Adventures With Raw Shea Butter: A Recipe and Review of Beauty by Shea

Shea Butter is highly nourishing and moisturizing. It is rich in Vitamins A, E, F & K.  No wonder you find it in so many high-quality moisturizing lotions, lip balms and hair conditioners! As a fan of natural, quality beauty products I have always wanted to make my own.

I was fortunate and received a free sample of Organic Raw Shea Butter from Beauty by Shea for review purposes. This stuff is amazing! I used some of it neat as a body lotion and used some to make a whipped Shea butter (recipe will follow).

Making My Own Whipped Shea, Coconut, Olive Oil Butter

 Ingredients:

• Shea Butter – about 4 ounces
• Coconut oil – 1/4 cup
• Olive oil – 2 tablespoons
• Pure Almond extract (any skin friendly essential oil is fine, I thought I might want to use it as a lip balm so I used a culinary extract). 1 half teaspoon but the quantity is to your taste.

Tools needed:

• Double boiler (or substitute I put a glass Pyrex casserole dish inside a saucepan.)
• Electric mixer or food processor
• Fork
• Wooden spoon
• Spatula

Okay my recipe is not exact. I have a history of researching recipes and then going rogue and cooking intuitively. The truth is, I just threw the ingredients together–it was mostly Shea with a little coconut oil and olive oil added. The olive oil was mainly to thin the butter a little.  I was amazed it turned out so well, therefore I think the recipe is quite forgiving to exact ratios of the ingredients. I suggest going easy on the olive unless you want a very thin lotion.

Step 1: Smash room temperature Shea butter with a fork

Step 2: Soften and slowly melt the Shea butter in a double boiler. 

I don’t have a double boiler so I used a Pyrex casserole dish and a saucepan to fake it. (This technique also works with chocolate).

Step 3:  Mix in the other oils and extract into  the melted Shea

I added the olive oil and almond extract at the end and mixed them all together.

Step 5: Cool Shea, coconut and olive oil mixture

This took a little longer than I expected and I ended up putting it in the refrigerator for a minute. It should still be a slightly warm and very soft semi-solid for the next step.

Step 5: Put butter mixture in food processor and whip

The recipes I have seen suggested using an electric mixer. Since I do not have one, I used my mini food processor and it worked well. You do need to clean it up right away while the whipped Shea butter is still soft.

Step 6: Transfer your whipped Shea butter into a container

I used a Tupperware container because it is what I had on hand. I think a glass canning jar would be ideal especially if you plan to give this away as a gift (just be sure the potential recipient doesn’t have nut allergies!)

The Whipped Shea Butter is just gorgeous! It has an elegant texture and absorbs quickly into the skin after application. I believe it could also be used as a deep conditioning hair treatment, but since I have fine hair I don’t see myself doing that very often.

Review Raw, Organic Shea Butter from Beauty By Shea

My Experience Using Raw, Organic Shea Butter From Beauty by Shea:

As I mentioned, the whipped Shea Butter I made was amazing. Not bad for a first timer!  I have also used this raw, organic Shea Butter neat. The skin on my heels was very dry, cracked from a Summer of wearing sandals. At night, I rubbed Shea butter on my feet then put on a pair of cotton socks. This allowed the Shea to absorb over night and after a couple nights the skin on my heels was much softer.

Shea butter is a highly effective moisturizer. It has a slightly nutty aroma. I like nuts so that is a benefit to my nose. In fact, I scented my whipped Shea butter with a little almond extract.

I like the basic, functional packaging. It came packaged in a resealable zip-lock style bag which was inside a minimalist brown paper bag. The resealable bag is great for an ingredient like this as it is easy to remove a small quantity of the Shea butter than reseal the bag. I like that it is functional and not wasteful.

Features and Benefits of Beauty by Shea’s Raw, Organic Shea Butter:

• Grade A
• Vitamins A, E, F & K
• Double filtered, first in Ghana, and then at our US Lab
• 100% pure and natural, nothing else added!
• 100% ivory organic raw, unrefined Shea butter

Raw Organic Unrefined Shea Butter is perfect for topical use on skin and hair, and the perfect essential ingredient for homemade lotions, soaps, conditioners and more!

Please note, this product is intended for external use only. Since Shea butter is made from the nut of the African Shea tree, it is not safe for people who are allergic to nuts.

Where you Can Purchase:

(Affiliate Link to Follow)

Beauty By Shea website or Amazon’s product listing for Beauty By Shae

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.