Fushi Organic, Wild Harvested Shea Butter 200 g

Organic, Wild-Harvested Shea Butter

This is organic, wild-harvested, unrefined, unbleached and fairly traded creamy shea butter. Shea butter acts as moisturizing "food" for your skin, making it naturally soft and smooth.

• Shea butter is a rich butter full of vitamins A, E and F.
• It provides intense moisture and suits all skin types, even very dry ones.
• Ideal for chafed, red skin, hard and dry skin, sunburn, itchy skin, insect bites, eczema and diaper rash.
• Shea butter is perfect for dry elbows, heels and lips.
• Great for sore muscles and for preventing stretch marks and wrinkles.
• Also said to be good for nasal congestion, apply a tiny amount in the nose.
• Can be mixed with e.g. coconut oil or another favorite oil if desired.

Shea butter is a solid butter and becomes harder during the winter months, therefore it's best stored at room temperature. If it's hard, soften it between your hands before applying it to the body. Note: It has a light earthy, slightly smoky scent that comes naturally from the butter. If you don't appreciate this, we recommend Akamuti's shea butter which has a milder scent.

Ingredients/INCI: 100% organic and fairtrade Shea Butter/Butyrospermum parkii - unrefined and unbleached. Nothing else! Shea butter naturally contains a substance similar to latex, so if you are allergic to latex, you should avoid this butter. Those with psoriasis are recommended to do a patch test in the crook of the arm before using shea butter, as shea butter stimulates cell renewal. 200 grams in glass jar.

Where does shea butter come from?

Shea butter is the fat from the nuts of the wild Shea tree/Karité Nut Tree (Vitellaria paradoxa) found in semi-arid savannas of West and Central Africa, where there is an abundance of local and traditional knowledge about how to produce and use shea butter. The tree can live up to 300 years. Almost all parts of the tree have some practical use. The locals themselves call the shea tree "the tree of life".

Flower clusters on the tree develop into fruit clusters, and the ripe fruits fall to the ground. Inside the outer shell is the fruit kernel (shea nut). Traditionally, it is the women who collect the fruit and do the time-consuming work

with extracting the fat from the nuts. The process of making shea butter is lengthy. First, the outer fruit pulp must be removed, then the nuts are boiled, then crushed, then sun-dried, and finally, they are roasted and ground before being turned into butter.

Country of Origin: Fushi's shea butter comes from Ghana in West Africa and is produced by a women's cooperative. The shea butter is sourced from the "Yumzaa Women Association" cooperative in the northern part of Ghana in a town called Tanpi in Tamale. They are members of NBSSI (National Board for Small Scale Industries).

It is wild-harvested, meaning they use harvesting and manufacturing techniques that have been used for thousands of years. The shea butter is a valuable source of income for these people, and the fair trade price enables them to build better amenities for their communities and finance renewable energy projects. In communities where women otherwise have very limited opportunities to earn their own income, this is extremely important both for their own dignity and their position in society. This is why shea butter is often called: "Women's Gold".

What is the difference between refined and unrefined shea butter?

Processed Shea butter is usually extracted using hexane or other solvents that are petroleum products. The extracted oil is boiled to remove the toxic solvents and then refined. Refining can include filtration, deodorization with hot steam, purification with acids and alkalis, bleaching with absorbent powder, and removal of wax residues through cooling. The scent, in particular, is removed.

Shea cream extracted this way still contains unwanted solvent residues, and its healing effects are obviously significantly reduced or perhaps completely gone. The end result is a fragrance-free, white butter that might be aesthetically pleasing, but lacks the moisturizing, healing, and nourishing properties found in unrefined, organic shea butter.

Furthermore, it's not soft and creamy like pure, unrefined shea butter. So it's an easy choice, isn't it?

100% organic and fair trade Shea butter/Butyrospermum parkii – unrefined and unbleached.