The Shea butter tree is available in as much as nineteen different countries only in Africa. In the countries, West and East Africa the people still produce the fruit of this unique healing tree by hand. You will notice that there are two species available of the Shea tree, first the West African specie Vitellaria Parodoxa and then the East African specie, which they call the Vitellaria Nilotica whose butter is much rarer than the butter of the West African tree. They use the seeds of the Shea trees to make the Shea butter by obtaining the solid oils from the nuts. Those trees can take as long as thirty years before they bear fruit for the first time and just bloom from June to July. Quite interesting is the fact that the trees can live a few hundred years before it is necessary to replace them. The fruits of the Shea tree are much like a plum and each fruit contain a nut with a white kernel that is hard inside it. This hard white kernel is used to produce the Shea butter which is then added to most skin care products.
When tracing the roots of the Shea tree you will notice that the women from Nasia use the oil from the nuts for ages to protect their skins in that terrible weather conditions. Today people go to the nearest shop where they buy the formula they need, just keep an eye on the label to make sure that the contents of the product is natural. Products that contain pure Shea butter can be expensive but is at the same time worth every penny you spend on it. Pure Shea butterâEUR(TM)s healing effects are excellent and the product itself is of the best quality.
To know how the whole process of making the Shea butter works can be really interesting. Women walking long distances gathering the fruit that falls from the Shea butter tree while the production is their responsibility too. After they gather the fruit they must immediately start with the drying process before they can crack all the nuts. Remember all those tasks are done by hand. Only then, they can go to the next step of crushing and grounding, roasting and cooking before they can let the finished product to cool down. A complex procedure to follow but if they do not follow each step carefully the whole batch of Shea butter will be a complete mess.