A Breakdown of our Body Butter

      The subject comes up often: what is in our butter that makes it different from a lotion or cream someone could buy for less than ½ the price? Well, for anyone who has tried it, there really is no question about the quality. Regardless, most don’t fully understand the treasure chest they are using on their skin when they use our products! I’m so sorry, this post is pretty long. I hope it holds your interest and answers some questions you may have! 

      Our body butter is different in that it is ONLY fats and oils that your skin can use to regenerate skin cells or nourish the ones that are already there. No fillers. No additives. No water. No unnecessary ingredients. Scented with only essential oils or organic plant extracts, and even these serve more of a purpose than just giving the butter a scent! 

       In this post, I’ll go through each ingredient in the base of the butter and tell you what it is, where it comes from and what the benefits are for your skin as well as some links to articles that go into it in more detail. I hope you enjoy learning about this! 

1. Organic unrefined shea butter - Shea butter comes from the nuts of the shea tree, commonly found in West Africa. While it is a nut technically, it contains very low levels of the protein that causes the allergic reactions associated with nuts. While no known cases have been reported of reactions from topical application of shea butter, I always advise anyone who asks about it not to use it as I don’t really want to be the first one! Shea butter is safe for all skin types. It is firm and solid in warm temperatures but does liquify at around 80 degrees. For this reason, it will remain in its solid form throughout a flight and is considered a solid as long as it is kept cool. No need for travel size body butter! Here’s an article with 22 amazing facts about shea butter! 
2. Organic cocoa butter - Cocoa butter is also called theobroma oil. It is naturally quite a hard but also meltable oil that is extracted from the cocoa bean. It smells like chocolate, too! If you ever smell our body butter base before we add any extracts or essential oils, this is what you will be smelling. In fact, we have done a few custom orders for scents such as chocolate orange and they have come out AMAZING! The chocolate scent is 100% from the cocoa butter! Very hydrating, this butter helps elasticize the skin as well, aiding in stretch mark prevention and reduction. To learn more about the benefits and uses of cocoa butter (and if you want to, learn more about the plant itself), check out this article.
3. Cupuacu butter - Pronounced coo-pwah-soo, this is an ingredient only more recently being recognized for its cosmetic qualities. This butter comes from a seed related to the cocoa plant. This is a very rich, fatty butter that is also edible! With it being so rich, it adds a creamy texture when mixed with other ingredients while at the same time nourishing and replenishing moisture to skin cells and plumping them back up! It’s also full of antioxidants. Here’s a short article about cupuacu butter that I found very interesting. It is pretty short but sweet! 
4. Grapeseed oil - I was introduced to grapeseed oil when I was in massage school. It is a wonderful alternative to coconut oil and is a liquid which is a plus for part of its purpose in our body butter. While we all know grapeseed oil is fantastic for cooking and frying with (extremely high burn point so it is very versatile without the worry of it going rancid), this is an excellent source of nutrition for the skin! This is literally the oil from the seeds in grapes after the grapes have been used for juice or wine. It is rich in several vitamins as well as antioxidants and fats. I could actually go on for a long time about the awesomeness of grapeseed oil but I doubt you would share my enthusiasm for it! Instead, here’s an article that you can read when/if you find yourself intrigued by it. I think you’ll find it to be a highly underrated oil! 
5. Organic rosehip seed oil - Rosehip oil is also known as rosehip oil. It comes from a rose plant that grows mostly in Chile. This is NOT rose oil (which is taken from rose petals). Rosehip oil is pressed from the fruit and seeds of this plant. Known since ancient times for its healing properties, rosehip oil is loaded with skin-nourishing vitamins and essential fatty acids. It also has components that have been shown to have anti-aging, antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties. Here’s an article on rosehip oil, should you find yourself curious about what exactly it can do.
6. Vitamin E oil - Vitamin E is an antioxidant that has been considered to have properties beneficial to the body, both internally and externally. Vitamin E is considered an important part of a balanced diet and can be found easily in many foods. However, many people use vitamin E topically for its anti-aging, protective and soothing properties. Vitamin E not only functions as an antioxidant but aids in the anti-inflammatory process and protects the cells from damaging free radicals. I’m not going to list articles about vitamin E since they are quite abundant and most are pretty technical and wordy. In essence, vitamin E helps protect and rejuvenate damaged skin cells. It can also help in healing scars, or at least softening them so they are no longer disruptive to your body’s own energy flows.
7. Essential Oils - All of the above points are the base for our body butters. The only other stuff that’s in them is essential oils to scent and give unique properties to each one. As we use many different EOs in our butters, depending on which one you choose, I am not going to list them all here with their properties and uses. I think this has been plenty to read through as it is! If you would like a simple guide to which essential oils would benefit you the most, check this out! If you see one you want us to use but we don’t currently have it listed, just shoot me an email and we can make it for you! We may also use plant extracts to get the scent and/or effect we want in a body butter. We will always do our best to provide information about the properties of those extracts and the uses for them! 

      I’m sorry for the book but hope this has been informative and interesting! As always, if you have any questions please feel free to email me at amie@maddiesessentials.com!