Shea butter is a popular skincare ingredient extracted from the seed of the shea tree (scientific name: Vitellaria paradoxa, formerly Butyrospermum parkii), native to Africa. It’s well-known for its creamy and rich consistency, vitamin E content, and ability to provide deep-penetrating moisture to the skin and hair.
But not all shea butter is created equally. You may have seen some shea butter advertised as “raw” or “unrefined” (like the shea we use in our products, but what exactly does that mean?
Similarly, why is it that sometimes shea butter is a cream color, and other times it’s bright yellow? And what’s “Shea Nilotica”?
The Difference Kinds of Shea Butter On the Market
Whether you’re buying shea butter on its own or trying to decipher an ingredient list on a moisturizer or condition you’ve purchased, there are essentially 3 different categories shea butter can fall under:
- Refined vs. unrefined
- Ivory vs. yellow
- Eastern vs. western
All other ways you may have seen shea butter described, such as “deodorized,” “white,” or “with borututu extract” fall under these categories. Let’s explore these categories a bit more.
Unrefined vs. Refined Shea Butter
Unrefined Shea Butter
Unrefined shea butter, often referred to as raw or natural shea butter, is extracted using traditional methods that preserve its natural properties, like its vitamins A, E, F, and antioxidant content. The extraction is usually done manually and can involve sun-drying, wet milling, or pounding. The finished product is filtered with a filter cloth and allowed to cool and solidify without further processing.
Because unrefined shea butter is minimally processed, it retains its natural color, nutty aroma, and a range of vitamins, minerals, and sensitive but beneficial fatty acids. Unrefined shea butter is known for its moisturizing and healing properties, making it the superior choice to capture the full benefits of shea butter. However, many brands choose not to use it because it goes bad more quickly and doesn’t spread as easily.
Refined or White Shea Butter
Refined shea butter is unrefined shea butter that has undergone additional processing to remove impurities and achieve a smoother texture. This processing typically involves using alkali refining to remove free fatty acids, bleaching, and deodorizing using chemical solvents.
While this refining process may result in a butter with a milder scent, easier spreadability, and a lighter color, it also eliminates many of the natural benefits of unrefined shea butter. Vitamin A, E, F, minerals, and many beneficial fatty acids are almost entirely stripped during the refining process, leaving refined shea with only some basic moisturizing properties. Refined shea butter is often used in mainstream cosmetic formulations where a neutral scent and color are desirable, even though this is done at the expense of shea’s most beneficial properties.
White shea butter is typically another word for “refined” shea butter. The refining process removes color, odor, and many of shea’s beneficial vitamins and nutrients. The resulting product is called “white” because it has a pale, white, almost translucent appearance. The texture and feel will often be a bit lighter and fluffier than ivory shea butter, almost like Crisco or coconut oil.
While white shea butter is perfectly fine in processed applications like makeup that just need shea for its physical properties, we recommend avoiding it if you want to benefit from shea’s full scope of moisturizing and skin health benefits.
If you’re using a mainstream moisturizer that contains shea, and it doesn’t specify that it’s “raw,” “unrefined,” or “ivory,” it’s relatively safe to assume it contains refined or “white” shea.
Because refined shea butter is lighter, it is sometimes called “white” shea butter. If you see shea butter labeled as “white” and not “ivory,” it is most likely refined.
Ivory vs. White vs. Yellow Shea Butter
Ivory Shea Butter
Ivory shea butter is simply another word for unrefined shea butter. It’s called “ivory” because unrefined shea butter maintains its natural ivory or beige color. Ivory is the most common form of unrefined shea butter and is widely used in natural skincare products. The natural color of ivory shea butter can vary slightly depending on factors such as the region where it is produced and the processing methods.
The ivory shea butter we use is ethically sourced from a community of female producers in Benin, Africa, who have been perfecting the craft of creating natural shea butter without sacrificing nutrients for decades.
Yellow Shea Butter
Yellow shea butter can be a bit trickier to figure out than white and ivory shea butter.
Traditionally, yellow shea butter is simply ivory or unrefined shea butter that has been milled using the borututu root from the borututu tree (scientific name: cochlospermum angolense). This root offers a variety of beneficial anti-inflammatory and anti-aging properties that complement the moisturizing properties of shea butter to help soothe and heal skin and hair.
In our opinion, the best yellow shea butter is unrefined shea that has been milled with borututu root. This is the most traditional way of making it, and we believe the detoxifying, purifying, and vitamin-rich properties of borututu have incredible synergy with the properties of shea butter.
East African Shea vs. West African Shea
Shea butter is primarily sourced from two regions in Africa: East Africa and West Africa. Each region grows its own subspecies of shea with different properties, prices, and politics.
East African Shea Butter
East African shea butter, sometimes called “shea nilotica,” is produced almost exclusively in Uganda and Sudan. It comes from a sub-species of the West African or standard shea tree (Vitellaria paradoxa), known as Vitellaria nilotica, or Vitellaria paradoxa nilotica.
East African shea is rarer, more sought-after, and contains more beneficial properties than West African shea. It is known to have a slightly different fatty acid composition, including a higher concentration of oleic acid, which makes it creamier and easier to spread. It also has a slightly more subtle, sweet aroma than West African shea.
Due to East African Shea’s superiority and the unstable politics of the region it grows in, it is usually much more expensive than West African Shea, and is considered a luxury product.
However, because of its premium status and the region’s political instability, it is also prone to being doctored, diluted, or faked. So, if you’re interested in buying it, make sure to get it from a good source.
West African Shea Butter
West African shea butter is the more widely recognized and commonly used type of shea. Any shea butter that doesn’t specify that it’s shea nilotica, including yellow, ivory, and refined shea, will almost certainly be West African shea.
Originating from countries like Ghana, Benin, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso, West African shea butter has a more robust nutty aroma, a denser, firmer consistency, and a richer creamy color than East African Shea.
Although it is not as sought-after as East African shea, West African shea butter still contains a host of beneficial nutrients that nourish the skin and hair, such as vitamins A, E, and F, and a heavy concentration of deeply moisturizing fatty acids. It has traditionally been used as a beauty and cooking staple for centuries in the regions it grows in.
Since the West African shea tree is more abundant than its East African counterpart, and the regions it grows in are more politically peaceful, West African shea is generally more affordable and sustainable than East African shea. It is also less likely to be doctored.
Because we’re committed to making our unrefined shea butter products sustainable and affordable for the average person, we’ve chosen to use 100% West African shea in our formula.
Conclusion
Shea butter comes in many forms, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed when trying to choose the right one. As a rule of thumb, anything that’s not “refined” or “white” shea butter will be amazingly beneficial for your skin and hair, especially compared to drugstore moisturizers.
If you’re looking to harness shea’s antioxidant, emollient, and healing powers, try our skincare and haircare products. In addition to using high-quality, sustainably sourced, unrefined yellow and ivory shea butter. You can buy it here, or learn more about the ingredients here.
