Natural Skin and Body Care

I certainly didn’t forget about the fellas when it comes to my natural bath and body products. I know it seems like when they’re talking about natural bath and body, the guys are almost always left out. Not here!

As I wrote before, my family is my guinea pigs and my husband works closely with me in the testing and development of my products. My daughter is my tester for my eczema products and my two sons, well, let’s just say they stay oily and fragranced.

Oh, yes, about bald men. My husband is a baldie by choice – he shaves his head every week or so. I noticed that even though he used shaving cream and rinsed well after shaving his head and used (gasp!) lotion, sometimes the skin at the back of the neck would dry out during the course of the day. It just wouldn’t do for the husband of “the natural skincare sista” to walk around with dry skin!

Now, my husband is a really simple person and, like many men, don’t want to deal with a lot of potions and creams in his morning routine. So I persuaded him to try to use the megamix whip on his head and it worked great! Not only did it absorb quickly and nourish that dry skin, but it left a nice sheen on the skin.

Some tips for bald men to keep that dome sexy and sleek:

• Always shave with a sharp razor – a dull razor will not give a close shave and may cause razor bumps
• When using a razor, always use a moisturizing shaving cream or shave oil to avoid nicks and cuts – virgin coconut oil can be used
• Use a soothing scalp conditioner on your head after shaving – you need to replenish your scalp’s natural oils try our Megamix Whip which is availabe u

After you’re all done, head over to Black Pearl Style Creations for a custom made knit scarf set to keep your head warm during the cold winter months!

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.