Ode to Beautiful Shea Butter
August 3, 2006 by Christina Jones
Filed under Beauty, Body Care
If you have been reading eBeautyDaily for long, you probably know of my love affair with all things Shea Butter. But if not, I truly do love it – I have never seen anything that can heal dry skin like Shea Butter can. I have this horrid chair in my office, pleather, with armrests – well, as you can imagine, with all the work I do online (write a passel of blogs, web site development, Channel Editor for b5media), my arms are on that chair for about 14 hours a day. If you sit in luxurious pleather, you know what I’m talking about – I have about a 3-inch area on the underside of my forearm, starting at the elbow, where my arm lays day after day, hour after hour, on my chair arms. This area can quickly turn in to crusty super-dry skin in a heart beat, and as opposed to getting my butt out of the chair (never!), or a luxurious sheep skin chair cover (hint hint honey) a little Shea Butter ALWAYS does the trick.
Well, with all that as a precursor, I received the most wonderful Shea Butter to try – Purely Shea. Now, with my recent post about organics and how that makes *not* such a big difference in your cosmetics, Shea Butter is a product obtained directly from a plant, and this is indeed something that you would not want to be pollluted with pesticides, and might actually have a potential of contamination. Purely Shea is a Canadian product and is certified organic by ECOCERT Canada, and this is, as Martha would say, a good thing.
This, from the company:
Purely Shea shea butter:
* Is extracted WITHOUT the use of dangerous chemicals, hexane, fertilizers or toxic pesticides
* Has NOT been bleached and maintains its natural pale yellow/beige color
* Has NOT been chemically processed in any way and therefore contains an extremely high level of healing and therapeutic factors.
Sounds pretty great eh? It is. The biggest difference I can see with this product and other shea Butter products I have tried is the fact that it melts a whole lot easier. It also has the natural Shea Butter scent, which is hard to describe, but very pleasant and mild. Here is the page where Purely Shea talks about all of the features and benefits of Shea Butter, there are too many to describe here, but if you want to learn more about it beyond my – “It works!” – this is a great place to start. I guess I should write more on that, but thats something for the future. Purely Shea sells for $19.50 for a very nice sized 3.5 ounce tub. A great value – this should last you a good while, even using it daily! As always, let me know your opinions if you have tried Purely Shea!
i have this product. i exfoliate my lips then slather it on before i go to bed as a kind of moisture treatment. used this way, i think my jar should last me until it goes rancid.
i did do a little search on google and found other 100% shea butter products that sell for less or offer more of the product. some of them even claiming the same “organic” tagline. when i run out, i’ll try one of them.
a word of warning though, apparently shea butter contains traces of latex, so people who are allergic to latex should avoid shea butter.
sisqa, where did you hear that? I sell shea butter and as far as I know, ours doesn’t contain latex at all. My sister is extremely allergic to latex and slaps on the shea butter I sell all the time without issue.
Hi LotionBarBunny, sorry for the delayed response, here are some of the links Google has come up with:
http://beauty.about.com/od/beautybyag3/f/sheabutter.htm
http://chagrinvalleysoapandcraft.com/sheamousse.htm
http://chagrinvalleysoapandcraft.com/sheamousse.htm
I’m not an expert on skincare and therefore i use the word ‘apparently’. But now i tend to shy away from such products because I have experienced even more dryiness using shea butter.
Sisqa that is very interesting. I’ll be honest and tell you I had never even heard that until you posted. My sister’s allergy to latex is pretty bad, so I wonder why she doesn’t react to our shea butter…. hmm.
I’m sorry to hear that you shy away from shea because it is such a great moisturizer. If you want, I am more than willing to send you a sample of ours. It never hurts to try. You can also read about it by looking above the comments here to where it says “related posts” and “On bunnies, beauty and butter..” That post is about me.
For your dry skin have you ever tried a lotion bar? They are fabulous (which is how I came up with my screen name lol).
Anyway, drop me a line if you want. My email is listed on my blog, just click my screen name with this post.
~Shannon
There are indeed traces of latex in shea butter, so that would definitely render it a potential allergen, but the traces are very minute. In this particular product, being 100% natural, it may be that it has a little more latex than a blended product, like LBB’s. I have to say that for me, I have in no way experienced more dryness after using any shea butter product at all, and I have tried LBB’s Shea Butter and it is sooooo good too. I have VERY dry skin, and it (and other shea butter products) really do a miraculous job repairing it for me.
I’m new to this blog so forgive my delayed response to the latex discussion. I own/operate a bodycare company that produces exclusively shea butter products that are naturally refined. It is true that there is a VERY small amount of natural latex in shea, however to date there’s never been a reported case of an adverse reaction to shea butter to the FDA. Sisqa, I encourage you to thoroughly read the ingredient label. In MANY cases shea butter is cut with mineral oil or other petroleum bases, which are not only toxic but can also be drying. The reason is that the molecules of mineral oil are larger than our skin’s pores, therefore it clogs your pores & inhibits moisture retention.
Also, if you have any skin sensitivities you should stay away from products with lanolin, which is an animal bi-product & major skin irritant. Many times when someone is having a reaction to a product it can initially surface as dry skin.
Have to wonder why mineral oil & lanolin are such common ingredients in many bodycare products, eh? They’re cheap fillers.
Anywho, I’ll jump off my soap box here & just encourage everyone to be very savvy when reading ingredients,not just the front of the label – which can be very decieving. And any company who truly believes & stands behind their product will be happy to provide product samples so you can try before you buy, just like LotionBarBunny offered to do.
Good luck!