Shea Butter

About This Product

Shea butter is extracted from the kernel of the nut of Vitellaria paradoxa, a tree that grows wild across the Sahel belt of West and East Africa. It carries the INCI name Butyrospermum Parkii Butter and CAS number 194043-92-0. Raw and unrefined grades are cream to pale yellow with a distinctive nutty, smoky odour; refined grades are bleached and deodorised to a white, near-odourless butter for use where the natural scent would interfere. The fat itself is built mainly on stearic and oleic acids in roughly equal measure, which gives a soft solid that melts close to skin temperature. What distinguishes shea from other vegetable butters is its unsaponifiable fraction, which can reach 3 to 11 percent against well under one percent for most vegetable oils. Unsaponifiables are the components that do not form soap with alkali, and in shea they include triterpene alcohols, phytosterols, tocopherols and cinnamic acid esters. This fraction is the source of the butter's rich, cushioning skin feel and its resistance to oxidation. The same stearic and oleic structure also makes shea stearin the principal raw material for cocoa butter equivalents. It is used in creams, lotions, balms, hair products and soap, and its fractionated stearin is used in confectionery fats and compound coatings. Bio Green Oils and Fats supplies refined and unrefined shea butter against a specification covering free fatty acid, peroxide value, unsaponifiable matter, melting point, colour and odour.