100% Organic West African Shea Butter 16 oz
by Alive and Aware Natural Health
|
List Price: Our Price: $3.75 You Save: $3.24 (46%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Beauty See more product details |
|---|
Customer Reviews of 100% Organic West African Shea Butter 16 oz
Customer Review: Wonderful for Eczema!
Summary: 5 Stars
100% Organic West African Shea Butter 16 oz
I bought this Shea Butter on March 11, 2010. I ordered two 16 ounce containers, accidently. I recieved them by the 17th. Today, August 9th, we have several tablespoons of the frist container left. Five months, of intensive use isn't bad. I'm thinking that we should be done with that in the next week or two and I'm getting impatient to whip up the next batch. I gave away several heaping tablespoons to friends, also.
After reading the other reviews, I decided to try beating the Shea Butter in my my Kitchen Aid Stand mixer, with the flat beater. I added some lavender essential oil at the end, which didn't affect the scent much but didn't hurt it either. The Shea Butter came out light and fluffy. I filled one 16 ounce container full and filled another one about 3/4 of the way full after whipping it. I don't have a problem with the scent. It's slightly nutty and fades after putting it on your skin. If the scent truly bothers you, maybe you should check out Candida Overgrowth as being over sensitive to scents can be a symptom.
My 8yo daughter suffers from both food (wheat, gluten, dairy, nightshades, grains, etc) and environmental sensitivities. She seems to have the Scratch to Rash symptoms of Eczema when she comes in contact with items that bother her. Because of these sensitivities, she gets horrible, bumpy, itchy rashes that she scratches until she's bloody. If you've ever had a bad, itchy rash, you know that no amount of discipline can keep you from scratching something that itches that badly. Since March, we've discovered that when she comes in contact with something that she shouldn't have (food or in the environment) and starts to get a rash, we have her take a cool shower and then put a generous layer of Shea Butter over the rashy areas. This seems to reduce the itchiness and inflamation. These rashes used to take about 3 weeks to recover from, start to finish. By using the shower and shea butter, it cuts the time down to less than a week. More often than not, her rash looks much better by the following morning and with continued use of the Shea Butter she is almost back normal in 2-3 days. By the end of the week, she's healed and you can't tell she ever had a rash! Compared to the weeks of itching, scratching, crying and in general being miserable, while getting this stuff out of her system, this is a miracle. Never the less, my daughter doesn't like putting Shea Butter on her rash. Because it's so itchy, and we have to touch the rash to put the Shea Butter on, it's not comfortable to apply it, even though after beating it in the mixer, it's light and fluffy. She also says that it feels like she's putting shortening on her skin and doesn't like the way it feels. However, within about 30 minutes after applying it, the itchiness is reduced to being bearable and the Shea Butter is absorbing into the skin.
I use shea butter on my feet elbows and hands after I shower. The soles of my feet used to be dry and scratchy. They're smooth and soft now.
Shea butter also works great on chapped lips. I recommend putting a bit of water on your chapped lips so they are very slightly moist and then putting a generous layer of Shea Butter over that, right before bed. When you wake up, your lips will feel and look much better. If you have cracked or severely chapped lips, you might need to do this more than one night but the results are amazing! During the end of our dry Colorado winter, I snuck into my kid's rooms, at night and smeared Shea Butter on their lips (without the water routine.) Doing that kept them from getting dry, chapped and cracked when they normally would have been a mess!
I haven't tried it on our hair as a pre-conditioner, yet but I plan to do so with the next batch.
I highly recommend this product to anyone with dry or rashy skin.
Customer Review: Good stuff but the yellow does have a stronger smell than the white (see edit at bottom of post.)
Summary: 5 Stars
My daughter and I carefully read many reviews on this product as well as the three pound product. We were a little concerned about the person who had objected to the bright color and strong smell, and who had a skin reaction to the product. We decided to buy it anyway. We bought both the three pound and the one pound (from two different companies, it looked like to us) so we could compare them.
Both of them are the color of bright yellow butter. They have a strong odor that we identified as very similar to cocoa butter, except cocoa butter smells more chocolately (we have some and compared). We didn't have a reaction to putting the butter directly on our hands and faces.
Our conclusion is that the reviewer had only experienced refined and bleached shea butter. We reached that conclusion because of our extensive experience with products that are raw and organic, as well as refined. For example, refined coconut oil has no odor. Unrefined coconut oil has a strong smell and a slightly different consistency. [Edit: I have since discovered that there is, indeed, a white shea butter. See my edit below.]
Our other conclusion was that the reviewer has sensitive skin. Not too many things give me a rash, plus both my daughter and I are used to unrefined products.
My advice would be to first look at your own body. Do you have sensitive skin? Do you get rashes fairly easily? Are you sensitive to strong smells? If the answers to these are "yes" then I would recommend you "pass" on any shea butter that is raw, organic, etc. The refined would not be as strong and would have less chance of causing a reaction. Also, I am supposing that some people could be allergic to shea butter and that may have been the reviewers problem with it, so if you have allergies, you might want to think twice.
