How Coco butter is made

Cocoa butter comes from the cacao (pronounced “ka-cow”) bean which is found inside the cocoa pod which grows on from the cacao tree. Cocoa pods are large gourd-shaped fruit which hold around 30 to 40 cocoa seeds.

Cacao pods are also where we get cocoa from to make chocolate – that’s why good-quality cocoa butter has a wonderful chocolate-y scent.

To produce the cocoa butter, these seeds must be fermented in banana leaves, dried, roasted and pressed, releasing the vegetable fat we know as cocoa butter.

Alternatively, the beans can be cold-processed. Cold pressed cocoa butter is made by pressing the whole bean thus retaining vital antioxidants. This cold-pressing process uses only the heat from the friction caused when pressing the bean which helps protect the antioxidants.

How does it benefit the skin?

Because of its natural make-up, and its nutrient and fatty acid content, cocoa butter is amazing for dry skin and can actually penetrate further than the top layer of the skin, meaning it moisturises deep-down and really nourishes the skin.

Antioxidant action

Free-radicals are small molecules formed during the body’s metabolism when energy is generated from glucose in every cell in your body. They are also formed by exposure to pollutants such as car fumes, pesticides, and tobacco smoke.

These free-radicals destroy cells, and when these are skin cells you begin to age. Your skin wrinkles and dries up, and you begin to take on the look of somebody years older than you are. They do this through a process known as oxidation (a good way to think of it is to consider how iron rusts when it oxidises), and antioxidants can prevent it. They neutralize the free-radicals, and prevent your skin cells from being destroyed.

Cocoa butter contains a number of different antioxidants which can kill-off a wide range of different free-radicals. In fact, cocoa butter contains a much higher antioxidant concentration then even blueberries and other superfoods.

Stretch mark reduction

Cocoa butter is widely noted to help reduce stretch marks. This is most likely due to its nutrient and anti-oxidant content, as we’ve seen above.

There are no guarantees, but many women claim that regular use of cocoa butter was what kept their stretch marks away.

Now, I can’t promise that cocoa butter, alone, will keep stretch marks away completely. As I always say, the health of your skin is dependant on more than just what you apply to it every day. For more information about preventing and healing stretch marks, read “natural healing for stretch marks“.

Other benefits

Cocoa butter is high in fatty acids, meaning it can penetrate deep-down into the skin and hydrate from within. Cocoa butter can also be helpful for many skin problems like eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, and skin irritation.

Refined or unrefined?

You can buy cocoa butter in two ways: refined or unrefined.

Unrefined cocoa butter is simply cocoa butter in its raw form – before it is refined and processed. It is creamy-yellowy-beige in colour and has that wonderful chocolate-y scent.

I love things in it's natural state 

I will be using coco butter a lot more

Being that I have pounds on pounds 

If you would like to have some unrefined coco butter just shot me a email at

queenofsheabutter@yahoo.com

Sincerely

Rozzy

Queen of Shea