Shea Butter: The Wonder Ingredient for Skin & Hair
When it comes to formulating our better-for-you body care products, there are some plant-based ingredients that are hands down staples. Shea butter, or Butyrospermum Parkii, as it’s known by its Latin name, is one of these super ingredients.
Shea butter is a creamy fat that’s extracted from the oily nuts or fruit of the African Sheanut tree (Vitellaria paradoxa), also referred to as the karité tree. It’s extracted after the nuts are ground up into a powder and boiled. The fat from shea butter rises to the surface of the water and is then removed. Like traditional butter, shea butter is solid at room temperature. But when applied to the warmth of the skin, it melts, allowing its ingredients to be massaged into the skin.
When used on the skin and hair, shea butter has incredible hydrating benefits, which is why it’s a key ingredient in Pharmacopia Body Bars, Conditioners, Body Lotions, and our Lip Elixir.
The Many Benefits of Shea Butter for Skin & Hair
Shea butter is what’s called an emollient or barrier ingredient because it protects the skin’s outermost epidermal layer, also called its barrier. It’s the skin barrier that protects us from pollution, the sun’s ultraviolet rays, irritation and inflammation, dehydration, and toxins. This is why keeping the skin’s barrier intact is so important for the health of the skin—and the body.
Dry, cracked, flaky, irritated skin are usually the top indicators of a skin barrier that’s been compromised and needs to be repaired. Shea butter, along with other plant-based oils like jojoba oil and argan oil, found in our Pharmacopia better-for-you body care products, can help heal the skin’s barrier, locking in moisture and hydration.
As an emollient, shea butter has many benefits for the skin and hair:
- Shea butter locks in the skin’s moisture. Because of its emollient nature, shea butter keeps water or moisture in the skin and prevents it from being lost through normal evaporation (called transepidermal water loss). If the skin’s outermost layer has enough lipids or, in this case, emollients, this water loss can be slowed down or stopped as long as the emollients are used.
This is how shea butter works with our other powerful hydrating plant-based ingredients to keep skin hydrated in our Citrus, Verbena, and Argan Oil Body Lotion.
In our Citrus, Verbena, and Mint Argan Body Bar, shea butter helps to prevent stripping of the skin’s moisture while cleansing. It’s why our Body Bars leave skin feeling soft and smooth.
- Shea butter can soften the skin. Shea butter is chock-full of skin-softening fatty acids including oleic acid, stearic acid, palmitic acid, and linoleic acids. Because shea butter melts into the skin, it’s absorbed quickly without a greasy feel, allowing these fatty acids to help hydrate the skin.
This is one way our Tangerine Lip Elixir, which contains Certified Organic shea butter, works to keep lips soft and hydrated all day long. It goes on smooth and softens lips all day long.
- Shea butter can help hydrate the hair and scalp. Just as shea butter acts as an emollient on the skin, it can also work as an emollient on the hair and scalp.
On hair strands, shea butter locks in hair moisture, helping to increase softness, boost shine, and keep hair tangle free. This is particularly helpful for those with curly or coarse hair, though our plant-based hair care products are good for all hair types including those with color-treated hair.
Together with ingredients like jojoba oil, olive leaf extract, and aloe vera, shea butter—in our Pharmacopia Conditioners—helps to condition the hair without weighing it down, while taming flyaways and frizz.
- Shea butter can help soothe dry or irritated skin. Shea butter is rich in anti-inflammatory substances that can help reduce irritation and soothe dry skin and swelling on the skin and scalp. Healing plant-based ingredients found in shea butter include:
- Sterols. These plant sterols, or phytosterols, have the emollient properties discussed earlier. They lock in moisture and keep skin soft, smooth, and hydrated—and less prone to irritation. This is one reason shea butter has been shown to help soothe dry, itchy skin that’s common of eczema.
- Terpenes. These highly aromatic compounds are responsible for the smell of plants and herbs. (Shea butter has a natural, nutty aroma.) Terpenes are anti-inflammatory, as well as antibacterial. One anti-inflammatory terpene found in shea butter is cinnamic acid.
- Tocopherols. This is another name for vitamin E, a potent moisturizer and antioxidant. Vitamin E has been shown to help moisturize the skin and soothe eczema-prone skin.
- Phenols or polyphenols. These powerful plant-based antioxidants, including the vitamin A found in shea butter, have been shown in research to help alleviate the symptoms of skin disorders like atopic dermatitis.
To say that our Pharmacopia natural bodycare products would not be the same without shea butter is definitely an understatement! Our body care products are known for their skin-softening and hydrating benefits due in part to this plant-based fat. Shea butter is a proven plant-based super hydrator that’s been used as a healing ingredient in skincare for centuries. This is why the karité tree is sacred in many parts of Africa and known as the tree of life.
