How Handmade Shea Butter is Made

Last updated: October 2026

How is shea butter made?

By hand, with water and heat. Baraka's shea butter is made from the nuts of wild shea trees by a traditional water-based method, handmade by the women of the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana. The nuts are collected, dried, cleaned, ground, roasted and ground again into a paste. Water is then kneaded in and the paste is whipped by hand until the oil separates, and the oil is boiled to clear impurities, then cooled until it sets.

Only water and heat are used, so what comes out of the pot is unrefined shea butter: ivory to pale yellow, with a mild nutty scent. The butter Baraka sells as Raw Shea Butter is this butter, made at the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Wa and packed by the same women, which is why it is the one to choose if you want shea butter you can trace to the hands that made it.

For everything shea butter does once it is made, on skin, hair and in home recipes, see Raw Shea Butter Benefits: Complete Guide to Skin, Hair, Baby, Pregnancy, and DIY. For what "raw" means on a label, see What Is Raw Shea Butter? The Beginner's Guide to Buying and Using It, and for the full fair-trade sourcing story behind Baraka's butter, see Fair Trade Shea Butter: The Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre Story.

How is shea butter made by hand?

Women do the work by hand. Baraka's shea butter is made by hand by the women of the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Wa, Ghana, who collect fallen shea fruit, dry the nuts, then wash, grind and roast them and grind them again into a paste. They knead in water and whip the paste by hand for several hours until the oil separates, then boil it, skim it, and leave it to cool and set.

The hand work is concentrated in three places: gathering the fruit from the shea parkland, kneading and whipping the paste, and judging the boil. Machines help with the two grinds, but the separation of oil from nut solids, the step factory production replaces with solvents, is done by hand in open basins.

What the women work with

• Basins for collecting fruit and for kneading and whipping the paste.
• A grinding mill for the first and second grinds.
• Roasting equipment for bringing the crushed nuts to the right heat.
• Boiling pots for the final separation and skimming.
• Cartons and bags for the finished, inspected butter.

Why the whipping takes hours

Whipping is the most labour-intensive step and the one most distinctly associated with traditional hand-processing. There is no shortcut that keeps the method water-based: the oil only separates once enough water and enough working have broken the paste apart, and the women judge by look and feel when that point has come. How the kneading and whipping are done is set out in step 7.

Done by hand, the method gives a lower yield than solvent extraction. In Baraka's experience, hand-processing yields about 30% by weight, a little over 1 oz of butter from every 3.5 oz of shea nuts (about 30 g from 100 g). The rest stays behind in the nut solids, which are put to use as fuel rather than thrown away (see step 8).

How is shea butter extracted?

With water and hand-work. Baraka's shea butter is extracted with water and hand-work at the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana, Baraka's partner centre: the roasted nuts are ground to a paste, water is kneaded in, and the paste is whipped by hand, often for several hours, until the oils coagulate and separate from the nut solids. The oil is then boiled and skimmed to clear remaining impurities before it cools and solidifies.

Much of the shea butter sold worldwide is factory-produced. Industrial extraction commonly uses solvents such as hexane to draw the oil out of the crushed kernels, and the crude fat is then often refined, bleached and deodorised. That gives a consistent, white, odourless butter and a higher yield from the same nuts. Water-based hand extraction, the method Baraka's partner centre uses, keeps the butter unrefined, with its natural colour and scent.

Hand-processed and factory shea butter compared

Point of comparison	Hand-processed (water-based)	Factory (solvent extraction)
How the oil is separated	Kneading and whipping with water, then boiling and skimming	Solvents such as hexane, usually followed by refining
What is added	Water and heat only	Solvent, and often bleaching and deodorising agents
Yield	About 30% by weight in Baraka's experience	Higher, because solvents draw out more of the oil
Colour and scent	Ivory to pale yellow, mild nutty scent	White and odourless once refined
Who does the work	Women's producer groups, by hand	Industrial plant

The difference between hand-processed shea butter and factory-produced shea butter is not only in the story. The higher factory yield comes from chemical contact, and refining after extraction strips out the colour and scent along with part of the unsaponifiable fraction. Hand-processed shea butter keeps its natural unsaponifiable fraction, the part of the fat that does not turn into soap and that carries triterpenes, tocopherols (vitamin E) and phytosterols. In shea butter that fraction is unusually high: a 2021 review in the Journal of Cosmetic Science puts it at roughly 3 to 10%, against well under 2% in most butters and oils, and the World Agroforestry tree database gives about 8%.

