Shea butter is definitely one of the most popular butters that can be used for cosmetic purposes. I also love shea butter, and I am always amazed by its soft and velvety skin after use. I rarely use it in its pure form, I prefer to combine it with other butters and oils to make the fat composition as diverse as possible.
Since shea butter is so popular, I'm curious to know if you really know it well. Test your knowledge
Source: Africa (where the word shea butter means life)
Obtaining: from the nuts of the shea tree or karite tree (Vitellaria paradoxa), which grows only in Africa. The nuts are reddish-brown in color and contain up to 50% fat. The fat is extracted by slowly boiling the ground nuts in water and cooking for several hours. The resulting slurry is dried in the sun, the liquid evaporates and the slurry turns into a thick paste. The fat is collected from the paste and then mixed to turn it into butter. We get unrefined shea butter. If the unrefined form of butter is further processed (using high temperature and possibly also using solvents (including hexane!), we get refined shea butter.
Color, smell, texture: Unrefined shea butter is characterized by an ivory, creamy color, the shade of which varies with each harvest. The natural smell is slightly nutty, smoky, and to some it is slightly animalistic. It is soft and flexible, and can be squeezed between the fingers without difficulty. It melts when it comes into contact with the skin. The refined form of shea butter is a little different, and is white in color and has no odor. The butter is also soft and melts nicely when it comes into contact with the skin.
Composition: Butter contains several fatty acids (the composition always depends on the season and geography of origin): oleic, stearic, linoleic and palmitic fatty acids. It also contains unsaponifiables, of which vitamin E, terpenoids and phenols are the most abundant. Unfortunately, unsaponifiables are lost during the refining process, which prolongs the stability of the butter.
Usage: Both refined and unrefined forms of shea butter can be used to care for our skin. The unrefined form certainly has an advantage because of all the additional substances it contains that are beneficial for our skin, but many people are bothered by the color, and especially the smell, of the unrefined form of butter. Shea butter is therefore considered one of the best fats for the care of dry, dull, irritated and allergy-prone skin. If we have the unrefined form available, it is even attributed with regenerative abilities, it is said to help restore the damaged lipid barrier of the skin, and its protection factor (SPF) is said to be between 3 and 4.
CONCLUSION
And which shea butter do I use in my products? In my two products, MY BLACK SOAP (natural black soap) and MY BODDY BUTTER (natural body butter), I use refined shea butter that has an organic certificate. This means that refined shea butter is not obtained through controversial chemical refining processes with harmful solvents - it is especially important that there are no residues of harmful chemicals in the butter after processing. Although, if I could choose for myself, I would prefer to choose the unrefined form of the butter. Unfortunately, most users do not want to have it on their skin, mainly because of the pungent smell. But still: the refined form also has beneficial effects for your skin. If anyone is interested in the real thing, unrefined, hand-processed shea butter from Ghana, we invite you to visit their website Baraka shea butter: https://barakasheabutter.com/ .