Shea Butter - Refined or unrefined?

[John Harris]

Hi Boys and Girls!
I'm looking to buy some shea butter. The place I want to buy from offers it in unrefined form with it's concomitant ivory color and nutty, smoking odor. Will it make that much difference in in the product? Or should I stick to refined only? It makes up only 7% of the oils and 4.8% of the recipe. (359 grams of shea butter in 5129 grams of oils, to be precise.)

 

[Misschief]

I have unrefined as well as refined and, honestly, I much prefer the unrefined. That said, I don't use a lot of shea butter in my soaps; I use it mainly in bath & body products. If scent is important, I'll use the refined. Otherwise, I love the unrefined I have.

 

[dibbles]

I use shea butter *sometimes* and these days I pretty much only make soap. Lotion making isn’t for me, and I prefer mango butter in my lotion bars. I also always use a little cocoa butter in my soap recipes. I haven’t found the unrefined shea butter odor to be noticeable in finished soap, nor do I find the smell of it objectionable. I should also say I haven’t used it over 25%.

 

[Zany_in_CO]

Because it contains more vitamins, nutrients, and other beneficial components, Unrefined Shea Butter is better overall for soap and other products. It makes all the difference in the feel of my 67% Shea Butter Soap recipe.

However, I prefer the whiteness of Refined Shea Butter for my lip balms, creams, lotion etc. JMHO, it just makes a prettier product.

 

[lsg]

I use unrefined shea butter in soap.

 

[TheGecko]

Hi Boys and Girls!
I'm looking to buy some shea butter. The place I want to buy from offers it in unrefined form with it's concomitant ivory color and nutty, smoking odor. Will it make that much difference in in the product? Or should I stick to refined only? It makes up only 7% of the oils and 4.8% of the recipe. (359 grams of shea butter in 5129 grams of oils, to be precise.)

The choice to use a natural/organic/unrefined product or a deodorized/refined product is dependent upon what you want the end product to look and smell like. I use both natural Cocoa and Shea Butters in my soap at 10% each and I haven't noticed any cocoa/nutty odor in my Bare Naked Soap...I just smell a nice 'clean' scent. In my Solid Lotion Bars the natural odors are more noticeable, because I'm not only using them at a much higher rate, but also because I'm not really changing the chemistry of them via saponification. For the most part it's not a big deal, but not all Essential/Fragrance Oils compliment that odor or are able to overcome it.

My recommendation would be do what what many of us do...purchase a small amount of each type and make some test products. When BB had a sale on their Butters I picked up 4oz each Murumuru, Cupuacu and Raw Shea Butter to experiment with. The thing is...at the end of the day, all that matters is what YOU like.