What Is Shea Butter? With its growing reputation we are enticed to try this “new” and wonderful sounding ‘butter’ which is not a dairy product. Technically, shea butter is a nut fat, as it is derived from crushed nuts of karite tree that grows wild in African savannah, an area that comprises more than a dozen countries and is approximately size of America. To a person from Ghana or Burkina Faso, two of largest exporting countries of shea butter, they are quite accustomed to benefits of shea butter. They massage it on their skin and hair; they cook with it, and it’s known to help people of all ages with accelerating healing of minor cuts, burns, and scrapes. Those who try natural shea butter are amazed to discover that applying all natural shea butter onto their skin, a thin protective layer forms, that is non-greasy!

Shea [Karite] Trees Grow In The Wild Shea butter comes from karite trees, which live for hundreds of years and only begin providing fruit by time they are about 25-30 years of age. Most wild [as opposed to cultivated which is very small scale at this time], karite trees are pollinated by small fruit bats, which help to ensure continued existence for this ‘tree of life’ as those whose livelihood depends on these fruitful trees oftentimes refer to it as. The shea nuts aren’t picked from trees as they must first mature and fall from trees where they are then collected. Women are responsible for gathering and production of shea nuts and helping cultivate them into valuable shea butter. The process of harvesting shea fruit is time consuming, but results are well worth amount of effort that goes into each batch of natural shea butter. While ripe green, fleshy fruit is rich in ascorbic acid as well as vitamin B; it’s kernels inside nut that comprises shea butter.

Making Shea Butter The nuts are first sorted and parboiled, and then left to dry in hot sunshine for up to one week. When shea nuts are completely dehydrated, they can either be stored for several weeks or months, or they go to next step of shea butter production.

Crushing dried nuts, either with a wooden pestle, or, in more sophisticated operations, a special press, causes nuts and kernels to be separated. Next, kernels are roasted in large metal pots and processed through a grinder, which results in a brown colored paste. This paste is processed a second time. The labor-intensive procedure continues with mixing and kneading of kernels after some water has been added. While this step of shea butter making production goes on for several hours, it’s a vital step as this is what creates shea butter itself. It’s still unrefined, but many people prefer natural shea butter to more refined versions. Also, there are places in Africa that have various types of shea refining machinery, allowing shea extracting process to remain easier for all parties involved. For instance, shea butter is filtered by a natural cold process method that strains shea butter of any debris such as gourd pieces, dirt, leaves, etc. Most shea butter that is refined in Africa is usually free of hexane solvents that not only bleach and remove many of vitamins and minerals, but also can remain in finished product.