Shea Butter is extracted from the nuts of the African Shea Tree, located in West Africa. Northern Ghana, to be precise, is where you will find a community of women who work hard to produce organic, unrefined Shea Butter.
How Is Shea Butter Made?
Here is how Shea Butter is made from beginning to end. The African Shea Butter tree produces nuts, and the nuts are plucked, and the process begins. The nuts are then put in a large pot, where they bring it to a boil. The boiling process makes it easy for the nuts to be extracted from the shell. The extraction is done by hand and can be time-consuming and tedious. Often, the community women gather around to do this work in groups and make it a social affair. The nuts are extracted, washed, dried, and sorted for the best A-grade nuts.
The nuts are then taken to the crushing mill to be crushed. After they are crushed, the nuts are then roasted to release their high-quality oils. The roasted nuts are spread out on the ground to release moisture. The roasted, crushed seeds are then taken back to the crushing mill to be crushed a second time.
During the second crushing process, the nut comes out as a thick liquid substance. The viscous liquid substance is mixed with clean water, and the mixing/whipping process is done until there is a coagulated oil at the surface, which then becomes shea butter.
This is a demanding process, but the women in Northern Ghana do this in groups and make an income to help their community.
Benefits Of Using Shea Butter
Shea Butter is loved by a lot of people, both men and women can use it, and it has incredible benefits for both skin and hair.
Use Shea Butter To Moisturize Your Skin: Apply Shea Butter to dry skin to help moisturize, nourish, soften, and soothe your skin. You can use Shea Butter both in the summer and winter months. Shea Butter contains Linoleic acid, which is known to treat dry skin and boost hydration. It also has anti-inflammatory properties to help soothe the skin.
Hydrate And Nourish The Hair: If you have natural hair, Shea Butter will hydrate and repair your hair. To seal moisture in your hair, you can apply a cream moisturizer first to your hair and then follow with melted Shea Butter to help seal in moisture in your hair. This keeps your hair soft and manageable.
Use Shea Butter To Reduce Wrinkles: Wrinkles are caused by free radicals, and Shea Butter is anti-oxidant rich, which fights off the free radicals that cause wrinkles and fine lines. It contains vitamins a, e, and f that aids to boosts blood circulation to help generate new healthy skin cells.
Fade Dark Spots With Shea Butter: If you suffer from acne scars, Shea Butter is a natural alternative to getting rid of your hyperpigmentation. Raw Shea Butter has anti-inflammatory properties which when applied to acne scars on the skin helps to minimize the appearance of the scar by encouraging newer and healthy skin cells to grow.
Use Shea Butter To Treat Eczema And Psoriasis: Eczema and psoriasis are inflammatory skin conditions, and with Shea Butter’s anti-inflammatory properties, it helps to soothe and relieve the skin from these skin conditions. To treat these itchy skin conditions, use unrefined Shea Butter, which is safe for all skin types, has anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antibacterial, and antifungal properties.
The best Shea Butter to buy is unrefined, which contains all it’s highest quality nutrients while the refined Shea Butter goes through a high heat process that removes its natural nutty scent, gives it a white color, loses its natural benefits, chemicals are added, plus it has a longer shelf life.
Have you used African Shea Butter? How did you like it?
