What to do with hard shea butter?
Everyone who uses shea butter loves it. They love the instant skin relief that can be found just by rubbing some of this wonderful product into their dry skin or on dry, unmanageable hair. They love it because it’s natural and unrefined. They love it because it’s from Africa.
What no one likes is a jar of shea butter that’s hard and hard to woirk with. We’ll explain what can cause this and how to soften your shea butter.
Causes of hard shea butter…
- cold weather - if you’ve just received an order of shea butter and the weather outdoors is cold - then more than likely your shea butter has been in cold conditions for days on it’s way to your home.
- melt and pour - there are essentially two ways to pack shea butter - hand scooping or melt and pour. Handing scooping involves spooning or scooping the shea butter from a larger container - perhaps a calabash gourd from Africa - and packaging it into smaller containers for re-sale. The other method is to melt and pour the shea butter. Melting and pouring is a much more efficient method of preparing shea butter for final resale in smaller containers but it tends to leave your shea butter much harder to use at first.
These are two most likely causes of hard shea butter. Here are some solutions…
- Warm it - Shea butter will melt at a relatively low temperature so you want to raise it’s temperature a bit without overheating it (should your shea butter melt when it resolidifies it will be just as hard as before you started). A good way to warm your shea butter is in a window that gets some afternoon sun or over or near a heat vent that doesn’t get too hot. Check it ocassionally and take it out of the heat when it’s easy to scoop a bit out of the container with your fingers. Another way to warm your shea butter, if it’s in a waterproof container, is to set it in some warm water for a while. Even if it gets a little wet your shea butter will be fine.
- Use it - just the process of using your shea butter - dipping your fingers in and extracting some shea butter - will eventually make your shea butter more workable.
- Buy a pre-whipped shea butter like this…. Whipped Shea Butter
If you get a chance, check out the full selection of shea butters available at Afrikan Republic - your Shea Butter Superstore
