African Shea Butter

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Healthy Smooth Skin and...
Help Women In African Communities.

If you've done any shopping for skin care products lately you've probably seen African shea butter or shea butter being used in more products lately.

Companies large and small are using this ingredient in shampoos, face, hand and body creams, soaps and more. African shea butter used in its natural form offers some wonderful benefits some of which can be lost when commercially processed or as is often the case it is combined with chemical additives, preservatives and fragrances.

From Shea Nuts To Shea Butter

The Shea Tree grows in the harsh, dry African Savannah of West Africa, some areas in East Africa and nowhere else in the world. This includes areas in Ghana, Mali, Togo and Nigeria.

In this rough environment the shea trees grows best in the wild without human intervention. It can not be cultivated and is truly unique to this climate alone. The trees live 200 years. Around the tree's 15th year it begins to bear dark green fruit which contain the shea nut and are fully producing by 25 years old.

It is a protected species but the lack of cheap sources of fuel in these regions can lead to cutting trees for firewood and they are sometimes burned to clear land for farming. The lack of education about environmental sustainability is a problem.

It is a valuable resource for the women of West Africa, providing hundreds of thousands of them involved in the harvesting and processing of shea a means of survival in a harsh difficult environment.

Unfortunately much of the shea butter currently on the market today is not fair trade. Without the benefits of fair trade standards being followed women can labor all week long producing shea and may receive less than $1.00 for a weeks work.

The traditional extraction of shea butter from the shea nut is a very labor intensive process. The nuts are picked, sun dried, shelled by hand then boiled where the butter rises to the surface and is scooped into gourds and allowed to cool. Newer methods of expressing the butter through grinding have been giving a quicker clean extraction.

Much of the African shea butter on the market today has been refined. A chemical called Hexane, a by-product of gasoline, is used to dissolve the shea nuts. The product is boiled to remove the solvents though traces can remain. It is then bleached and deodorized using other chemicals.

Preservatives are added and sometimes antioxidants, producing a white uniform color with no scent and an extended shelf life. By this time much of the healing properties of shea have been greatly reduced.

Be wary of products claiming unrefined shea butter in their product unless they give the exact percentages it may contain very small amounts while the bulk of the shea is refined.

The Secret To Beauty For Hundreds Of Years

Shea butter has been used for hundreds of years. It has been found to provide healing, nourishing, enriching, toning, protective qualities for the skin and surprisingly also is used as a decongestant and anti-inflammatory.

Studies have shown shea butter provides protection against environmental damage. Women in this hot, dry, sunny region have been using it for years to take care of their skin. It has also been shown to provide some real benefits for anti aging.

The Beauty Of Unrefined Shea Butter

Fresh natural African shea butter is smooth and usually soft, it stiffens with age but remains smooth. It melts in the sun or with heat but returns to solid when cooled. It doesn't have a shelf life but the healing properties are greatest within the first year to year and a half.

Fresh unrefined shea is light grey turning to yellow with a mild natural scent that diminishes with time. It is loaded with vitamins, minerals, proteins and fatty acids that are most effective when shea butter is used in it's natural form.

Through the years I have used many commercially made moisturizers and even though they advertised to be so great with all these wonderful additions of the healing and moisturizing benefits of aloe or cocoa butter and now shea, I really don't notice a difference. They all seem the same.

The great qualities of many of these natural ingredients seem to be lost in the processing. I now prefer to use the freshest, purest most natural ingredients. Those made with minimum processing and no unnecessary chemicals and preservatives.

Why Is Fair Trade African
Shea Butter So Important?

According to the Global Alliance for Community Empowerment, large corporations worldwide with tremendous buying power control the price of shea nuts and frequently the prices paid do not equal a living wage. The extensive labor these women do is not factored in. Many times the price set is for the raw material and much of that money is lost to the middlemen.

Ways to provide an income for their families is so limited that women often have no choice than to accept what's offered. And to make matters worse the processing and refining of shea nuts is frequently done outside the country further eliminating potential employment.

The U.N. Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) researchers have found that the greatest potential for women in these regions is to produce and market the African shea butter themselves.

Working together women's groups pool their resources. Women in these areas already have an extensive knowledge of shea butter and with help learn organizational, educational and environmental knowledge giving them more of a voice in their own communities and helping them to have access to the world market.

Alaffia African Shea Butter

Many companies offer African shea butter but one company that not only strives to provide high quality, natural shea but is an African owned producer and distributor providing fair trade shea butter.

Agbanga Karite/Alaffia is a member controlled shea butter cooperative whose members bring their skills passed down through generations to the harvesting and the production shea butter and other sustainable ingredients. No middleman to deal with here.

Alaffia, a skin care company located in Washington takes these unrefined products and use them to create their skin care products. They have committed to providing the members of the cooperative with fair trade wages along with other benefits both for the member and the community.

My Experience Using African Shea Butter Products from Alaffia

I have been using their products for quite awhile now and have been very pleased with how they work. I have tried Night Radiance Face Cream, Rooibos and Shea Butter Antioxidant Face Cream and Shea Butter Moisturizing Lotion. These creams absorb easily, do not feel greasy and make my skin feel soft and supple.

I enjoy the barely noticeable fragrance from Ylang Ylang essential oil used in the face creams, for the most part I don't care for fragrance in face cream but this is so mild and dissipates rapidly, along with the fresh, mild scent of lavender and mint essential oils used in the body lotion.

As I have mentioned elsewhere my preference is to use organic products but Alaffia creates such nice skin care products, takes great pride in their ingredients, has concerns for the environment and works to empower women and communities in Africa. It's a hard to beat combination for me and it doesn't hurt that they are reasonably priced fine skin care.

Check out the selection of healthy moisturizing products on their website at Alaffia or to buy pure unrefined African Shea Butter wholesale go to Agbanga Karite. Lots of great information and wonderful products.

We all want to have beautiful, soft skin and if we are conscious shoppers we can have that in the safest most natural way possible. If you could make purchases that help change the lives of women who like ourselves want nothing more than to provide the best they can for themselves and their family, wouldn't you do that? Look for fair trade African shea butter and help make a difference.