I am editing this review a few hours after I wrote it in light of new information I have come across. I have been exploring Amazon and came across white shea butter for sale. I didn't want to quote all of someone else's review, so I'll just say this. They wanted to know the difference between white shea butter and yellow shea butter, so they asked the company. In part, they were told, "The yellow color basically comes from added Crushed Shea nut shell that is being added to the Shea Butter." And, apparently, that adds a stronger smell and, I would suspect, the rash that some people say they get. Anyway, I thought this information would be useful to those wondering about this. Those of you who have had problems with the yellow shea butter might want to try the white.
The following links are taken from Beauty Maven's comments in reply to a review.
[...].
[...].
Customer Review: African Shea Butter is Africa's Gift
Summary: 5 Stars
A great buttery soft moisturizer, it's oily at first. It gives the skin a beautiful glow. Once it totally absorbs in the skin, it has a natural look that looks as though you haven't applied anything to your skin.
The smell reminds me of white chocolate as soon as it is applied. I'm quite fond of the chocolately smell, and love it.
It also has a subtle mild smoky smell once the butter has been applied for a while. It does not stink. The smell is not the gross "Burnt Toast" smell, or burnt popcorn smell.
Gets rid of blemishes, and it helps skin return to it's natural skin tone. I did my own test on Shea butter. I had some ugly blemishes that faded away where the Shea Butter was applied. The skin area that didn't get Shea Butter applied still has marks, now I'm using Shea Butter to get rid of those as well.
I even massage Shea Butter in my hair from time to time as a moisturizer, and along the hair line.
My product was in a creamy buttery form. Not firm at all, which was a good thing for me. The vendor called and asked me if they could send my African Shea Butter in plastic so that it wouldn't spill out. I said it was okay, but I wanted the labels included. I think he misunderstood and didn't include the labels. He did give me the courtesy of calling first. I wanted to see the company who sold the Shea Butter, and label information. Other than that, I was totally satisfied with the product. I will not mark the product down for that.
I listened to the reviewers who gave this product high marks, and they were right.
I wish I had known where to purchase 100% African Shea Butter from years ago. This is most difinitely one of Africa's gifts. A product that works for me, I tell my relatives about it. I will most definitely be ordering more in a day or two. My sister is also placing an order.
Customer Review: AMAZING, highly reccomended product!
Summary: 5 Stars
I admit, I was extremely skeptical at first. I saw the 'bad' reviews and thought, "Oh great...I know I'm going to end up one of those people with a bad batch!". I was initially using this product to make my homemade lip balms creamy and moisturizing, but I accidentally bought a lot less of the cocoa butter in which I was going to use these two products equally in the mix.
I was now left with over half a pound of 'extra' shea butter with no use for it. I had extremely dry, chapped winter skin that was so itchy I was tearing at my skin. No lotion or cream could soothe me longer then a few minutes after a shower. I eventually gave in and 'risked' putting this on my skin as others said it left them feeling greasy or even burning them. I almost wanted to pop a Tylenol prior anticipating being in searing pain from it.
I was PLEASANTLY surprised at my results. Especially since this whole time I've been expecting the all time worst.
MY skin just drank it in, leaving my legs SO soft and supple and my whole body smoother then a newborn. Eventually after about 2 months of daily/almost daily use, the few stretch marks I just couldn't get rid of on my breasts and stomach slowly faded. I literally watched my skin reconstruct itself.
This is a amazing product and I just ordered two more pounds last night for myself, and one for a friend who's a non believer. $9 with free 2 day shipping! I can't believe the price. I'd give this product 10 stars if I could. My order was prompt last time and is on track at the moment for this order. The first order came quickly in a reusable plastic container with a sicker listing all it's uses, how long it's good for, etc. I will continue to order it so I never ever ever go a day without it! I use it on my son, my husband loves it, even my sister in law uses it for her dry, cracked feet. My whole family raves!
Customer Review: Supplier advised me not to use product directly on skin!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I ordered Organic African Shea Butter from Amazon based on their description of the product as well as the numerous 5-star reviews from customers. I had the product shipped to my office and received it yesterday. Anxious to try it, I opened the package and did what so many of the reviews said, I took a small piece, warmed it with my hands and used it on my hands. My co-workers did not appreciate the smell and thought that it might be rancid. I e-mailed Halaleveryday(who had shipped me the product) asking if the scent should be so overpowering or is it possible that it might be rancid. Halaleveryday's response to me was that the product has a strong nutty smell. they also said that this product is the main raw ingredient to make my own body butter and that they do not advise using it directly on the skin. They gave me the "recipe" to make my own body butter, however, I did not buy the product to use it to make body butter. I bought it to use "as is" in its natural state like most of the customer reviews state. I wrote back saying that the information Halaleveryday gave me was certainly not listed in the product information on Amazon and that I would not have purchased it if I knew that I should not use it "as is" directly on my skin. Halaleveryday's response was that I should not blame anyone other than myself because I should have researched the product prior to buying. They continued by saying that Amazon's listing "could not serve as a shea butter schooling" and that "the people who praised it know well what to do with it".
I dont even know what to say or what to think. Is everyone really using the product "as is" without "filtering"?100% Organic West African Shea Butter 16 oz