Raw Shea Butter - 100% Pure African Unrefined Shea Butter for Hair | Skin Moisturizer for Face and Body | Use for Soap Base, DIY Whipped Lotion, Lip Balm - 8 oz Block

OK, so I bought this stuff because it looked delicious. No, I'm not going to eat it, but the photos of it looking like fudge just make it so appealing, am I right? You just want to take a bite out of it. It's actually edible, but my guess is it doesn't taste as good as it looks.This stuff has a consistency similar to raw cookie dough. The photos are accurate. I chose ivory because I read that ivory shea butter is higher quality, which I can't confirm. When I first got it, I was impressed by the substantial feel and weight; I could tell right away that I have a lot of shea butter here, especially since I plan to use it straight as a moisturizer.To use it, I remove a tiny piece, and I do mean tiny. At first I made the mistake of using a piece about the size of a nickel, and it covered my hands in a thick sheen of oil that I had to wash off. Way too much. Now, I use a piece maybe the size of a pea to do my entire face. It does not go on like regular lotion: you need to warm it a bit before it spreads, which takes maybe 10 seconds, and even then you need to use more force than lotion to spread it around. Sometimes I rub it between my fingers or in my palm, and sometimes I just press a little piece against my face and work it around, letting my face melt it. Ha, face melt. Anyhoo...This stuff is an ingredient in many, if not most of the quality moisturizers on the market, and I'm starting to think that there are only a few key ingredients in moisturizers that really do anything and could work just fine on their own, but moisturizers blend in a bunch of filler ingredients to make it easier to use and save on cost. Shea is one of these, so I figure why not cut out all the filler and use the active ingredient straight? I don't know how accurate my speculation is, but I do know that this stuff moisturizes skin, and does it well. You have to work it in and be careful not to use too much, just enough so you can feel it on the skin. In about 10 minutes, unless you used too much, it absorbs into the skin, leaving behind a slight sheen that is more matte than many moisturizers I've used. It lasts a long time, too, keeping my skin soft most of the day. Allegedly shea is a natural UV inhibitor, which if true is a nice bonus, but I don't know what sort of SPF it achieves if so.The smell is not wonderful, but not bad. It smells a little like slightly rotten vegetables, but not in an overly imposing way, it's very subtle (I have to practically stick my nose up to it to really smell it) and the smell can not be detected once it absorbs, at least not per my experience.I wound up giving chunks of it to friends, and everyone has been impressed with it. At the rate I use it, this brick of shea would last a lifetime. I think it would be fun to use it as a base for making my own moisturizer, adding stuff like essential oil and food coloring maybe. Actually, I've heard that people use it as cooking oil, but I'm not sure that appeals to me.

WOWJust wow honestly. My partner and I had snagged some shae butter from Target a while back, it was so grainy and no matter how much we rubbed our hands together we were still left with crumbles of shae butter that never melted. After we ran out, we decided to see what else we could find and gave this a go.And WOW lol it's so satiny, buttery soft. It melts in your hands in literally 3 seconds. And the value of this is awesome. Zero scent that I noticed, you really don't even need to mix things with this to get awesome hydrating benefits for your hair and skin (we use this instead of lotion and conditioner). Awesome product, going to get a wide lipped glass jar to keep mine in so it's not just in plastic

This shea butter is fantastic. I made my own skin cream with it and other ingredients and also added 1 tablespoon of the finest ground used coffee grounds to those. I used my homemade anti aging moisturizer cream also as a face and bodywash. I first rinsed with water then applied the thick cream. I make mine in a very thick texture so a little goes a long way. I then wash and condition my hair while the benefits of the cream are absorbed by my skin, the steam of the shower makes this fast. Then I wash off the cream slowly so the fine coffee grounds do their work cleaning off any dirt while exfoliating my skin and adding more antioxidants to my skin. It is so amazing my own homemade skin cream works so well at both moisturizing and washing I have NO NEED to add other creams when getting out of the shower to my body or face. This saves a lot of time and my skin feels even better than when I was using expensive big name department store creams. My skin is firm and creamy feeling. I also do not have to put additional hand or foot cream on, this homemade cream is so fantastic. If you have time and the ability to make your own cream, I recommend it as the results are fantastic and also less packaging is used. I place my cream in a mason jar and to apply it I take a small amount out on a small spoon, then take my fingers and rub the contents of the spoon on my body. I recommend if making homemade skin cream with unrefined ivory shea butter that a large rocker blade is used to cut the bars and that an electronic scale be used to weigh the amounts of the butters. Large rocker blades keep the hands far away from the butter when cutting it and make it almost effortless even on a cool bar as leverage is used with them. I also recommend using a vacuum sealer that can be controlled so that it will not totally vacuum seal unless on the automatic setting such as the baked goods style feature many Foodsaver models have to store the unused butter. It does take a few hours to make a small batch (around one quart,) of homemade skin cream. I use one of my Aroma Professionals as a double boiler to make mine. I own a square plain glass pyrex style container that fits in the inner pot well and works great for this. I then fill the inner pot of my Aroma with water until just under the glass dish and place it on slow cook. There are usually many ways to fashion homemade double boilers from already owned tools to melt butters on low temperature if a double boiler is not on hand.IMPORTANT NOTE WITH THICK SKIN CREAMS: If using a very thick anti aging moisturizing skin cream as I have described there is a technique I learned from one of the folks at Estee Lauder, makers of my favorite perfume Estee Lauder Pleasures. Take an applicator (for my homemade cream I use a small spoon,) and place some cream on it. Then take dots of the cream and place it on the face, being especially careful not to get too much around the delicate eye area. Then using a tapping technique with the finger, tap the dots of cream, moving the finger around keep tapping to apply it. The cream is absorbed by the skin and also maintains a protective layer of cream on top of the skin. This is better than rubbing it in as it utilizes the cream more effectively as less is used and it will last much longer. Wash the spoon before using more cream. Store the cream in tinted jars or in a dark place. I add ½ tablespoon of citric acid to my batches of skin cream. They start with 4 ounces of butter, 2 of cocoa and 2 of shae. I also add a pinch of Mrs. Wages Fruit Preserver and some lemon juice. I make one batch, the one I use as my all in one soap/moisturizer/exfoliator for showering, with a tablespoon of USED FINELY ground coffee grounds. In the other I make it the same way I just leave the coffee grounds out. I also use hyalauronic acid and other anti aging ingredients such as grape seed oil in mine and one of my favorite inexpensive store bought breams which contains a large amount of Vitamin E instead of adding distilled water. I MAKE MY CREAM VERY THICK, even thicker than the thickest Estee Lauder cream. I do rub the exfoliator one I use when I shower. The other I dot more. A little goes a long way. -Julie Sands

This raw African shea butter is absolutely amazing! It’s 100% pure and unrefined, which means you get all the natural goodness without any additives. It’s rich, creamy, and works wonders on my dry skin, leaving it soft and deeply moisturized. I also love using it in DIY projects like body butter, lip balms, and even soaps—it’s so versatile! The texture is smooth and easy to work with, and a little goes a long way. If you’re looking for a natural moisturizer that truly delivers, this is it! Highly recommend!

I ordered three brands of shea butter at the same time. This was the best quality of all three. It was soft and creamy and had the most delicious chocolate-like scent. One of the others was came in a damaged container and was more dry and brittle (prob bc of long term air exposure from the damaged container). The third one had an off smell with bits of organic material in the shea.Highly recommend this brand! Seems to be worth the higher price if you want to start with a quality ingredient.