According to most beauty gurus around the world, keeping simple can take you a long way. You can take it for everything from makeup techniques to nail art and even in fitness. You should always go with a little minimal approach whenever we’re trying anything and then take it a step ahead. There are many new beauty products emerging even in the natural domain like Shea Butter with a variety of uses and advantages when applied on different parts of your body. However, the versatility of shea butter isn’t limited to skin, it can make a huge difference on your hair as well.
In this blog, we’ll be discussing various advantages of shea butter when it comes to hair care.
What Is Shea Butter?
The origin of Shea butter is from a Vitellaria paradoxa tree found in West Africa, it is extracted as a byproduct from Shea nut. Initially, the approach is to gain as much oil as possible which comes out after a detailed professional of harvesting, washing, and preparing the shea nuts. Its tree is also known as the tree of life due to its limitless healing characteristics.
There is evidence that food, skin balms, soaps, shampoos, traditional medicines, cooking, and lamp oils have been made with shea butter in Africa for thousands of years. Its use has been documented as far back as the 14th century. Recently, use of shea butter has become prevalent in hair and skincare products throughout North America.
Shea Butter For Hair Benefits
Hair is one of the most sensitive parts of your body, mostly because they take time to grow and reflect your overall appearance in a variety of ways. There are several benefits of Shea butter, some of which are mentioned as follows:
Fights Dandruff and Scalp Irritation
Shea butter has soothing qualities, which can help calm your scalp particularly if you experience ongoing dry scalp. Use a small amount of shea butter and, sectioning off hair, massage it into your scalp in a circular motion. If you suffer from dry hair which will make them dull or frizzy, you can also comb the shea butter through your hair and let it set in for up to an hour as pre-shampoo before shampooing.
Smoothing Cream for Frizzy Hair
Coarse, dry, and frizzy hair is no match for shea butter. If your hair always tends to get frizzy once it’s dry or just feels more unmanageable than usual, just use shea butter to touch up problem spots. Try smoothing down flyaway hair strands, giving hair a healthy sheen, or taking your frizz halo down a notch with it.
Moisturizes
One of the promising benefits of shea butter is its hydrating properties to the skin, added moisture, and softening for hydration, which can make styling easy. For reducing friction and locking in moisture in your hair, shea oil is an ideal derivative of the shea tree nut as it provides better coverage on the hair and is more lightweight.
Revitalizes
If your dull and dry hair has bent your confidence then try out shea butter to revitalize them. Since it is loaded with vitamins like Vitamin A, Vitamin E, and essential fatty acid, it’ll eliminate all the dryness and can heal your split ends returning the shine.
Reduces Inflammation
Most people tend to deal with scalp irritation on a regular basis especially in summers. The nourishing benefits of shea butter can reduce inflammation and irritation on the scalp without clogging pores. Its antioxidant properties can protect the scalp from sun damage.
Shields From External Damage
We know we need to shield our skin from environmental damage, but the same goes for our hair and scalp. Shea butter can protect hair follicles from environmental toxins and sun damage.
Is Shea Butter Good For Hair?
Shea butter is undoubtedly very good for your hair. Even though butter-anything sounds like a greasy mess, remember that shea butter is actually an oil, even though it’s naturally solid and oils can be separated into two categories: moisturizing and sealing.
A moisturizing oil has a small enough molecular size to be able to penetrate your hair strand and hydrate it from within, like sunflower, babassu, and almond oil. Whereas a sealing oil has a too-large molecular size, which means it can only coat the surface of your strand to seal in existing hydration and prevent it from escaping such as jojoba, hemp seed, and rice bran oil.
But there are a few magical oils that can do both, like coconut oil, argan oil, and olive oil, and, yup, shea butter. Shea butter both moisturizes and seals, so it has the ability to hydrate the cortex of your hair cuticle, then trap that moisture inside. But it’s not just its oil-like properties that make it fantastic for hair, it’s also the fact that it’s rich in fatty acids, helping to seal the keratin in your hair to keep it strong, vitamin E, an antioxidant that helps protect against damage-causing free radicals and triglycerides, a type of fatty acid that helps condition your hair. All the richness can make your hair smoother, healthier, and softer than ever.
How To Use Shea Butter For Hair
Due to the heaviness and density of shea butter, most people don’t apply it to their hair as is. Instead they mix it with multiple ingredients and create a hair mask. However, if you don’t want that extra effort then you can always try using shea butter leave-in conditioner or hair mousse.
You can even try the shea hair oil which you just have to apply on your ends for low-porosity and from root to tip for high-porosity.
How To Store It
At room temperature, shea butter should melt into your hand and quickly be absorbed into the skin. Make sure to store shea butter at a consistent temperature. Exposure to different temperatures can cause the texture to change.
Be sure to keep your shea butter in locations that aren’t affected by heat. If too warm, it will melt and return to liquid form. Similarly, if you keep your shea butter in a place with too low a temperature, it will become a hard solid and be difficult to use. If you find that shea oil and shea butter are both too heavy, there are many products that contain smaller proportions of shea butter.
Verdict
Shea butter is a nut butter and because of its natural origin, it is excellent for skin care precisely for your hair. Different brands market their shea butter differently in terms of appearance and scent. However, not everyone can handle the density and smell when it is applied on the hair for a long time.
If your hair texture isn’t prone to grease then shea butter can even have adverse results so you have to choose wisely. You can even alternate it with shea oil since it is lighter and more fragrant.
