Shea butter is extracted from seeds of shea tree, native to Africa. It has shown significance moisturizing and healing properties when applied topically. Vitamin A and E in shea butter enhances cell growth, while its assorted antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties soothes skin.
American Shea Butter Institute states that moisturizing elements in shea butter and in sebum are identical. Thus this proves to be an emollient. And it also reveals that shea butter is non-comedogenic, mean it doesn’t clog pores.
So, shea butter cream is favorable to both dry and oily skin. Though you can get shea butter from local store, it’s simple to make whipped shea butter cream at home.
How to Make Whipped Shea Butter
Do you want to reap nutritional benefits of shea butter for your skin? Then try raw shea butter instead of refined chemical ingredient shea butter. As raw or unrefined shea butter is strong and sometimes hard to topically apply on skin, it’s recommended to whip it, by adding some essential oils. Obtained whipped shea butter will be smooth compared to previous one and yet packed with all nutrients.
Making whipped shea butter is a bit demanding so it takes trial & error methods to obtained well whipped butter, which you can directly apply on skin as a moisturizer. There are many different recipes of making whipped shea butter available online; few suggest melting shea butter and other prefer without melting. Though both recipes works, sometimes melting shea butter creates problems by turning to grainy. So we would like to follow recipes which don’t include melting of shea butter.
Things you’ll need
- Raw shea butter – 4 ounce
- Virgin olive oil (or any base oil) – 2 tbsp
- Lavender oil (or any essential oil) – 10-20 drops
- 2 Bowls and 1 electric whisker.
Procedure to make whipped shea butter
- Get raw or unrefined shea butter from local store and keep it in a room temperature. Put it in a bowl and mash using fork or spoon.
- Add virgin olive oil and mash for few more minutes.
- Now, using electric whisker whip shea butter mixture at high speed for about 5-8 minutes.
- Optionally add lavender oil to whipped cream. Transfer the whipped shea butter cream into a jar and place it in dry cool place.
That’s it! You’ve made raw whipped shea butter cream at home. You can topically apply on prewashed face.
Note: If you’ve acne prone skin or acne blemishes Shea butter cream can treat, click here to find out.
How to Make Shea Butter Cream
Even without whipping shea butter you can use it directly. But as mentioned earlier, unrefined shea butter may feel hard to apply over skin and it has strong odor. To easy topical application, beauty experts make shea butter cream. You make think why not bring a new shea butter cream form local store, yes you can but they lack healing properties as most of them are subjected to refining process.
What’s the secret ingredient to reap the benefits of shea butter?
Add few drops of essential oil and base oil to shea butter. Believe us! That’s it.
Remember to prefer only raw ingredients to garner nutritional benefits. As this homemade shea butter cream doesn’t have preservatives they may not last for longer time, so make only in small quantities.
Things you’ll need
- Raw shea butter – 1 tbsp
- Jojoba oil – 1 tbsp (or essential oil)
- Jasmine oil – 1 tbsp (or base oil)
Related post: How to make jojoba oil
Procedure to make shea butter cream at home
- Initially start with small quantities so that you may not go wrong. Place double boiler on heat. Fill half of bottom layer of boiler with water and place shea butter in top boiler.
- We’re melting shea butter so that it will be easy for us to blend essential oils. But note, not to heat for longer time as it loses healing properties.
- After removing boiler from heat, mix jojoba oil and jasmine oil to shea butter solution and using whisk whip the solution.
- Settle it to cool down and deport the cream into another jar to preserve.
Don’t miss: shea butter face mask recipe
You can apply shea butter whipped cream over prewashed face in circular motion.
Tips on Storing Shea Butter
As we didn’t add preservatives shea butter cream won’t last longer. Anyhow you can add preservatives if needed. Store in cool dry place. No need to refrigerate, room temperature is favorable. Whenever you use shea butter remember to wash your hands.
If you get unpleasant rancid odor then its a sign that your shea butter cream is rotten, throw it away.