Shea Butter

Shea butter is a fat extracted from the nut of the shea tree, Vitellaria paradoxa, native to the Sahel savanna belt of West and Central Africa. Solid and ivory to pale yellow at room temperature, it has long been used as a cooking fat in the traditional cuisines of the region, alongside its far better known modern use as a moisturizing ingredient in cosmetics. Traditional production, still largely done by hand by women's cooperatives across countries such as Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria, involves crushing, roasting and pounding the kernels before boiling and skimming the resulting fat.