Can Shea Butter Help You and Your Beard?

Howdy y’all!  Today we wanted to take a deeper dive into one of our favorite ingredients and the base of our salve--shea butter.  We’ll be talking about where it comes from, the benefits to your hair and skin, as well as why we chose it over some of the other butters we could have used!

1. What is shea butter?

Shea butter is a solid oil (or a fat) extracted from the Shea Tree which is native to Africa.  Unrefined Shea Butter has a very distinct musky-type odor, which isn’t a big deal unless you’re trying to make products that smell good.  At Dodge City, we use naturally refined Shea Butter to remove any unsavory odor.  There’s a lot of ways in this world to ensure you smell bad--we don’t want our products to be one of them.  

Fun Fact: there’s evidence of Shea Butter use in the medieval village of Saouga which would mean Shea Butter was used in the 14th century!

2. What are the benefits of shea butter?

Boy howdy, there’s quite a few, so here it goes:

• Moisturization of the skin

• Easily absorbed by the skin (non-oily)

• Anti-inflammatory properties

• Antioxidant (which slows the aging of the skin)

• Helps reduce visible stretch marks and scars (maybe including that one you got from that fight with a bear)

• Helps reduce wrinkles

• Strengthens hair in order to possibly prevent hair breakage

• May decrease dandruff--or beard dandruff

• Soothes skin

There’s actually so many that for those that are interested, here’s an article going more in-depth into the benefits:

https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/what-is-shea-butter#congestion

In beard products, Shea Butter primarily strengthens the hair, soothes the skin underneath, and is non-oily allowing for absorption of nutrients into the hair follicles and pores.  

3. Why did we choose Shea Butter over an alternative?

The short answer is, it’s too good to pass up.  Mango butter was something we considered--one of the main benefits is just how oily it isn’t.  If you’re looking for a very dry butter with very fast absorption, mango butter is a great ingredient.  Coconut oil has many benefits and is particular effective at retaining moisture within the skin and as a protectant (this is why it’s often used in lip balm).  However, where Shea Butter and Coconut Oil differ the most is in vitamin content. Shea butter has high amounts of Vitamin A, E, and F, as well as palmitic, stearic, oleic, linoleic, and arachidonic acids.  Our recommendation is try products with both and find what works best for you!

Hope this gave a bit of insight into an ingredient that we couldn’t be happier with and one that’s changing the beard game forever.  Check out some more of our content and as always, yeehaw!