Shea Butter Benefits, Side Effects and Info

Shea butter, also known as karite butter, is a solid fatty oil made from the nuts of the karite tree, also known as shea tree or mangifolia, that grow in the semi-arid savannah regions of west and central Africa. Shea butter is one of the best selling and highly recommended skin care products around. As a natural plant extract, Shea butter has shown to be a superb moisturizer, with exceptional healing properties for the skin.


Raw shea butter, a thickened oil extracted from the nut of the Shea tree, is an extremely versatile product, containing both carotene and alantoin for excellent moisturizing, soothing, anti-aging, and healing treatment. Women and men all over the world have caught on to this treatment and use shea to combat all types of skin conditions.


Shea Butter maintains skin and hair moisture. Pure Natural Shea Butter is soft, smooth, has a pleasant smell and varies in color. The older the Shea Butter, the more yellowish it becomes.


History of Shea Butter

Shea butter is not new, it is centuries old. It has been used in Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso and other parts of Africa for centuries. Shea butter is a daily moisturizer that has numerous uses. Including: Stretch marks, chapped or dry lips, chaffing, blemishes, hands, cuticles, feet, cracked heels, bumps, massages, dry skin, flaky skin, rough skin, dull skin, dark spots, marks, minor scars, premature facial lines, blisters, knees, elbows. Also used for hair and scalp, to name a few.


In most parts of West Africa, destruction of the shea tree is prohibited because this little nut provides a valuable source of food, medicine, and income for the population. In fact, Shea butter is sometimes called “women’s gold,” because extracting the butter from the nuts gives employment and income to hundreds of thousands of rural African village women.


What Are The Health Benefits and Uses of Shea Butter?

Shea Butter is used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and in Europe it is also used in the confectionary and chocolate industry as a cocoa butter substitute. Is is also used in traditional medicines, in soap-making, in cooking, and in skin care and hair products.

People of all ages and skin types utilize Shea butter because of its many uses. Every house should have a jar of Shea butter for smoother skin or for treatment of minor skin injuries around the house. Shea butter can be used to treat various skin problems including dry skin, psoriasis, burns, blemishes, eczema, wrinkles and stretch marks. Other uses: Adds and maintain moisture to dry and brittle hair, revitalizes, repairs breakage and split ends and promotes hair growth.

For Healing


For Anti-Aging


For Prevention


For Skin Protection


What Are the Different Varieties/Species of Shea Butter?

There are two main varieties of Shea butter, Butyrospermum Parkii (West African) and Vitellaria Nilotica (East African). Butyrospermum Parkii is produced in West Africa where as Vitellaria Nilotica is produced only in Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan. At room temperature Eastern African Shea butter is softer than West African Shea butter. It is creamier and silky, making it quick and easy to apply. Eastern African Shea butter is also slightly higher in therapeutic properties. Eastern Shea butter has a sweeter scent than West African Shea butter. Eastern African Shea butter is rarer because of lower Shea production and also because of civil unrest in Uganda and Sudan.

The Types of Shea Butter

Unrefined Shea Butter

Unrefined Shea Butter is naturally extracted pure Shea Butter in its raw and all natural state. It has a rich, creamy texture, ivory to light yellowish color, and a mild nutty scent which fades away once applied to skin or hair. Unrefined Shea Butter is the most effective type of Shea Butter because the healing and moisturizing properties are intact, undiluted and unaltered.

Refined, Processed Shea Butter

Refined Shea Butter has been altered to remove the natural shea scent and color. In the process, most of the vitamins and effective properties are also lost. Refined Shea Butter is often extracted from the Shea nuts with toxic chemicals like hexane. Then the extracted oil is bleached, deodorized, and heated at extreme temperatures. As a result Refined Shea Butter is white in color and odorless, but it lacks the true therapeutic properties of Shea Butter. In addition, Refined Shea Butter is often hard and grainy, not creamy like Unrefined Shea Butter. Some people buy Refined Shea Butter because it doesn't have the natural shea scent, but they don't know it has reduced beneficial properties.

Many major cosmetic companies have started making shea butter products including moisturizers, anti-aging, stretch marks and hair products. These products also fall under the category of Processed Shea Butter because the percentage of Shea Butter in these products is very low and not so effective.

