olive Stones Scrub | Physical exfoliant using milled olive stones | 18ml |
| Pure Greek Olive Sea Salt Shower Gel + Body Milk Set | Gift set | Set |
If somebody has told you to try "Korres olive oil", they almost certainly mean the 3-in-1 nourishing oil. Korres describes it as "a silky, silicone-free oil for intensive nourishment to face, body and hair", and says it is "rich in extra virgin Olive oil and powered by a blend of vitamins C, E, F and ω-6 fatty acids". Those are the brand's own cosmetic claims, quoted rather than endorsed.
Where Korres Gets Its Olive Oil — and Why That Is Worth Crediting
Most cosmetic brands say "olive oil" and stop. Korres does not, and this is the part of their page that impressed us most.
On the 3-in-1 oil's own product page, Korres states that it cooperates "with the Organic Farmers Cooperative of Messara for the supply of Cretan extra virgin Olive oil of the predominant, supreme Koroneiki Olive variety", describing the cooperative as founded in the 1990s by a small group of farmers and the first of its kind on the island. It goes further and names an individual: in the village of Zounaki, a grower called Athanasia Papadantonaki supplies hand-picked organic olive leaves, described as a by-product of cultivation that would otherwise be discarded.
A named cooperative, a named region, a named cultivar and a named individual grower is a level of traceability that a lot of food brands do not reach. Koroneiki is a genuinely notable choice too — a small Greek olive with a strong reputation for phenolic content, which we cover in our guide to Koroneiki olive oil. We are not going to pretend a skincare company has done something unimpressive here. It has not.
What the Ingredient List Actually Says
Cosmetic ingredient lists are printed in descending order of concentration down to 1%, which makes them more informative than most people realise. Korres publishes the full INCI list for each product, which is itself a good practice.
| Product | Position of Olea europaea fruit oil | What comes before it |
|---|---|---|
| Pure Greek Olive 3-In-1 Nourishing Oil 100ml | 7th of the published list | C13-15 alkane, cocoglycerides, octyldodecanol, isoamyl laurate, coco-caprylate, alcohol denat. |
| Pure Greek Olive Hand Cream, Olive Blossom 75ml | Near the end of the published list | Water, glycerin, glyceryl stearate, caprylic/capric triglyceride, ethylhexyl palmitate, shea butter and others |
This is not a gotcha, and it should not be read as one. A cosmetic oil that was purely olive oil would feel heavy, oxidise faster and behave badly on hair. The lighter esters and alkanes at the top of that list are what make the product silky and quick-absorbing, and formulating that way is ordinary cosmetic science. Both products also contain olive-derived cosmetic ingredients further down — hydrogenated ethylhexyl olivate and hydrogenated olive oil unsaponifiables in the 3-in-1 oil, and olive leaf extract in the hand cream.
The useful conclusion is simply this: a Korres "olive oil" is a formulated cosmetic in which olive oil is one meaningful component among many. If what you wanted was a bottle of olive oil, this is not that, and the label is honest about it if you read the list. Our piece on Olea europaea oil explains what the INCI name means wherever you meet it.
Cosmetic Olive Oil and Culinary Olive Oil Are Not the Same Product
The two are made from the same fruit and diverge almost immediately after that.
| Cosmetic olive oil | Culinary extra virgin olive oil | |
|---|---|---|
| What governs it | Cosmetics law — safety assessment, INCI labelling | Food law — grade standards and compositional limits |
| Grade | No grade concept | Extra virgin, virgin, refined, lampante |
| Free acidity limit | None | 0.8% or lower for extra virgin |
| Peroxide value | Not specified | Specified; premium oils run well under the ceiling |
| Sensory panel | Not applicable | Required — an oil with a sensory defect is not extra virgin |
| Harvest date | Rarely relevant or given | The single most useful date on the bottle |
| Typical form | One component in a formulation | The entire contents of the bottle |
There is one further difference that matters for anyone tempted to shortcut the whole thing by putting culinary oil straight onto their face. The evidence on neat olive oil applied to skin is more mixed than the tradition suggests, and it is not automatically the gentler option. We go through what is known and what is not in our article on olive oil for skin, including the honest risks. It is a reasonable thing to try; it is not a guaranteed improvement on a formulated product, and a brand like Korres is solving real formulation problems rather than inventing them.
The Objections Worth Taking Seriously
"You are marking a skincare brand down for not selling food." We are not, and we want to be clear about it. Korres has never claimed to sell a culinary oil. The confusion is created by the search term, not by the company. On the things Korres does control — naming its cooperative, naming the cultivar, publishing full INCI lists — it performs better than most of its category.
"Does the position on the ingredient list really matter?" Less than people assume, and more than nothing. Below 1%, ingredients can be listed in any order, so a low position does not always mean a trace. What the list does tell you reliably is the shape of the formulation: in the 3-in-1 oil, six things sit above the olive oil, so the product's feel is being built by esters and alkanes rather than by olive oil alone. That is worth knowing if you were expecting a single-ingredient oil.
"If Korres uses Koroneiki oil, isn't the cosmetic as good as a food oil?" Not in the sense that matters. Cosmetic-grade material is not held to a grade standard, a free acidity ceiling or a sensory panel, and there is no requirement to declare a harvest date. The Cretan sourcing is genuinely good; it just is not the same kind of assurance as a food specification. For what those look like, see what extra virgin olive oil actually is.
