What Is Shea Butter?

Shea butter is a natural plant fat from Africa, taken from the seed of the shea tree. Baraka's shea butter is unrefined and made by hand by women at the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Wa, Ghana. This page explains what shea butter is, what it is made from, where it comes from, what shea is and what a shea nut really is.

What is shea butter?

Shea butter is a creamy, solid fat that comes from the seed inside the fruit of the shea tree. At room temperature it is firm but soft enough to scoop with a fingertip, and it melts as soon as it touches warm skin.

Unrefined shea butter, the kind Baraka makes, ranges from ivory to yellowish cream. It has a mild, earthy scent. Because it is made by hand, the colour and scent can differ a little from one lot to the next. That is normal for a handmade natural product.

Shea butter is a fat, so it contains no water. It is rich in oleic and stearic acids, the fatty acids that make it solid yet soft, and it naturally contains vitamins A and E.

People use shea butter in several ways. In Ghana and across West Africa it has long been used on skin and hair, and many people find it a rich, nourishing moisturiser. Cosmetic makers and soap makers use it in balms, lotions and soaps. It is also eaten and cooked with in Ghana, and has been for generations. Most of the world's shea goes into food, including chocolate. Baraka sells its shea butter for cosmetic use. If you want to know more about eating it, read our guide to eating shea butter.

Baraka's shea butter is unrefined. How that differs from refined shea butter is covered in our guide to refined and unrefined shea butter. If you have seen the words raw shea butter, What Is Raw Shea Butter? explains them.

What is shea butter made from?

Shea butter is made from the kernel, the seed, inside the fruit of the shea tree. Pure shea butter is the fat from those kernels and nothing else.

The fruit has a thin green skin and a sweet pulp. Inside is one large seed, often called the shea nut. The seed has a hard shell, and inside the shell is the kernel. The kernel is rich in fat, and that fat is what becomes shea butter.

How handmade shea butter is made

Women in Ghana traditionally make shea butter by hand in these steps.

1. They gather the fallen fruit from under the trees.
2. They remove the pulp from the seeds.
3. They boil and dry the nuts.
4. They crack the shells and sort the kernels.
5. They roast and grind the kernels into a paste.
6. They knead the paste with water until the fat separates from it.
7. They boil the fat and filter it.
8. The filtered fat cools and sets into shea butter.

Every step is done with simple tools, a great deal of skill and a lot of physical work. The knowledge is passed down through families and communities. Our guide How Handmade Shea Butter is Made goes through each step with photos and explains why the nuts are roasted.

Shea butter is also made in factories, where the kernels are processed by machine on a much larger scale. Handmade shea butter is a different, slower way of working, and it keeps the work in the hands of the women and communities who know the tree best.

Where does shea butter come from?

Shea butter comes from the shea tree, which grows wild across the savanna belt of West, Central and East Africa.

Most of the world's shea butter comes from West Africa, from countries including Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Nigeria and Côte d'Ivoire. East Africa has shea trees too, including in Uganda. The trees are not usually planted in orchards. They grow wild, and in many places farmers leave them standing in their fields when they clear land.

A shea tree grows slowly. It can take a decade or more to bear its first fruit, and it can then keep producing for many years. That is one reason the trees are so valued by the communities that live among them.

There are two subspecies of the tree: paradoxa in the west and nilotica in the east. Shea butter from each can differ in feel and in composition. Our guide What Is the Difference Between East African (Nilotica) and West African Shea Butter? compares them.

Baraka's shea butter: made at the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre

Baraka Impact is a Canadian company based in Duncan, British Columbia. Its founder is Wayne Dunn. Baraka's shea butter is made by hand by women at the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Wa, Ghana.

Baraka is Community Certified Fair Trade. The certification comes from the community: the women's groups meet each year and vote on whether Baraka may keep using the mark. You can read more about the centre in Fair Trade Shea Butter: The Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre Story. Our Impact Report reports on this work.

Tested periodically by the Ghana Standards Authority in ISO-accredited laboratories. Product specifications and our latest Ghana Standards Authority test summary are available on request through our product documentation page.

You can find our Raw Shea Butter in pouches and bags, from 0.11 lb (50 g) up to 55.1 lb (25 kg). It keeps 2+ years when stored properly.

Baraka is not certified organic. Our guide to natural ingredient certifications explains what the common labels mean.

What is shea?

Baraka's guide describes shea as the common name for the shea tree, Vitellaria paradoxa, and for what it gives: its fruit, its seeds and its butter.

You may also see the tree's older botanical name, Butyrospermum parkii. It is still used on ingredient labels, where shea butter appears as Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter.

The shea tree is a hardy, slow-growing tree of the dry savanna. It has thick, rough bark that helps it survive bush fires. Communities across the region have valued it for its fruit and its butter for generations. Shea is sometimes called women's gold, because gathering the nuts and making shea butter is mostly women's work and can bring them an income.

Shea gives several things. The sweet fruit pulp is eaten fresh, and our guide to the shea fruit covers it. The seed gives shea butter. Shea oil is the liquid form: Baraka's shea oil is made from unrefined shea butter and made by hand in Ghana. Our Shea Oil: The Ultimate DIY Guide shows how people use it.

What is a shea nut?

A shea nut is the large seed inside the fruit of the shea tree.

The fruit is about the size of a small plum, with a green skin and a sweet pulp. Under the pulp is the seed, which is brown and glossy with a hard shell. Most fruits hold one seed, though some hold two.

The everyday name in Ghana and in the shea trade is shea nut. Botanically it is a seed. Inside the shell is the shea kernel, which is the part that holds the fat.

After the women gather the nuts, they boil and dry them. Dried shea nuts can be stored for later, so shea butter can be made at different times of the year. It takes a large amount of shea nuts to make a small amount of butter, which is one reason handmade shea butter is hard work.

Quick answers

Have a question about shea butter, or want to order in larger quantities? Visit our bulk and wholesale page or contact us.