The trade-off is yield and consistency. Pressure to increase yield is one of the reasons solvent extraction is widely used. Baraka's partner centre keeps to the lower-yield water-based method, and the fair-trade premium Baraka pays makes that choice economically viable for the women who do the work. For a fuller comparison, see Handmade vs Factory-Made Shea Butter: Quality, Value, and Who Benefits, and for what the distinction means for consumers, The Truth About Shea Butter: Raw vs Refined, Handmade vs Factory and Top Ten Reasons to Use Handmade Shea Butter.

Why traditional shea butter is never cold-pressed

Cold-pressed means oil obtained by mechanical means without heat. Traditionally processed shea butter cannot be cold-pressed, because the nuts are roasted and the fat is boiled, so heat has been applied by definition. The word that does describe hand-processed shea butter, and that a buyer can check by looking and smelling, is unrefined: unrefined butter has colour and scent, refined butter is white and odourless.

What the evidence shows, and how to check it yourself

The traditional use of shea butter as a skin conditioning ingredient is long-standing and well documented across generations in West Africa. The traditional hand-processing method is not a romanticised version of a simpler process. It is the actual method, and it differs from chemical solvent extraction in ways that affect the final ingredient: its colour, its scent and its unsaponifiable fraction.

What is less well established is the precise difference in conditioning performance between hand-processed and factory-processed shea butter in clinical terms. The view that hand-processed shea butter performs better on skin rests on traditional use and on cosmetic chemistry reasoning about what refining removes. Head-to-head clinical trials comparing the two do not exist. If you want to weigh the evidence yourself, including evidence that might call traditional claims into question, these searches are a good place to start.

• Supporting research: "shea butter unsaponifiable fraction skin", "Vitellaria paradoxa traditional processing compounds", "shea butter solvent extraction compound loss".
• Opposing or qualifying evidence: "shea butter processing method comparison limitations", "refined shea butter clinical equivalence", "shea butter compound retention study".

Reading both sides gives a much clearer picture than reading one, and much of what you find will be inconclusive, which is itself useful information. You can also read what other customers have said about using Baraka's Raw Shea Butter in their own skincare routines, real people describing their own experience in their own words. That is not clinical evidence either, but it is a different kind of signal worth considering alongside everything else. Our view is that ingredients with centuries of traditional use and a growing body of supportive research deserve serious consideration, and that you should draw your own conclusions from the evidence.

Shea butter production process: the nine steps from fruit to butter

Nine steps, from fruit to butter. Baraka's shea butter goes through nine production steps at the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre, Baraka's partner centre in Ghana's Upper West Region: the wild shea trees, the fruit, picking and preparing the nuts, first grind, roasting, second grind, whipping and churning, final boiling and skimming, and packing. Every step follows the traditional water-based method, with the oil separated by hand, and Baraka keeps documentation for each batch.

Step 1: The shea trees

Shea trees (Vitellaria paradoxa) grow wild and sparsely spaced in the savanna parklands of the sub-Saharan region, across Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali and neighbouring countries. They are not farmed or cultivated in the conventional sense. They grow naturally, can live for as long as 200 years, and only begin to bear fruit when they are about 15 to 20 years old. The trees are communally managed: women's communities have traditional rights to the fruit, and the trees are protected as a community resource.

Shea trees are not found in plantations. The dispersed, wild nature of the shea parkland is one of the reasons hand-collection and hand-processing remain the main method: the geography does not lend itself to industrial-scale mechanisation at the collection stage.

Step 2: The shea fruit

Shea blossoms appear by late January. By mid-May in a good season, the shea parkland is full of ripe fruit: green-yellow, roughly plum-sized, with a sweet pulp around the husk that holds the seed. The fruit is locally valued. Children collect and sell it, and animals eat what falls to the ground.

Inside every fruit is a husk, and inside the husk is the shea nut, the seed that holds the oil that will become shea butter. Most of the fruit ripens and falls naturally, feeding animals and returning nutrients to the soil. The women collect what they need without stripping the trees, a practice that has sustained the shea parkland for generations.

Step 3: Picking and preparing

As the fruit begins to fall, women and families in remote villages collect it in basins and bring it back to the village. Husks that still carry fruit flesh are left for chickens to clean before processing, so nothing is wasted. The women have been taught traditionally to leave enough seeds on the ground for natural regeneration, sustaining the long-term health of the shea parkland.

The collected husks are boiled for about 30 minutes to sterilise them and remove any remaining fruit flesh. The nutrient-rich water from boiling is used in farming and gardening. The husks are then dried in the sun until they can be cracked open and the shea nut removed, and the nuts are dried further until they are stable enough for storage and transport.

