As raw African Shea butter continues to grow in popularity, people are beginning to discover some of the more traditional uses and benefits outside of the incredibly healing moisturizing properties it is so well known for. One of those uses is as a natural soothing rub for sore and tight muscles and joints. Though it will forever be loved for its anti aging and skin softening properties, it’s time we give Shea butter its due as a body ache busting butter.
Raw African Shea butter contains something called Stigmasterol, which behaves something like an anti-stiffness compound in your body. It helps to relax muscle tension and inflammation, which makes it a great substance to use on your own at home, or in any kind of professional practice you may have, be it body work or body treatments in a spa.
Raw Shea butter also contains cinnamic acid and a group of substances known as triterpenes, both of which act as an anti inflammatory on both the skin and when rubbed into your sore muscles and joints. You can use the Shea butter on its own to rub in whenever you’re feeling sore and tired, or mix it with other muscle and joint loving substances. For example, you could mix your raw Shea butter with a few drops of Peppermint essential oil to help take the heat out of sore muscles. You could also use a few drops of Marjoram essential oil since it is fantastic for helping to melt the achy pains of sickness and soreness out of the body.
Whether you choose to use it alone or mixed with something else to pack an extra soothing punch, it’s important you choose to use Shea butter that has not been refined in any way. This is because the refinement process of the Shea takes away many of the exact therapeutic properties that Shea butter is known for in the first place, which include the muscle and joint pain soothing benefits. If you can find a wild crafted and unrefined Shea butter, even better since wild growing Shea trees have more concentrated levels of therapeutic substances in their Shea nuts.
Whether you’re young, old, athletic or just stiff from sitting too much- it doesn’t matter. What matters is that you take that uncomfortable tightness away by massaging some raw African Shea butter into your tight spots for pure, easy and simple botanical relief.