How Much Shea Butter Is In Your Beauty Product?

Growing enormously in the wooded areas of the West Africa’s Savanna vegetations are the world most best kept secret of natural skin beauty, wild Shea trees, or Butyrospermum parkii, as it is called in the world of cosmetics. Shea trees are the source from which Shea Butter are made.

Shea Butter, next to Aloe Vera, can be found in most beauty product in the world today. This sought after natural butter has many health benefits, both as a beauty product, and also as a cooking ingredient.

As a child growing up in Nigeria, I did not have an appreciation for Shea Oil/butter because of the smell. It has a mildy nauseating odor to it. I will always wonder how such a thing of beauty can also be so undesirable to the senses. Amazingly, it does wonders! Among its many uses are the following:

Pure shea butter is used for skin cleansing - When a baby is born, they usually have traces of fine hair called lanugo, and some greasy substance on their skin. In Nigeria, the baby gets wipe down from head to toe with pure shea butter, and sometimes palm oil. The baby is them washed down with pure black soap (another natural ingredient), or western processed baby soap as some today may prefer. It is believed that this first bath is a necessary ritual that helps get rid of what can be a lifetime of bad body odor.

Pure shea butter is used for cooking - The oil base in most traditional soup like egusi (a yoruba specialty) is pure shea butter. When use in cooking, pure Shea butter tastes good and odorless.

Pure shea butter is used as a healing ointment - Pure Shea butter has been used for centuries as a healing balm; to remove stretch marks, to help with swelling and joint pain, for hair care, and of course as a remedy for a healthier, glowing skin among others.

Shea butter in its purest state has a yellow tint to it (see image above). This color is due to the Vitamin A content of the oil/butter. It can sometimes be a creamy off-white color depending on the boiling process, or whether the root or the nut's fat is used.

Shea butter in its purest form can be found in the regions of West and Central Africa and other tropical regions of the world. In countries like Nigeria, Ghana, and Togo, it is sold in the open local markets, often for less than $0.50¢ per pound. Import fees and transportation cost to countries across the Atlantic drives the price up, so a pound of pure Shea butter can cost you somewhere around $10 to $14 here in the United States and Europe.

Shea butter can be found or bought in its purest form from most health stores and African Markets. You can also buy shea butter from online stores on Etsy, Amazon and other online stores.

Beauty conscious women and men alike will pay a lot of money for the purest of this natural oil/butter. But sadly enough, products that boast an inclusion of Shea butter in their ingredients almost don’t have enough of it, and sometimes even none of the Shea Butter needed to provide any of the benefit that pure Shea butter is known for. The reason for this is that for one to get the benefit of Shea Butter, it has to be in its purest form. That means; no additives, no coloring, and no bleaching. This is where beauty products manufacturers run into a problem.

Beauty product manufacturers are very much aware of the benefits of Shea butter in its purest form, but in other for Shea butter to be marketable here and in Europe, they needed to get rid of the smell. Because Shea Butter in its purest form has a very nauseating smell. Ever smell a new born baby’s poop? Shea butter has a somewhat similar odor. Nobody want to walk around smelling like that, so, to get rid of the smell, beauty products manufacturer introduces chemicals to remove the toxic solvent in the Shea butter, diluting and altering it in the process. Once tampered with, the Shea butter becomes an odorless, white butter that appeals to the senses, but lacks the moisturizing and healing properties of pure unrefined Shea butter.

So the next time you pick up a beauty product that boast Shea butter as one of its ingredients, beware! It may not be worth all that it's cracked up to be.

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©Comfort Babatola - 2011