Shea butter, the butter extracted from the shea nut, from, of course, the shea tree, comes in many different forms. When I first discovered shea butter, about four years ago – I remember because I ordered it to use with my firstborn - I purchased it online from some company or another. I was fascinated with the fact that shea butter seemed to be able to do it all and was gentle enough to use on infants. Well, imagine my surprise when I received my first order of shea butter and found out that it looked and smelled like yellow Play-Doh. Of course, my first thought was, if shea butter was so great, then why is it so hard and so difficult to actually apply to the baby’s skin? I scooped out a bit of shea butter and tried to use it, but it was just too hard to spread!!
Fast forward about two years and the arrival of my daughter. As I described in the previous post, she developed eczema at the nine month mark and I was frantic. It was bleeding and weepy and it just devastated me to see her beautiful skin destroyed! Back to the computer and again, I threw “shea butter” into the search engine…and found a few bulleting boards talking about this stuff called whipped shea butter. Well, a whole new world opened to me – I started whipping shea butter with avocado oil, with coconut oil, with evening primrose oil – and discovered that these concoctions, with the base of shea butter, actually helped my daughter’s (and the rest of my family’s) skin.
Shea butter’s benefits vary with the type of shea butter used. Refined shea butter is pure white and sometimes grainy – that is when you smooth it on the skin, one feels little pellets or beads. These are tiny bits of shea butter that need extra rubbing to melt into your skin. Refined shea butter has many of the natural nutrients bleached out, thus resulting in the pure white color. Refined shea, in my opinion, is used when the person wants to have the label appeal of shea butter in their product, but does not want to deal with the variations in color or smell of natural shea butter.
Now, as I write about smell, I can hear people thinking – how should shea butter smell? Believe me; I have purchased shea butter that smelled like the bottom of an old ashtray. The smell of cigarettes on this shea butter was so strong that even the best fragrance oil could not cover it!! Eventually through trial and error and by reading bulletin boards about who had the best shea butter, I learned to purchase only from vendors who had consistent quality. The shea butter I use is unrefined and is through a fair trade vendor. My shea butter is unrefined, is a creamy off white color, and has a very, very slight nutty odor – it is so faint that you’d have to put your nose practically in the container to smell it. It’s great for making whipped shea butter as well as balms andr.
First of all, a little research. Shea butter comes from the shea nut, a tree found most commonly in West African, i.e. Ghana, Togo, Nigeria and Ivory coast. These trees are located on the savannah in both the fields and the forests. According to abangakarite.com, shea butter can be used as a decongestant, cooking oil and a skin healing salve. Shea butter is high in oleic acid as well as vitamins A and E, which are very good for the skin.
In my own experience, shea butter has helped greatly with my daughter's eczema. I tried many commericial preparation, short of prescription medication, but my creations with shea butter, cocoa butter and virgin coconut oil helped her the most. In addition, I gave some whipped shea to my grandmother who claimed it helped lessen the pain of her arthritis. Shea butter is a mainstay in both my home and my products. I use my Megamix Whip whenever I see dry skin and I use it on my daughter twice a day, in the morning and the evening. The mixture's emoillent's keep her skin soft and supple, and no more scratching in the middle of the night!
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