Serious Skin Care
Loretta Faulkner
SHEA BUTTER Butyrospermum parkii
The shea tree grows spontaneously in the wooded savannahs in west Africa (Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso, and other countries in the sub-sahara region). The tree produces its first fruit when it is about 15 years old and reaches its full production at the age of 25-50.
The edible fruit are the size of large plums; they contain 1 to 3 seeds the size of pecans surrounded by a thin brittle hull. The kernels are about 50% shea butter. One tree produces 15 to 20 kg of fresh fruit, which corresponds to 3 to 4 kg of kernels. 4 kg of kernels makes 1 kg of shea butter.
It is primarily rural women who gather shea nuts from under the trees, and do the traditional processing. Men usually are only involved in transport and marketing. Because of this, the export of traditionally produced shea butter directly benefits some of the poorest villagers in one of the world's poorest countries. This is not true of cocoa, coffee, cotton, copper, lumber, etc., whose profits flow mainly to governments, corporations, and wealthy producers and middlemen. Nor is it true of shea nuts which are industrially processed, depriving poor women of their traditional income.
What makes Shea Butter remarkable in comparison to other oils is its content of unsaponifiable fats. That means even though it’s a fat it wont turn to soap in the presence of a strong alkali so its moisturizing properties remain viable. Thus it has been used to moisturize and protect the skin as well as treat sprains, painful joints, wounds and colds by tribal people for thousands of years. It is 100% natural and non-toxic.
Traditional Use
The shea trees grow wild in the tribe's fields, who sometimes give a mystical aura to it. It is not surprising, since shea butter is such an important source of edible fat and an even more precious material for many skin-care products. The shea tree also offers other useful things: the bark, the leaves, the latex, the roots, and the oil cakes are used by people for a number of purposes.
The flesh of the fruit can be eaten when still fresh, but it does not keep long.
Shea butter is used for cooking but has also a wide range of other traditional uses:
• it is massaged on the body after washing to relax the muscles and soften the skin, especially during the dry season,
• it is used in soap making for its moisturizing qualities
• it is used to treat sprains, painful joints, wounds and colds,
• it is also used as an after-shave and a hair balm, as it cures dry, brittle hair
• in some areas, shea butter is applied on the umbilical cord of new born babies to facilitate its healing,
Cosmetic and Therapeutic Use
Shea butter has soothing, moisturizing and protecting effects. Due to the presence of a sizeable quantity of unsaponifiable fats, its content in vitamins and other active elements, shea butter adds other more precise activities to these general properties.
• It displays a protecting role against UV rays because of its content in cinnamic acid and can thus be incorporated in solar products. The natural latex contained in shea butter would moreover prevent certain sun allergies.
• Shea butter also helps cell regeneration and capillary circulation. This favours the healing of small wounds, skin cracks and crevices, and skin ulcers. In the cosmetic field, this property is an asset against skin ageing.
• It has restructuring effects on the epidermis, also on dry and fragile hair. Dry skin, dermatitis, dermatoses, eczema, sun burn, and burns are all helped by natural shea butter.
• It has an anti-elastase characteristic which makes it a good active ingredient against stretch marks.
• Shea butter can also be used to treat rheumatism and aching muscles, and to ease colds because it decongests nasal mucous tissues.
• It is very well tolerated by the skin for it does not normally trigger any allergic reaction and can even be used on very sensitive skin areas such as mucous tissues and around the eyes. I have one report of a person with latex allergy reacting to the natural latex in shea butter, but of other latex-sensitive people not reacting to shea butter.
Shea butter is therefore an outstanding product for cosmetic and pharmaceutical purposes, even incorporated in high proportions. It is easy to work into all kinds of emulsions and makes a very good excipient (carrier) as it prevents allergenic reactions without altering the active principles. |  |
