Shea Butter Benefits Dependent On Grade Quality Of Products, Research Shows

Shea butter is a great moisturizer, but what most people don’t know is that depending on the quality of the product, it also has some great medicinal properties for the skin.

Raw unrefined shea butter from Ghana. Photo from eCrater.com.

What’s considered Grade A shea butter contains a high level of healing nutrients including Vitamins A (maintains healthy bones, skin, and other tissues), Vitamin E (protects against cell damage), and cinnamates (absorb UVB).

The American Shea Butter Institute, which specializes on the research, education, and quality testing, highlights that “Vitamin A in (high grade) shea butter is important for improving a number of skin conditions, including blemishes, wrinkles, eczema, and dermatitis.”

Premium shea butter cream also has properties that treat skin allergies, insect bites, sunburns, frostbites, and a number of other conditions, and the moisturizers in shea butter are the same moisturizers produced by the sebaceous glands in the skin.

In nature, shea butter comes from the fat extracted from the nut of the shea tree. The healing properties depend on the grade quality of the shea butter after processing.

“In recent decades, shea butter has become a valued ingredient in the finest natural cosmetics, and even small amounts in a formulation can earn a prominent display on the label.

“The cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries consume an estimated 2,000 to 8,000 tons of shea butter each year, and this figure is expected to rise with growing demand in new markets,” according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.

A big issue in the value of a shea butter product is its grade quality, which depends largely on how it’s processed and stored for consumer use.

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