Natural Skin and Body Care

This is my first attempt at a “commercial” for my biz.  Let me know what you think!

There are many skin care creams and lotions on the market. They claim to fix everything from extreme dry skin, eczema, psoriasis, wrinkles, cellulite - there is even a lotion that will give you a tan1 Because of research and consumer demand for an all in one lotion fix, manufacturers of these skin care creams strive to offer products that will give the purchaser the lotion of their dreams. Even though the competing commercials for the various creams and lotions may claim the contrary, there is really not much difference between one lotion and another besides the added ingredients.

Choosing a skin care cream is a matter of personal preferences, which accounts for the fact that there are so many lotions available on the market. It seems though, that many consumers prefer a non-greasy skin care cream as opposed to a heavy, oily cream that may leave the skin feeling coated and greasy. Furthermore, as the natural products trend continues, consumers are even beginning to read the labels to choose a skin care product that contains more natural ingredients.

A skin care cream choice is personal for the consumer. If a person is suffering from dry, cracked skin, it is much better to choose a product that is more natural. Natural ingredients have been in use for years – there should be no reason to choose an artificially created ingredient when a natural product will do just as well, or better.

Cocoa butter is a great emollient. It can help fade stretch marks and keeps the skin moisturized and flexible. It is also used in many natural skin care products but careful reading of some of these labels show that while cocoa butter is featured on the label, it is not high up on the ingredient list. The same goes for shea butter or other exotic oils/butters that are being used in skin care products. More often than not, mineral oil or petrolatum jelly are the main “emollients” in these natural products.

The best choice is to choose a cream or lotion that has the most natural ingredients possible with a minimum of extra chemicals or preservatives. Read your labels and be aware of what you are putting on your skin.

Shea butter saved my daughter’s skin!!! This is not an exaggeration. As I wrote in my first post, my daughter suffered terribly from eczema. I suffered along with her, especially when I would see the scratches caused by her nails as she scratched her seemingly always itchy legs. It was terrible until I found out about shea butter and began mixing it with other oils to create a mixture that would soothe her skin.

In my experience as a bath and body products maker, there are two types of shea butter, refined and unrefined shea butter. To the inexperienced consumer, refined shea butter may be the best way to go, as its white color and odorless quality may be easier to blend with different fragrance/essential oils and colors. However, to be a well informed consumer and to truly get the skin benefits of shea butter is to know exactly how refined shea butter is made and how this process can detract from its skin benefits.

Refined shea butter is pure white and has no odor. Most makers of refined shea butter use hexane or other chemicals to strip the unrefined shea butter of its color and slight nutty/earthy fragrance. Through the refining process, the hexane also removes much of the healing components of the unrefined shea butter. While the white color and neutral odor of the refined shea butter may be appealing, remember that many of the moisturizing qualities and skin nutrients may be lacking. Refined shea butter may also be harder to the touch than unrefined shea butter and depending on where one purchases the shea, may be “grainy’ or have small granules. This is not to say that the refined shea butter is not suitable for use in many applications – often this type of shea butter is preferred when one wants the label appeal of shea butter without the variation in appearance and/or odor, which can occur with unrefined shea butter.

Unrefined Shea butter

Unrefined shea butter is extracted from the seed of the karite tree by boiling the opened shea nuts, which releases the shea butter from the meat. Then the shea butter is usually hand kneaded until it reaches the desired consistency. Though this process can take much longer than the hexane extraction process, the result is a creamier product that retains the nutritive essence of the shea nut.

Unrefined Shea butter is the preferred raw ingredient. It contains the natural Vitamin A and E as well as many antioxidants which are not found in refined shea. Unrefined shea butter is said to help heal wounds, sooth sunburn, prevent and/or lessen the appearance of stretch marks and to lessen the appearance of wrinkles. Unrefined Shea butter is also said to have many natural qualities that help skin cell regeneration and capillary circulation. My grandmother claims that that unrefined shea butter can help eased her arthritis pain! On top of it all, shea butter is an excellent skin moisturizer.

Our products use only unrefined shea butter for its skin-nutritive properties.