Whipped Shea Butter & Its Many Uses
By Lisa Maliga
Shea butter, also referred to as karite, which means
“life” has been used across the African continent for centuries. It
hails from Central and Western Africa. It’s actually a nut fat, as
it’s obtained from the fruit of the kernel.
Shea nuts are picked by women, then par-boiled, and
sun-dried for a week in order to dehydrate the nut. This increases
their storage time. The next step is to crush the dried fruit, in
order to remove the skin.
When the shea butter is hand crushed like this, it
retains all its numerous vitamins and minerals and the nutty, smoky
scent is naturally preserved. The color ranges from off white to gray
to golden brown to green, depending upon the maturity of the nut.
It’s always refined at least once, in order to remove
dirt, bits of gourd, or leaves, objects that would not be fun to apply
to your skin.
In Africa, shea butter is often used as a cooking
oil. Shea butter can also be used as a hair conditioner, as a way
to prevent sunburn pain, to soothe cracked, dry feet and hands, especially
during those skin-drying winter months or for those of you who live
in a dry climate.
According to noted soapmaker/author Susan Miller Cavitch,
in her 1995 book The Natural Soap Book, writes: “Shea butter is gentle
enough for babies and people with sensitive skin. It soothes and softens
dry chapped skin, while nourishing all skin types. I have come to
rely heavily upon shea butter for its effectiveness.”
She was using this wonderful substance, and including
it in her homemade soaps, long before most people in North America
had even heard of shea butter!
The texture of this life giving butter is smooth and
creamy. However, since the early part of this century, a new way to
make shea butter even more luxurious and soft is to blend it with
high quality plant and seed oils in order to create a whipped cream
like texture which glides onto your skin.
Whipped Shea Butter can be made by those who know
which combinations of oils and shea butter can be whipped together
to create that natural moisturizer your skin needs and yet not be
too heavy/greasy. Properly made whipped shea butter is light, creamy
and fluffy and resembles Cool Whip yet doesn’t need to be refrigerated.
In 2003 Google’s search engine returned only 80 matches
for whipped shea butter. Nowadays, it’s over 2000!
However, for those of you unfamiliar with this wonderful
product, whipped shea butter is always 100% natural, containing only
shea butter and vegetable/plant/seed oils and an antioxidant such
as vitamin E.
It can be found unscented or with added fragrances/essential
oils. Whipped Shea butter doesn’t have any type of wax, water, preservatives,
or petroleum/mineral oils. Whipped Shea Butter is always light, creamy
and fluffy, making it easily absorbed into your skin.
This is one of the most versatile products available
as it can be used as a hair conditioner, makeup remover, all-over
moisturizer, softens cuticles, and always soothes dry or chapped skin.
Lighter in weight than plain shea butter, whipped shea butter is a
sumptuous yet economical way to pamper the body’s largest organ –
your skin.
About The Author
Lisa Maliga has been designing natural bath & body
products since 1998 and this year has launched her company, Everything
Shea Aromatic Creations. Her love of shea butter, which is added to
all the soaps, prompted her to name her company after the moisturizing
and skin-soothing ingredient that comes from the nut of the African
shea tree.
Learn more about shea butter, whipped shea butter,
custom handmade promotional SoapCakes and her unique variety of scented
soaps at: http://www.everythingshea.com;
everythingshea@msn.com