The Amazing Properties of Shea Butter

Shea Butter is the best natural product to protect, heal and improve skin. It is prized because it contains a real cocktail of elements good for the skin. Among these, is first a very high content of Essential Fatty Acids, more than in all other vegetable butter. These fatty acids are oleic, stearic, linoleic and palmitic acid. They play a very important moisturizing, softening, and anti-inflammatory role. Shea Butter also contains Vitamins A, D, E, F and K that have a recognized effect against skin aging. It is also rich in plant sterols with protecting and skin regenerating properties.

Vitamin A and E - Balances and normalizes the skin. Helps keep it clear and healthy. Particularly beneficial for dry or sun-exposed skin. Vitamin A has soothing and hydrating properties. They provide healthy skin collagen which prevents premature wrinkles, premature facial lines and premature slackened skin.

Vitamin D has been proven to promote skin cell growth.

Vitamin K is a natural sun screen.

Vitamin F - acts as a skin protector and revitalizer. It soothes rough, dry or chapped skin on contact and helps soften and revitalize dry or damaged hair. Vitamin F consists of linoleic, linolenic and arachidonic acids, the three essential fatty acids.

How Is Shea Butter Produced?

The 7 major stages of processing include Sorting, Cracking, Roasting, Grinding, Kneading, Boiling, Filtration and Stirring:

· SORTING: Separating the nut from the unwanted particles (tiny dry leaves,spoiled nut etc and grouping the good nut into different grades.

· CRACKING: An adjusted surface Grinder machine will break the good nuts into the desired size/form to ensure even roasting.

· ROASTING: The cracked nut is roasted in a rotating drum over controlled heat until the nut fully roasted care is taken to avoid burning the nuts.

· GRINDING: The roasted nuts are grinded into a paste (Color—deep brown).

· KNEADING: The paste is cooled, kneaded or beaten adding water until the oil (foamy form) comes up for collection. The collected oil (foamy form) is washed with water until the color becomes light grey. -The best Shea Butter for skin and hair use is prepared either by cold press or a traditional kneading process without the use of added chemicals or preservatives.

· BOILING: The product (foamy form) is boiled under controlled temperatures until all excess water evaporates.

· FILTERATION AND STIRRING: The resultant oil is filtered and stirred until it becomes a pale yellow/cream or beige Butter.

What Makes Shea Butter So Beneficial?

What makes Shea Butter so beneficial is its exceptionally large healing fraction. The healing fraction contains important nutrients, vitamins, and other valuable phytonutrients required for healing. Depending on the source, the size of the healing fraction may range from 5% and upward. Some report the healing fraction as high as 17%. The larger the healing fraction the better the chances are for a good quality Shea Butter. Because Shea Butter has such a large healing fraction, in addition to moisturizing fraction, regular use of this natural cream can treat many skin problems, including blemishes, wrinkles, itching, sunburns, small skin wounds, eczema, skin allergies, insect bites, frost bite, and other skin conditions.

Tips For Using Shea Butter For Skin And Hair

Shea Butter for the Face: Massage your face with a little Shea Butter. Pay attention to the lower part of your nose, the corner of your lips, ears and forehead. Shea Butter helps reduce premature facial lines, dark spots, marks, minor scars, chapped lips, blemishes and bumps. Shea Butter also helps to maintain moisture and skin softness.


Shea Butter is 100% natural so it can be used daily or whenever needed. A little shea butter goes a long way. Shea butter contributes to smooth skin after shaving. After shaving apply African Shea Butter to avoid bumps and irritations.

For shaving issues, start by applying some shea butter to soften the area.

Shea Butter for the Hair: To revitalize your hair, massage a generous amount of unrefined Shea Butter on your scalp and in your hair. Shea Butter is also useful for dry hair, dry scalp and dandruff.

Apply unrefined shea butter at least twice a week to your hair and once a week to your scalp. It improves hair texture, hair moisture and hair growth.

Apply Unrefined Shea Butter to your hair before swimming to help protect your hair from the chlorine and salt. After swimming, shampoo and condition your hair right away. A little shea butter before and after you dry your hair is a good idea.

Shea Butter for the Body: Shea Butter will penetrate into the skin to help provide a lasting protection against the cold and the sun (don't forget your sunscreen). Because of it's softness, unsaponifiable content and vitamin F, Shea Butter is excellent for a body massage. With the help of your body heat, it absorbs quickly into the skin.

African Shea Butter helps reduce stretch marks, dark spots. It is effective on dry, dull, rough and flaky skin.

