The Benefits of Shea Butter

You may have been catching some of the buzz about Shea butter recently. It seems to be cropping up in lotions and on product packaging all over the place, but in West Africa, they’ve been savvy to the benefits of Shea butter for centuries. West Africans consider Shea butter to be an important source of medicine, food, and profit for their communities.

Shea butter comes from the nuts of Karite nut trees, which are also called Mangifolia trees. These incredible trees can live for up to 300 years, and they don’t reach their peak levels of production until around 50 years. No wonder the tree is so respected and well cared-for: it’s an investment that pays out incredible dividends. Shea butter is sometimes called “women’s gold,” because so many women are employed in Shea butter production.

Shea butter can be eaten, and in some parts of Africa, it is. They use it to cook with, as a sort of local olive or vegetable oil, and occasionally it’s used in chocolate production as a cocoa butter substitute.

Fatty acid is present in high concentrations in Shea butter, which is why it’s so ideal for use in skin and hair care products. It also has a low melting point, meaning that when you spread it on your skin, it quickly melts and absorbs, with no greasy feeling afterwards.

Shea butter contains both Vitamins E & A, which makes it incredibly effective in treating skin issues like dry skin, eczema, blemishes, and wrinkles. It is effective in healing burns, diminishing scars and stretch marks, and relieving dandruff, as well as taming damaged, flyaway hair. It also has a natural built-in sun protector of around SPF 6, so it can be considered a total preventative and restorative package.

We use Community Trade Shea butter in quite a few of our products because we love the way it moisturizes and offers antioxidant protection. We purchase our Shea butter from the women of the Tunteiya Shea Butter Association, who in turn purchase Shea nuts from families who are too cut off to supply us with butter. Thus, the benefit of our Community Trade ideal is spread widely, providing more people with a vital source of income.

Shea butter is the sustainable, globally aware way to beautifully soft and healthy skin.

Tags: Shea butter

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 3:05 pm and is filed under Skin Care - Products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.