A couple of years ago I started doing research on making my own lotion or body butter. I bought some supplies and decided that it might be an interesting way to make money if I could. That didn’t work out the way I hoped. I was doing all the work and then I had little time when working two jobs. That holiday season I gave away a lot of the shea butter I made. It made many fans.
     Years later, I make it only for family and myself. Since Rick is without job we are planning on making and hopefully selling some here or on Ebay or in my Etsy shop, TaynneeBazaar. (Please note, at this time there is no shea butter for sale there. If you would like to buy a 4 ounce glass jar of my favorite butter, handmade by myself and Rick please use the contact me page and let me know.)
I use it daily now because I can’t use store bought lotions anymore. The preservatives and other synthetic ingredients give me a bad reaction.

     What is so great about shea?

     Shea is actually karite butter from wild, not cultivated Karite trees. It grows mostly in Western Africa. In its most unrefined shea butter is toted for having great healing properties. African women have been using it for centuries for skin, medicine and cooking. Only recently has the western world been introducing shea into it’s beauty and personal care products.
It is a great “healer”. Some of the things contained in it are familiar to us, vitamin A and E and fatty acids. An unknown one is cinnamic acid, which is what helps protect against sun damage. Vitamin’s A and E allow it to be anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial, both of which are great for skin problems like eczema, psoriasis, burns, stretch marks, scars and dandruff. Those vitamins support the skin so that it can repair its self properly. The fatty acids moisturize. It has a low melting temperature and is easily absorbed by the skin. Shea butter can also increase circulation and promotes cell regeneration.
     Unrefined shea butter has a strong smell. It can be refined to remove the scent. The argument is that if you refine it then many of the healing properties will be lost. I have the refined shea butter. I have only used that so I have not opinion about the unrefined butter, other than a strong curiousity. When I run out I plan on buying unrefined to see the difference. I think the refined stuff is great, I can only imagine how wonderful the “good stuff” is.

     Eco-friendly butter:
     Another reason I love shea butter is that it supports African women. The women do most of the work to make shea butter from harvesting to producing the butter from the seeds. It has remained very independent of outside influence. It cannot be cultivated. Since it can take 50 years for a tree to mature, the women must care for and maintain the trees. It’s good for the environment to avoid mass production or cultivations. Support shea, support your earth and your fellow woman.

     My experience with the body butter that I make has been great. I love it. Though I am still young, I do have some lines and stretch marks that have decrease as I use it more. Applying it I feel like I am “feeding” my skin. Healthy skin – healthy body. Your skin secretes sebum and some wastes. Unhealthy skin is not able to do this. Thus your body will not be “breathing” properly.
Another consideration is that almost everything that what is applied to your skin will be absorbed into your body. From there it has to be filtered out of the body. The natural filters in the body are liver, kidneys, and lymph system. If the body does not identify the substance that is put into the body, such as synthetics or altered “natural” ingredients (high fructose corn syrup is an example), the liver must work over time to clean the body out. Most of the ingredients in cheap lotions are not whole or even exist in nature. Why make your liver work harder than it needs to? It already has its work cut out for it with the alcohol, meds, and bad foods that we consume. (This is not an anti-alcohol post. I love a good drink, but know what it does to my body.)
     Choose something nice for you skin. Treat it with respect, give it natural and when possible organic “food”. Look through your beauty items. Can you pronounce those ingredients? Do you know why they are there? Are they “natural”? Or even safe? Look them up – you’ll be surprised what you learn.

     What beauty products do you use on a daily basis? Could you give them up for a more natural option?

     For a request of a jar of shea butter please click through to my “Contact Me” page and send me a note! And as always thanks for stopping by!

     The following is a site I found that sells fair trade shea butter. I have not purchased from them so do some research before you buy, but it looks good so far. Let me know if you have purchased from them already or if you decide to, I would love to know. I’m getting low and will have to purchase again in the next couple of months.Pure, unrefined shea butter