Most castor oil on the market is processed with heat and chemical solvents like hexane — faster, cheaper, and higher yield. It's also how you end up with a diluted, lower-potency oil that still gets labeled "pure."
Cold-pressing skips the shortcuts. Seeds are pressed without added heat or solvents, which preserves more of the oil's natural fatty acid content — but produces a lower yield per batch. Lower yield means higher cost per bottle. That's the trade-off, and it's why a cold-pressed bottle will almost always cost more than a mass-produced one.
We'd rather sell a smaller bottle of the real thing than a bigger bottle of something cut to hit a lower price. That's the whole philosophy behind how we price the oil — and why we tell you exactly what's in the bottle instead of just asking you to trust the label.