Step 4: First grind

The first step in turning shea nuts into shea butter is the first grind. At Baraka's facility, the process begins by thoroughly washing the shea nuts, and only clean, inspected nuts go forward. Any nut that does not meet quality standards is rejected at this stage.

The selected nuts are taken to Baraka's grinding mill, where the first grind crushes them into small chunks suitable for roasting. Quality control at this stage directly affects the quality of the final butter: contaminated or damaged nuts that pass through produce poorer shea butter whatever happens in later steps.

Step 5: Roasting

The crushed nuts are carefully roasted to free the oil, then cooled for the second grind. For why the roast matters and what goes wrong when it is too light or too hard, see Why are shea nuts roasted?

Step 6: Second grind

The second grind turns the dry, roasted chunks into a thick, viscous paste. This is the stage at which the oil becomes ready to be separated. The paste that comes out of the second grind is dense and rich, the result of grinding roasted nut to the point where its structure breaks down and the oil begins to flow.

Step 7: Whipping and churning

The paste from the second grind is handed back to the women, who work it by hand using methods passed down through generations. Water is slowly kneaded into the mixture, which begins to separate the oil from the nut solids. The whole mixture is then vigorously whipped by hand until the oil coagulates and separates from the nut solids and water, which can take several hours per batch.

This is the step that factory production replaces with solvent extraction, and keeping it is what keeps the yield lower and the butter unrefined (see How is shea butter made by hand?).

Step 8: Final touches

The coagulated oil is scooped from the basins into a pot, where it is vigorously boiled to complete the separation of oil from nut solids and remove the remaining impurities. Water is added from time to time during boiling, and each addition brings impurities to the surface, where they are skimmed off.

The water left in the basin after whipping is full of nut solids. Baraka's circular approach captures this and turns it into fuel used in the processing itself. The residue left in the pot after boiling is used to make a form of traditional local black soap for washing and bathing. Nothing from the process is wasted.

The final boil is also the step that decides whether the butter smells fresh. If the women are rushed and do not fully drive off the water before the shea cools, the moisture left behind causes the sour off-odour associated with poor-quality shea. At Baraka's partner centre, quality control at this stage is a standard part of the process. When the oil is ready, it is scooped into basins, covered, and left to cool and solidify.

Step 9: Packing for shipment

The cooled, solidified shea butter is carefully inspected and hand-packed into cartons and bags. Every carton is sealed, from the hands of the women at the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre to Baraka's customers worldwide. Baraka documents the chain of custody from shea parkland to finished butter, and that documentation is available on request.

From here, Baraka's customers, whether cosmetic formulators, soap makers or home DIY makers, turn this traditionally handmade butter into products for people who want to know exactly what they are putting on their skin and where it came from. Raw shea butter sits with the other butters in Baraka's Butters collection, and the products other makers reorder most are gathered under Best Sellers.

Who makes shea butter?

Women, by long tradition. Shea butter is traditionally women's work in West Africa. Baraka's shea butter is made by the women of the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Wa, in Ghana's Upper West Region, who use methods passed down through generations and receive a fair-trade premium from Baraka. The women gather, prepare, roast and process the nuts, from the fruit to the final boil. Baraka is Community Certified Fair Trade.

Traditional shea butter production is women's work economically, culturally and practically. The fair-trade premium Baraka pays supports households, children's education and community development in a region where formal employment opportunities are limited.

The Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre

Baraka sources its shea butter directly from the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana's Upper West Region. Wayne Dunn, Baraka's founder, has worked directly with the women there for over 15 years. The women use traditional hand-processing methods, the same methods passed through generations, and the butter they make is hand-processed with water alone. For how the partnership works day to day, see The Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre: How Baraka's Cooperative Partnership Works, and for how the business around it is built, The Business Behind Baraka Shea Butter.

Keeping to hand-processing rather than shifting to factory production is about more than ingredient quality. It keeps the economic model that makes the centre viable, and the livelihoods of the women who depend on it. For more on the women and their work, see Beauty Benefits of Shea Butter and Other African Ingredients.

You can also hear from Yahaya Amina, one of the women at Baraka's partner centre, about how shea waste is put to use: Yahaya Amina on Using Shea Waste for Fuel. For the full picture of what Baraka's work in Ghana adds up to, see Baraka's Social and Environmental Impact Report.

