Shea Butter: What Are Its Benefits

What Is Shea Butter Anyways?


I get lots of question about shea butter and its benefits.  Questions like: What is shea butter? Is it good for my hair and skin?  Can I moisturize my hair with it?  I will attempt to answer some questions you may have about shea butter and its benefits.

What is shea butter?
Shea Butter is extracted from the nuts of the Shea-Karite tree. It can take up to 30 years to bear a quality crop of nuts with a high content of irremovable fatty acid.  Most Shea butter comes from West Africa although East Africa has began harvesting shea butter as well.  Shea Butter is solid at room temperature and becomes liquid at body temperatures. This type of butter would be considered unrefined or raw.  Shea butter is a natural product, therefore the color and consistency can vary depending upon where and how it is harvested.

What does it look like?
Unrefined (raw) shea butter looks like the picture above. Refined shea butter looks pretty much the same but white in color and little more solid in consistency.  Raw shea butter has a mild nutty smell where refined shea butter has little or no smell at all.

Can I use it on my hair and skin?
Shea butter has proven healing and moisturizing properties that are a benefit to both hair and skin. 

• For Skin- It has been shown to relieve skin conditions like eczema, rashes, dry skin, sun burn, acne, minor burns, evening out skin tone, stretch mark prevention and softening dry skin and much more.
• For Hair- shea butter itself is not a moisturizer, however it does help to retain moisture in the hair and has an excellent source of vitamin A, E and F.

*When using shea butter for your hair, I would suggest applying a water based leave in conditioner or water based moisturizer of your choice and using the shea butter to seal in the moisture.  In my opinion oils and butters on their own are not "moisturizers" because that would imply that they contain water, therefore you should use a true moisturizing product prior to using it in order to get the maximum benefit.

Should I use Unrefined or Refined?
This really is a preference thing.  If the nutty smell of the unrefined butter isn't a problem for you, I'd recommend using the unrefined butter because the unrefined butter will have retained more of its vitamin and healing properties where as the refined butter's properties will have been compromised during the refining process.

Where can I buy it?
I buy my shea butter from a vendor at a local store in my area.  If you don't have access to local vendors, you may want to try Amazon.com or Ebay.com.  I've heard that there are some reputable dealers for shea butter there.  I suggest that you browse the customer reviews to get a feel for the quality of the product and the seller.