Tempering Shea Butter

When I made recipes with Shea Butter, particularly lotion sticks, I found that the Shea Butter would often make the recipe gritty. Then I learned from Melanie Wessner that one should temper it before using it. I really never thought of doing that. According to Melanie, shea butter should be melted and heated to about 175 degrees and kept for 20 minutes.

While searching online, I found how to temper your shea butter from a forum on BeeSource. According to Luscious Honey, who posted this response says that this is how to temper your shea butter.

"Heat butter to 170-185F and HOLD that temp. for 10 minutes. Steady heat obliterates the fat crystals and won't hurt the beneficial qualities of the butter. To prevent the crystals from reforming, stick the butter in the fridge until solid. If you find that crystals have reformed, you can try it again, paying close attention to time and temps."

Lucious Honey suggests adjusting your butter-to-oil ratio also helps. The weather, evidently plays a part too as really hot weather tends to melt untempered butter causing the grit -- so this may be something you need to do only in summer, if you're winters are cold."

I am not sure which method is better. I will have to try both to see which works better. Has anyone else tried to temper their shea butter before. If you have, could you please share your experience? It would be greatly appreciated.

How to Use Shea Butter

African Shea butter is derived from the nut of the Karite tree, which grows throughout the Savannah belt of West Africa. African Shea butter has been utilized for centuries for its amazing ability to renew, repair and protect the skin. The name Karite means the Tree of Life, due to the many important ways that the people of this region use the Shea fruit.

Steps

Shea seeds that make the butter Shea butter can be used in foods and cooking. Used on the skin, it has a healing effects on burns, ulcerated skin, stretch marks, dryness and other skin conditions. It contains vegetable fats that promote cell regeneration and circulation, making it a wonderful healer and rejuvenate for troubled or aging skin.

Since it is very high in Vitamins A, E & F, it aids in cell regeneration and circulation (citation needed). It also moisturizes the skin with all the necessary ingredients that the skin needs for balance, elasticity and tone.

Shea butter has a distinctive nutty scent. Minutes after being applied to the skin however, it is quickly absorbed and the scent fades away.

When made into soap, it exfoliates the skin, gently cleaning and moisturizing at the same time.

Tips

Store your shea butter in a cool dry place.
Avoid leaving shea butter in direct sunlight.

Warnings

If you are allergic to latex, you will want to do a small patch test before you lather Shea butter all over.

Source: http://www.wikihow.com/Use-Shea-Butter

How to Use Shea Butter

Alot of body products call for adding shea butter.  But do you know what shea butter is and how it is used?  If you want to learn more about shea butter, an anonymous  eHow Contributing Writer wrote an article on How to Use Shea Butter. The article has alot of good information on what shea butter is and what it is good for. Make sure that you check out all ofthe resources that the author provides. There are some really important tips that should be taken seriously like not replaciing your sunscreen with shea butter. Even though shea butter has some sunscreen properties, it is not strong enough to last as long as a really strong sunscreen.