Step By Step Process For Making Shea Butter

By Dr. Robyn Tisdale Scott

Shea Butter is a natural cream that is hand made from the nut of the Karite tree in Africa. The process is long and hard, and falls to the women of Africa. Sometimes, the women will have to walk miles and miles to get to where the Karite trees are. They do not pick the fruit from the trees. It must first mature and it falls to the ground, where it is harvested from. The women collect the fruit, and carry it back to where they perform the Shea Butter making process. The fruit is consumed, and the kernels are used to make the Shea Butter. First, the nuts are sorted. Then they are parboiled.

After the boiling, they are left in the sun to dry. They must be completely dehydrated, so this part of the process can take up to a week. When they are completely dry, they are collected again and crushed. The women will either crush them with a mortar and pestle or some other device, causing the nuts and the kernels to be separated.

After this process, the nuts are roasted in a metal sort of pot and put through a grinding process. This makes what looks like a brown paste. The paste is processed a second time in a very arduous procedure. This involves mixing, kneading and adding water.

When this is finished, the resulting butter is creamy and usually thick. It can range in color from beige to light or dark green or even gray. It normally depends on what season the nuts were harvested, how mature they were and other factors as well. This butter is then either sold as a body product in itself or added to other products. This is the natural and unrefined kind of Shea Butter, which has numerous benefits and health promoting properties. The kind that is refined loses virtually all of its healing properties.

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