Where Does Shea Butter Come From? The Shea Belt and the Women Behind It
Chances are there's a tub of shea butter or the ingredient is featured in your skin products somewhere in your home right now. On your dresser, in your bag, maybe hiding in the bathroom cabinet -if you have one #TeamMinimalist. It's the thing we reach for when we get ashy knees, dry hair ends or cracked heels & it never lets us down.
But have you ever stopped to think about where it actually comes from? Because the story behind this ingredient is so much bigger than skincare. It's a story about a tree that is so exclusive it only grows on a particular strip of land across Africa & millions of women who have been doing this work for generations.
Let's get into it...
Meet the Shea Tree
Shea butter comes from the nuts of the shea tree, known scientifically as Vitellaria paradoxa, or "karité" in many French-speaking West African countries.
Here's the wild part: nearly 2 billion shea trees grow naturally on parklands in 21 African countries. They're not planted in neat rows on big plantations. They grow wild across the savanna, and a shea tree can take 15 years or more before it produces its first fruit. You can't rush it, and you can't mass-produce it. 'She'-a runs on her own time ;)
Fun fact: most people think of shea as a beauty ingredient, but it's most widely used in food products to improve texture, stability, and shelf life. Yes, there's a good chance you've eaten shea in chocolate without even knowing it.
What and where Is the Shea Belt?
The shea belt is the band of savanna where shea trees grow wild, stretching across 21 African countries, from Senegal to South Sudan and Uganda in the east. Ghana, where our shea comes from, is one of the leading producers, alongside Burkina Faso, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire, and Nigeria.
"SHE-A Women's Gold"
Here's what stopped me in my tracks: 16 million women living in rural communities individually collect fresh shea fruits and kernel for processing. Women make up more than 80% of the shea production labour force.
That's why shea is called "women's gold". It pays for food, school fees, and housing. Yet many of these women have no formal rights to the land or trees they depend on.
At Ahuva, our Unrefined Shea Butter is ethically sourced from women's cooperatives in Ghana, because we believe the women behind it deserve to be valued and paid fairly for their labour.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where I'll show you how unrefined shea butter is made by hand, and why cooperatives change everything. 🤎
Sources: Global Shea Alliance, UNDP.
Comments