- Hmm, why did you choose this one?
- Well, remember when we went to Inna’s hen party and she gave us some samples of this amazing face cream with shea butter? You were so happy you purred!
- Oh, you can’t forget an experience like that.
- Right, so I’ve been looking for a moisturiser with shea butter for ages now and finally found one that’s 5 times cheaper. Win-win!
- Thank you! Just letting you know that even products with similar ingredients don’t always work the same..
- Why’s that? There’s shea butter in this and shea butter in that? Why pay more for fancier packaging?
- Not exactly. Here’s some facts: Karite trees, from which the shea butter is sourced, only grow in some regions of Africa. The trees only come to fruition around 20 years of age. There are no big plantations and each tree provides on average 20kg of fruit a year, from which only 4-5kg of butter is extracted.
- Wow that’s so little!
- Yes, they grow far apart and the harvest is done by hand. Only fallen fruit is collected as the unripe ones contain less butter. It is also important to process the fruit immediately as it begins to spoil in just a few hours.
- Oh wow! That’s so much work to be done in very little time!
- Exactly! So it makes sense that such a treasure can’t be cheap.
- But... but I managed to find this cream!
- Yeah, you did… See, you can also extract shea butter by cold pressing the fruit. There’s also technology that uses a powerful chemical dissolver to get the oils out (it gets evaporated, of course, however, a small amount of the chemical remains in the final product). This is exactly what you’ve just used on me. I won’t throw a tantrum now or break out, but if you use it long-term I can’t promise that I’ll stay nice.
- Bloody fraudsters!
- No, it’s correct that both products contain shea butter, but they’re of different quality. Also the amount of it can vary in different products. Some brands are more generous with it, while others use very little shea but the label will still state the same ingredient.
- So the cost of the product does say something then.
- Yes, it’s not always a guarantee of better quality though. But at least we’re on the same page about the shea butter now.
