African Shea Butter, the Super Ingredient for Glowing Skin

Shea butter is an African super ingredient that can help you achieve smooth, glowing skin this season. As a popular natural ingredient used in the cosmetic industry, numerous top brands such as The Body Shop and French cosmetic company L’occitane use shea butter as a hero ingredient in many of their products.

Although a highly sought-after natural ingredient in many cosmetic formulations, it is also a fantastic single ingredient skin moisturizer. Meaning, it can be used on its own without the adding of extra cosmetic ingredients. In fact, raw shea butter has been used as a skin moisturizer in many parts of Africa for centuries. Not only is shea butter good for the skin, it is versatile and is perfect for the hair as well.

What are the benefits of African shea butter and how is it made?

Shea butter is a vegetable fat extracted from the kernels of the nuts of the shea tree which grows mainly in West and East Africa. The nuts are dried, crushed, roasted, milled, and hand-kneaded, and boiled to extract the butter.

Shea butter is packed with many skin-loving nutrients. It is rich in essential fatty acids such as oleic, palmetic, linoleic, arachidic, triglycerides, cetyl esters, and vitamins A, E, and F.

For example, vitamins A and E has been shown to promote anti-oxidant activity which protects the skin from free radicals that can lead to premature aging and dull-looking skin while the essential fatty acids help balance the oils on your skin and reduce inflammation.

For people with dry skin, shea butter is an excellent natural remedy. Shea butter’s emollient properties help trap moisture in the skin while soothing and smoothing dry, cracked, and flaky skin.