People love Shea butter for all kinds of reasons. They like what it does to their skin; they enjoy the texture or how well it goes as a base for making their own DIY skincare recipes. Some folks even make candles with it. We love it for all these reasons too- but we also love it for another one: the Shea butter economy. Now, at first glance you might think we’re talking about nothing more than the buying and selling of raw African Shea butter. But what we’re actually talking about is the importance of the Shea tree to the ecosystems within which it grows, the wonderful people and collectives that harvest and process the Shea nuts into butter and the awesome effects it has on your skin.
Every jar of Shea butter begins as a nut on the Karite tree. We choose to source our Shea nuts from wild growing Karite trees in the Mole National Forest of Ghana. Here, these trees are an integral part of the eco system and help to prevent soil erosion. The trees are strong, healthy and protected and as a result the Shea butter produced from these trees is the best for strong, healthy and protected skin.
Next, the Shea nuts are sustainably harvested by the members of the women’s cooperative we source through. This provides the women who are part of the project with a sustainable income that allows them to support themselves and their families. As a result, their children are able to go to school and they do not have to perform hard manual labor growing subsistence crops for less money. The Shea nuts are traditionally processed to ensure a 100% raw and active compound filled Shea butter. No bleach, hexane, high heat or other chemicals are ever used.
And finally, after those Shea nuts have been harvested and processed we have the pleasure of passing it on to you for daily application and fantastic skin regeneration! So many people have found an affordable, effective, pleasurable and easy to use skincare product in raw Shea butter and that positivity is only multiplied by the kind of generosity and abundance that the Shea butter process starts with. From sustainable seeds to big African trees, financially stable families and skin that’s soft, smooth, glowing and happy, the Shea butter economy is fantastically good from beginning to end.