Shea Butter

Vitellaria paradoxa, labeled Butyrospermum parkii on most ingredient lists, is native to the dry savanna belt of West and Central Africa — growing largely wild, rather than cultivated, across some twenty countries in a band stretching from Senegal to Uganda. Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Nigeria are among the leading producing countries.

The traditional extraction process hasn't changed much: nuts are hand-harvested, then boiled or roasted, dried, cracked and ground into a paste, which is hand-kneaded and churned with water to separate the fat before a final purifying boil. It's labor-intensive work that has long been the domain of women, widely organized into cooperatives that anchor rural economies across the shea belt.

Chemically, shea butter is roughly balanced between oleic and stearic acids, carrying a notable “unsaponifiable” fraction — the part containing vitamins A and E and plant sterols. Our ivory, unrefined Grade A butter is water-extracted, no solvents involved, which keeps that fraction largely intact; refined shea, by contrast, is typically solvent-extracted and bleached to a scentless white, a process that strips out most of the same vitamin content. Solid at room temperature, it softens at skin temperature — a common base for body butters, lotions, lip balms, and hair and scalp care.