Shea Butter sun screen products help reduce peeling, and help protect your skin from the sun.

Add about a teaspoon of Shea Butter to a hot bath to help you relax.

Shea Butter Handy Tips: Can't get rid of those cracked heels, crusty feet and toes? Try using Shea butter. Soak your feet in warm water for about 15 mins. Scrub your heels with a bath stone or a sponge. Change the warm water. Add 1 teaspoon of Shea butter to the warm water. Soak your feet for a second time for 15-20 mins. Towel dry and moisturize with Shea Butter. Do this once or twice a week.

Massage your feet with Shea Butter daily to help reduce stress and tensions in your body. Apply Shea Butter in between your toes daily to avoid smelly feet and achieve soft feet.

Shea butter works well for the hands. Apply Shea butter to your hands as often as possible. Shea butter is 100% natural so you do not have to worry about chemicals.

Applying Shea butter before bed is not a great idea sometimes because most of it will rub off. Other than that, you can apply Shea butter any time, several times a day, every hour if you would like. Shea Butter is as natural as it gets. Keep Shea Butter out of hot areas so it does not melt. Always keep in a cool dark place.

What Are The Side Effects of Shea Butter?

The Shea Butter Benefits are numerous and there are no negative side effects of using unrefined African Shea Butter.


However, according to Lynne Killey, founder of Queen Bee skin care, not all shea is created equal and may even come with some side effects. “Most consumers don’t realize that a refining process is typically used to make shea butter. This manufacturing process adds chemicals to the oil, then heats it to a point where most of the nutrients are killed off – virtually eliminating all healing properties of the original nut.”

Raw shea butter (also known as unrefined shea) undergoes a traditional production method. In this process, the shea kernel is picked, cracked, grilled and pounded. It is then boiled in water until the fresh butter rises to the surface, which is scooped into gourds and left to set. Performed by hand, this extraction method uses no conventional processing techniques that will strip the finished product of original nutrients. At no point of production are dangerous chemicals or synthetic agents added to this shea butter.

More commonly found in retail outlets, refined shea butter goes through an entirely different production cycle than its natural counterpart. In an effort to speed up the extraction process, increase profits and alter the smell and texture of shea butter, most manufacturers have adopted a refining method which destroys much of the natural integrity of the shea nut. In this process, the seed oil is extracted from the kernels using a highly flammable, gasoline-like chemical known as Hexane, which usually remains in the product in trace amounts.

Side effects from exposure to hexane include dizziness, drowsiness, headache, nausea, weakness, unconsciousness, and abdominal pain. Production by-products containing trace amounts of hexane are commonly sold as animal feed, and excessive amounts of hexane are thought to cause anemia in livestock – transferring to the meat consumers’ purchase. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, Hexane compounds are carcinogens and are classed as a hazardous substance. Hexane also poses a serious environmental threat – implicated as a polluter and producer of harmful ozone build-up and air pollution when vented into the atmosphere during the flash-off (burning) cycle of manufacturing.

The side effects and environmental concerns surrounding the use of hexane are serious problems of refined shea butter production, yet other aspects of this refining process are equally as damaging to consumers. To remove the characteristic nutty smell of shea, the extracted oil is exposed to 450 degree heat and sodium hydroxide and carbonate chemicals are added. To change the texture and appearance of the product, it moves through an acid-treated filter and is bleached. Known carcinogens (BHT & BHA) are added to refined shea butter to enhance the shelf-life of the finished product.

“Refining shea butter removes natural essential fatty acids, valuable proteins and important minerals, leaving consumers with a questionable, ineffective and potentially dangerous product. In no way similar to refined shea butter, raw shea butter is significantly richer in vitamins, phyto-nutrients and UV absorbing factors. Raw shea is more difficult to find [than refined shea butter], but is well worth the effort,” states Killey.

The American Shea Butter Institute agrees, “While altered shea butter may smell nicely or [when mixed with less expensive ingredients] appear cost-effective, it has lost significant health-properties….poor quality shea butter is ineffective in healing most conditions that raw shea treats.”

To ensure your shea butter is raw, make sure it is beige or yellow, with a creamy texture and a nutty smell. If your shea butter has no smell (or a fragrant/floral smell), is white or is grainy, it is refined shea and does not hold the same healing properties of authentic shea. Because of several naturally-occurring antioxidants, raw shea has an indefinite shelf-life; however, refined shea has a maximum two-year shelf-life.