« Be You, Do Watcha Do | Main | Scratchy Soap »
September 10, 2005
Butter Me Up!
Cocoa Butter, Mango Butter, Brazil Nut Butter, so many butters! Which butter is best?
Good ol' shea butter, of course! Shea butter comes from the nuts of the Shea-Karite tree which is only found in Africa. The traditional way of extracting shea butter is as follows:
- the nuts are picked, cracked open, grilled, and then pounded.
- after pounding, they're boiled in water for hours until the shea butter rose to the surface.
- then it's scooped into gourds and left to cool down and "set." Shea Butter is solid at room temperature although it quickly liquefies right around body temperature.
Forget using cocoa butter to treat and prevent stretch marks; shea butter has way more moisturizing properties than any vegetable butter. It's full of vitamins A, E, and F which nourish and protect the skin from damage (i.e. from the sun) and dryness. Not only is shea butter great for skin, but it's also great for the hair and scalp. That's right, it also protects hair from damage (i.e. from coloring or heat styling) and moisturizes the scalp.
There are so many products that include shea butter in the ingredients, but never enough to reap any benefits from it. That's why I use 100% pure shea butter, nothing added, nothing taken away. I use it as an eye cream, lip blam, cuticle blam, body balm, everything! Note, not all shea butters are the same. There's a difference between East African Shea Butter and West African Shea Butter. There's also different types of shea butters: raw, refined, and highly refined.
NOTE: Since it is a natural product, shea butter can vary greatly in color, smell, and quality depending on where and how it was extracted.
There is some confusion as to which shea butter is better: West African (Vitellaria Paradoxa) or East African (Vitellaria Nilotica). Here are the differences between East and West African Shea Butter:
East African (Ugandan) Shea Butter
Higher in olein (the liquid part of the Shea Butter) - Because of this, East African Shea Butter is softer and more fragrant than West African Shea Butter. The product is highly valued and gives Ugandan women farmers over five times the amount received by their West African counterparts.Lower in saturated fatty acids - This results in a higher absorption rate. Ugandan Shea Butter is excellent for dry knees, elbows, rough hands and dry scalp. It is especially helpful for dry scalp, dermatitis eczema, sunburn and as a lip balm.
Lower in vitamin A and less sterols - Not as effective for stretch marks.
West African Shea Butter
Higher in vitamin A - More effective in prevention of stretch marks.
The differences between raw, refined and highly refined Shea Butter lie in how the Shea Butter is extracted from the nut and how it is processed after that. Manual extraction processes leave more of the raw ingredients in the Shea Butter. After it is extracted, it can be further refined removing color and impurities that some people don't like. This further refining can also remove some of the smell. You can think of the difference between raw Shea Butter and refined Shea Butter as being similar to the difference between wheat bread and white bread. Truly raw Shea Butter can even be unfiltered. That is one end of the spectrum. On the other end, there is Shea Butter that is extracted using chemicals that is pure white, has no smell and has lost a lot of its healing properties in the process.
Thanks to Treasured Locks for the information.
Raw Shea Butter
Refined Shea Butter
Posted by *Tammy on September 10, 2005 01:20 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.dodoskido.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1806