Chain-of-custody documentation

Chain-of-custody documentation records each step in the supply chain from harvest through processing, packing and shipping, so that a batch can be traced to its source. For Baraka, that means the centre (the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre), the processing method (traditional and water-based) and the batch details are documented and available on request. Baraka knows the name of the centre, the region, the processing method and the women who made each batch. For formulators making sourcing claims on packaging or in marketing, that documentation is what makes those claims verifiable.

Baraka's shea butter is also tested periodically by the Ghana Standards Authority in ISO-accredited laboratories, and the certificate of analysis for a batch is available on request. For what chain of custody means across natural ingredients, see What Is Chain of Custody in Natural Skincare Ingredients?

What the price of hand-processed shea butter reflects

Three things shape the price of hand-processed shea butter: the lower yield of the water-based method, the time and labour the method takes, and the fair-trade premium Baraka pays the women at the centre. The price reflects the real cost of doing it this way: labour-intensive traditional methods, quality control at every stage, and an economic model that benefits the people who do the work. For consumers and formulators who want to make specific sourcing claims, Baraka's documentation turns a claim into one that can be verified.

Shea butter from Ghana's Upper West Region

Ghana and Burkina Faso both produce high-quality shea butter from the same species, Vitellaria paradoxa. For any buyer, the questions that matter most are how the butter was processed, traditional water-based or solvent extraction, and whether chain-of-custody documentation is available. Ghana's Upper West Region, where Baraka sources its shea butter, has a well-established tradition of women's group processing. For a detailed comparison of the two origins, see Ghana vs Burkina Faso Shea Butter: What the Difference Actually Means.

Why are shea nuts roasted?

To free the oil. Shea nuts are roasted to prepare the oils for release, because nuts that are not heated enough do not give up their oil easily. Roasting also gives hand-processed shea butter its characteristic nutty scent. The crushed nuts are roasted to the right temperature, then left to cool before the second grind. At Baraka's partner centre, the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana, the roast is judged by the women who do it.

Temperature control at this stage is critical. Underheated nuts do not release their oil efficiently, so more of it stays behind in the nut solids after whipping.

Overheated nuts scorch, and that damages the naturally occurring compounds that give shea butter its conditioning character and can leave a burnt note in the finished butter. The aim is a roast that is even and complete without scorching. For the roasting step in more detail, see How Do You Roast Shea Butter?

Roasting, refining and scent

The characteristic nutty, slightly smoky scent of unrefined, hand-processed shea butter comes from the roasting stage and the traditional method. Refined shea butter has been processed to remove scent and colour, and that processing also removes part of the unsaponifiable fraction. The scent of unrefined shea butter fades once it is on the skin.

A sharp or sour smell rather than a nutty one points to water left in the butter at the final boil (step 8), a quality-control issue rather than a feature of traditional processing. For more on reading colour and scent, see Decoding Shea Butter.

What We Know and How We Know It

The processing method, from collecting the fruit to the final boil, comes from Baraka's work over more than 15 years with the women of the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana, and the yield figure is Baraka's own experience of hand-processing there. The age at which shea trees first bear fruit (about 15 to 20 years) and their long lifespan come from the World Agroforestry tree database and from an Oklahoma State University open textbook chapter on shea (Shea Butter, the Plant and Its Products). The unsaponifiable range comes from a 2021 review in the Journal of Cosmetic Science (Dermal Effects of Unsaponifiable Compounds) and agrees with the World Agroforestry figure. The comparison with refined shea butter reflects common practice in the shea trade and in the home-making community.

Disclaimer

The information in this article is for general education. It reflects traditional use, reported experience and, where noted, published research. It has not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or Health Canada. Baraka products are cosmetics and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or medical condition. Always patch test a new ingredient, keep products away from the eyes and out of reach of children, and speak to a qualified healthcare provider about any skin or health condition. Individual results vary.

A note on the traditions in this post: the practices described here come from conversations with, and time spent among, the community members and cooperative partners we work with in West Africa. We share them as anecdotal, first-hand impressions — not as verified fact or expert accounts. These traditions vary from family to family and region to region, so what follows is indicative rather than definitive. We offer it with respect and humility: to share a little of what we've encountered, not to speak for these communities or claim any authority over their traditions.

About the Author

Wayne Dunn is the founder of Baraka Impact and a former Professor of Practice in Sustainability at McGill University. He holds an M.Sc. in Management from Stanford and has spent over 15 years working directly with the Konjeihi Women's Enterprise Centre in Ghana's Upper West Region to source traditionally made shea butter and natural oils. He shares DIY skincare recipes and ingredient guides designed to be made at home with real ingredients — and sourced with full transparency about where they come from.