Sudsy & Company

Benefits of Shea Butter

As I have mentioned many times before, shea butter is one of the main ingredients that I use in my soaps. I love when I go to make my soaps, butters or balms and opening up the container it comes in.  It smells amazing all on its own. It has an earthy, organic, nutty smell. I love it! I always go on and on about my products containing shea butter and how wonderful they are for your skin. I will go a little more in depth about what shea butter is, the wonderful things in contains, and how amazing it is for your skin!

Shea butter is a fat that is taken from the nut of the African Shea Tree.  It is off-white in color and has the consistency of cookie dough! (But it's not sticky) In Africa, it is used in food preparation and it is edible. The Shea Butter I use comes from Ghana.

Accounts from as far back as Cleopatra's time where her caravans would contain jars of valuable shea butter for cosmetic uses. The history of Shea Butter can be traced back to ancient Egypt where it was and still is used to protect the skin and hair from the extremely drying conditions of the fiercely hot sun and drying winds of the dessert and savannah of Africa. The process to get the Shea Nut to butter is not a quick one.  Below I pulled some information from Wikipedia to explain how it is done.

The traditional method of preparing unrefined shea butter consists of the following steps:^[10]

• Separating/cracking: The outer pulp of the fruit is removed. When dry, the nut, which is the source of shea butter, must be separated from the outer shell. This is a social activity, traditionally done by Women Elders and young girls who sit on the ground and break the shells with small rocks.
• Crushing: To make the shea nuts into butter, they must be crushed. Traditionally, this is done with mortars and pestles. It requires lifting the pestles and grinding the nuts into the mortars to crush the nuts so they can be roasted.
• Roasting: The crushed nuts are then roasted in huge pots over open, wood fires. The pots must be stirred constantly with wooden paddles so the butter does not burn. The butter is heavy and stirring it is hot, smoky work, done under the sun. This is where the slight smoky smell of traditional shea butter originates.
• Grinding: The roasted shea nuts are ground into a smoother paste, water is gradually added and the paste is mixed well by hand.
• Separating the oils: The paste is kneaded by hand in large basins and water is gradually added to help separate out the butter oils. As they float to the top, the butter oils, which are in a curd state, are removed and excess water squeezed out. The butter oil curds are then melted in large open pots over slow fires. A period of slow boiling will remove any remaining water, by evaporation.
• Collecting and shaping: The shea butter, which is creamy or golden yellow at this point, is ladled from the top of the pots and put in cool places to harden. Then it is formed into balls. (Wikipedia)

Shea Butter melts at body temperature.  It readily absorbs into the skin as a "refatting" agent. At 76 degrees or higher it will become soft, and in warm temps it will actually melt to pure liquid.  That is one of the reasons I cannot ship my butters in the warm months.  

So the next time you hear me going on and on about the large amounts of Shea Butter in my products at Heidi's Artisan Soap, you will understand why I am so excited that I have created such an awesome product that contains this great butter! The products that I make that have Shea Butter in them are Soap, Shea Balm, and Body Butters.  Give them a try, you won't be sorry! www.heidisartisansoap.com