Ohhhhh So Shea (butter)

Karate Tree from which Shea Butter is harvested

 Shea Butter ( Butyrospermum parkii) comes from a tree that grows wild in the savannas (grasslands) of western and central Africa.  These magnificent trees do not need any irrigation, fertilizer or toxic pesticides to produce copious amounts of fruit.  Because they are native to this environment these trees are also resistant to the fires that sweep the savannas every dry season.   

Shea Nuts before harvest

 Shea butter is quite possibly one of the worlds most sustainable natural resources.  Shea trees are wild and are not grown in plantations.  There are two reasons why efforts to start Shea plantations have failed.  First, Shea trees do not germinate easily and have proven not viable in crowded plantation settings.  Second, it takes 25 years for Karate trees to reach production maturity.  For these reasons Shea remains a wild-craft product.  This is a hand harvested and hand produced nut butter.  The people of western and central Africa are in control of this precious resource and over-harvesting is very rare.

Steamed and Dried Shea Nut

The process of collecting and turning Shea nuts into a usable butter is a very labor intensive task. Women and children often have to walk upwards of 10 miles a day searching for and collecting nuts.  Almost all of the nuts are carried back to the villages in baskets worn upon the head.  These baskets can hold up to 100 lbs of Shea nuts per load. Only after this trek, comes the time consuming process of rendering the fat from these precious fruits.  First the nuts are sorted through, selecting only the healthy nuts for production. After selection, the fruits are steamed to shrink the kernel inside.  Shells are pealed away by hand thus revealing the tender fruit inside.  This fruit is set aside and dried under the hot African sun for many hours. This dry time is crucial to ensure that the Shea nut maintains it's shelf life of 5 years time.  Once again the dried nuts are sent for inspection to remove undesirable kernels. The remaining kernels are crushed in a large wooden mortar with an electrical grinder (for wealthier villages).  The crushed Shea kernels are slightly grilled to reduce water content
and then ground down further into powder form.  Clean potable water is added to the powdered Shea nuts and whipped by hand until the color changes, anywhere from 1-3 hours. Warm water is occasionally added, causing the Shea fats to rise to the surface and separate from the non-oil portions. Once collected, the Shea fats are heated slightly to a liquid form once more and put in a gravity filter thus filtering into a clean basin to cool.  This process from time of first selection to end product is 10-14 hours in length.  Due to the length of time and amount of work needed to render this precious resource is the reason why it is so important to buy fair-trade products,  and fairly compensated for ingredients. 

Process of hand stirring Shea butter

Unrefined Raw Shea Butter along side dried Shea kernels

      

Unrefined Shea butter has been used for centuries among the African people and has a rich history of it's own. Shea butter is mentioned in almost all African historical documents, including a reference as early as Cleopatra's Egypt.  Today pure unrefined, unadulterated Shea Butter has many beneficial uses.  It has been shown effective for helping skin against climate and UV aggressions, preventing wrinkle formation, slowing signs of aging by providing natural collagen, it soothes irritated, dry, chapped skin and hair, helps heal blemishes and diaper rash, and is a substantial moisturizer for the epidermal layer of skin.  Shea butter also enhances cell regeneration and capillary circulation which helps in the prevention of stretchmarks, inflammation, scarring and accelerates wound healing. In addition to all of this Shea butter also has a natural 6 SPF.  Shea butter is filled with micro nutrients and vitamins such as Vitamin A (which gives it the rich yellow tint), Vitamin E, Vitamin F (which contain our omega 3, 6, and 9's) .

Refined Shea Butter

One can find Shea Butter on ingredient lists through out the beauty industry today.  This highly prized and highly potent, age old nut butter has made it's debut in a very large way across Europe and through out America.  However, most of the Shea butter available on the market and in products has been "refine" to remove the natural scent and color of natural or unrefined Shea butter.  In this process, the majority of the healing properties are removed and or destroyed.  Furthermore,  during this process of "refinement" usually hexane or other petroleum solvents are used, the extracted oil is boiled (in temperatures upwards of 400 degrees, which kills and devalues the natural vitamin content) then the oil is refined, bleached and deodorized with chemicals such as sodium hydroxide.  Leaving the end product lacking in its natural goodness and with the addition of harsh chemical residues.  The healing effects and potency of refined Shea Butter is greatly reduced through these processes with the only added benefit being it "near white color".  It is important to know and understand what ingredients are in the products we choose to support, how these ingredients are handled, and in this case when Shea Butter is no longer really the Shea Butter we thought it was.

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