Body Treatments: Body Butter

Body butter is known as one of the most luxurious lotions, used for dry skin and energizing your body. Typically made with shea butter, a mixture made from shea nuts from West Africa, body butter has been used by generations for skin and hair care. You can find it in most beauty product stores or health food stores.

Benefits of Body Butter

• Body butter can relieve skin condition, including dry skin, rashes, irritations, bumps and sun damage, according to TreasuredLocks.com. Working as a moisturizer, the vitamins A and E found in body butter clean skin and keep it healthy by preventing wrinkles and lines. With a high concentration of vitamin F, body butter protects and rejuvenates damaged skin. You don't need to worry about clogging pores with this silky material because it easily penetrates the skin, leaving a healthy finish.

Types

• Body butter can be split into the following categories: raw, refined and highly refined, based on the quality of shea butter. The process of extracting shea butter from the nut contributes the the different particle quality and smell. The main difference between raw and refined shea butter is the texture of unfiltered material compared to the pure white refined material. Raw shea butter is recommended because it has the original healing properties.

How to Make your Own Body Butter

• You can make your own body butter. You can find all of the ingredients at the local health food store or apothecary. With 1 lb. of mango butter, 1 lb. of shea butter, 1/3 cup each of almond oil, avocado oil and apricot kernel oil, a few teaspoons of jojoba oil and vitamin E and a few teaspoons of essential oils (coconut oil, lavender or calming sea salt), you can puree your own mixture of body butter. Dice and heat the butter and add the remaining ingredients over the stove. Be careful not to boil the mixture, you want it to soften and melt at body temperature. Once completely mixed, spoon into jars to save for use or gifts.