As winter approaches, the need for skin moisturization becomes even more important. In this season, shea butter, a magical and effective moisturizing ingredient, is showing its unique charm. Although many people know shea butter through skin care products, in fact, shea butter has a wider range of applications in the global shea industry chain.

The food industry is the largest consumer sector of shea butter, accounting for 90% of its total production. Shea butter can be found in many desserts, such as chocolate, pastries and candies. It adds a unique texture and flavor to food, making it more delicious.

For the cosmetics field, although the application proportion of shea butter is only 10%, its importance in this field cannot be ignored. Many high-end brands, such as OLAY, Olay, L'Oreal, etc., frequently use shea butter as a key ingredient in their products. Shea butter has an excellent moisturizing effect and provides deep nourishment to the skin, so it is known as "women's gold".

Shea butter’s magical moisturizing effect and unique uses make it a key ingredient for skin moisturization in winter.

1

Shea butter skin care benefits

Shea butter is mainly composed of about 90% fatty acids and about 10% unsaponifiable matter. This 10% unsaponifiable content is the most valuable part of shea butter. These unsaponifiables are mainly composed of triterpene esters and highly unsaturated isoprenoid hydrocarbons. The triterpenes exist in the form of acetyl and cinnamoyl esters and are increasingly popular among cosmetic formulators as active ingredients. s concern.

Shea butter has the following main features when used in cosmetics:

1. Helps strengthen the skin barrier and promote the production of skin collagen.

Help strengthen skin barrier

A cream containing 5% caprylic/capric glycerides and 3000 ppm shea butter triterpene esters was applied to human explant epidermis. After 5 days, compared with the blank control group, the thickness of the explant epidermis increased by 84%. Compared with the placebo group, epidermal thickness increased by 26%.

Promote skin collagen production

A cream containing 0.5% shea butter triterpene esters was applied to human explant epidermis. After 6 days, compared with the blank control group and the placebo group, the collagen content on the surface of the dermal papilla layer of the explant epidermis increased by 6%, as shown in the figure below.

2. Anti-inflammatory

100-500 ppm shea butter triterpene esters were used at a concentration of 0.5-2.5 mg/ml for fully grown human epidermal keratinocytes stimulated by croton oil in culture medium. A significant 25% reduction in intracellular release of the pro-inflammatory mediator IL-1α cytokine was observed compared with control cells. This suggests that the triterpene esters in shea butter have anti-inflammatory effects even at low concentrations (100-500 ppm). The experimental results are shown in the figure below.

3. Improve the SPF index of sunscreen products

When shea butter is added to formulas containing chemical sunscreens, shea butter can synergize with the chemical sunscreens, increase the stability of the chemical sunscreens, and improve the sun protection index of the product. The cinnamate rich in shea butter is a phenolic substance that can strongly absorb ultraviolet light with a wavelength of about 250-300nm.

In an overseas experiment, 10% and 15% shea butter were added to sunscreen sticks containing 7.5% ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate and 10% titanium dioxide. After human testing, the proportions of degraded ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate in the sunscreen stick were 10.93% and 2.24% respectively, and the measured SPF values of the sunscreen stick were 28.7±6.1 and 39.1±3.9 respectively. It can be seen from the experimental results that the higher the shea butter content in the formula, the more conducive it is to the stability of the chemical sunscreen agent in the formula and the improvement of the SPF value of the formula.

4. Moisturizing

Shea butter not only moisturizes the skin, but also has sealing properties, which can retain the skin's moisture in the epidermis and has a good moisturizing effect on the skin. Research results from the Swedish AAK Company show that shea butter is better than mineral oil in preventing epidermal moisture loss.

5. Not easy to deteriorate

Although shea butter contains lower levels of vitamin E (approximately 100 ppm) compared to other types of vegetable oils. However, because its fatty acid composition is mainly stearic acid and oleic acid, which have good antioxidant capabilities, under normal storage conditions, even without adding any antioxidants, shea butter has good stability and is not easily Go bad.