Why Sidr & Stone
We write brand articles by reading the brand's own pages, and Korres rewards that more than most. Where a company publishes something we do not — a named cooperative, a named cultivar — we say so rather than skate past it. Our own transparency work is not finished either, and pretending otherwise would be the wrong lesson to take from an article about reading labels carefully.
What we can state about our oil, plainly:
- Single-estate — one family-owned grove on the plains outside Marrakech, Morocco, with no blending across origins.
- Rain-fed — no irrigation; the trees take what the season gives them.
- Organically grown — no synthetic fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides. We do not hold a formal organic certificate and we do not claim one.
- Single harvest — a small batch, once a season, picked when the fruit is ready rather than when the calendar says so.
- Cold-pressed within hours of harvest — flavour, aroma and polyphenols preserved by keeping the gap between picking and pressing short.
- Unfiltered extra virgin — minimally processed, and it may show natural sediment, which is normal.
- 100% natural — one ingredient, and nothing added.
- Dark glass with a gold label — protective packaging against light.
- Halal certified, with 10% of profits to charity as a brand-wide commitment, and fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
We will not tell you Sidr & Stone is the best olive oil — that would be exactly the sort of claim this article is asking you to distrust. What we will say is that our oil is single-estate Moroccan, rain-fed, organically grown and cold-pressed within hours of harvest, that it is meant to be eaten, and that the evidence of the care is in the taste, the colour and the size of the season's batch. Olive oil is honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah, which we write about separately in our guide to olive oil in the Quran and the Sunnah.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Korres sell olive oil you can cook with?
No. Korres is a Greek cosmetics company. We reviewed its full published catalogue on 21 August 2026 and found no edible olive oil. Every olive product belongs to its Pure Greek Olive skincare, body and hair range.
What is Korres Pure Greek Olive 3-In-1 Nourishing Oil?
A 100ml cosmetic oil for face, body and hair. Korres describes it as silky and silicone-free, containing extra virgin olive oil alongside vitamins C, E and F and omega-6 fatty acids. It is a formulation, not a bottle of olive oil.
Where does the olive oil in Korres products come from?
Korres states that it sources Cretan extra virgin olive oil of the Koroneiki variety from the Organic Farmers Cooperative of Messara, and hand-picked organic olive leaves from a grower in the village of Zounaki, Crete.
Is olive oil the main ingredient in Korres olive products?
Not usually. In the published INCI list for the 3-in-1 nourishing oil, Olea europaea fruit oil is the seventh ingredient. In the Olive Blossom hand cream it appears near the end. That is normal cosmetic formulation, not a shortcoming.
Can I use culinary olive oil on my skin instead?
You can, and people have for centuries, but the evidence on neat olive oil applied to skin is genuinely mixed and it is not automatically gentler than a formulated product. Our article on olive oil for skin sets out both sides.
Is Koroneiki a good olive variety?
It has a strong reputation. Koroneiki is a small Greek olive widely valued for its phenolic content and robust flavour, and it is one of the cultivars most associated with high-phenolic Greek oils. Korres names it explicitly, which is more than most cosmetic brands do.
What should I buy if I wanted a Greek-style olive oil for the kitchen?
Look for extra virgin grade, a printed harvest date, dark glass and a stated origin. Cultivar names such as Koroneiki or Kalamata are a useful signal. Our guide to choosing a quality olive oil goes through the checks in order.
Is olive oil a medicine?
No. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine. It has a long traditional history — including being honoured in the Prophetic Sunnah — and a substantial body of modern research, particularly around polyphenols, cardiovascular health, and the Mediterranean diet pattern. It can be a worthwhile part of a healthy routine, but it does not cure diseases and is not a substitute for medical care. Be cautious of any olive oil marketed with specific disease-cure claims.
Final Thoughts
"Korres olive oil" is one of those searches where the honest answer is a correction rather than a recommendation, and the correction is not a disappointment. Korres makes cosmetics, it makes them with Cretan Koroneiki oil from a cooperative it is willing to name, and it prints the whole ingredient list so you can see exactly where that oil sits. Judged as what it is, the Pure Greek Olive range is a well-documented piece of work.
What it is not is a cooking oil, and no amount of Greek provenance changes that. The specifications that make a culinary oil worth buying — grade, free acidity, peroxide value, a sensory panel, a harvest date — do not exist in cosmetics, because they are not the right questions to ask of a hand cream.
So take the two things separately. If you want something for dry skin or damaged hair, Korres has a considered range and names its supply chain. If you want an olive oil to pour over bread, dress leaves with, or finish a dish, buy a food. Check the grade, check the harvest date, and check that somebody has told you where the olives grew. Our guide to choosing a quality olive oil is the short version of that list.
Our cold-pressed organic Marrakech olive oil — single-estate, rain-fed, organically grown and unfiltered — is available to pre-order. First harvest, estimated shipping from November 2026. Fulfilment in the UK, EU, and US.
Pre-Order Sidr & Stone Organic Marrakech Olive Oil — Limited First Harvest →
Disclaimer: This article describes the Korres product range, ingredient lists and sourcing statements as published on the brand's own website at the time of writing on 21 August 2026; formulations, ranges and sourcing may change, and readers should check current sources. Comparisons are made in good faith and in fair terms. References to Korres describe publicly published information and are not affiliated with or endorsed by Korres. Olive oil is a food, not a medicine, and is not a substitute for medical treatment of any condition. For any health concern, consult a qualified medical professional.