02 September 2010 ~ 23 Comments
And thanks Gloria for sending this great link!
Fascinating, indeed! For some reason I thought the shea nut was larger. I have a greater appreciation for the raw shea butter on my bathroom counter right now. Thanks for sharing.
Its nice to see this post since im from Ghana.i recently BC’ed after 4months of transition..its not common to see natural hair here. by the way,this is the correct spelling of *Ghanaian*..i think u made an error in spelling.cheers
I just got back from a trip to Nigeria and went to a local fair that takes place every 6 weeks or so (Oje market in Ibadan) where the women who make shea butter (amongst other things) in villages all over Nigeria bring over to sell in the city. Was pretty amazing to see (and all the other local forms of cleaning/beauty products)! Interesting to think of the economics behind scaling up production, as I don’t think local methods (in Ghana/Nigeria, etc.) can meet global demands.
I’ve always had an appreciation for the way people gather, use, and create natural products. I didn’t know that it was such a long and arduous process. Thank you, ladies of Ghana for the great shea butter. :)
What a fascinating and lovely photo essay. Like Shones, I thought the nut was bigger. There are wares and goods, including as shea butter, sold during African/Caribbean festivals in my city. The sellers will often scoop the shea butter from a big and hard shell seen in one of the last pics. I guess from seeing that I thought the nuts were huge! When I went back home (Nigeria), I was thinking about plotting to take one of the nuts back to the US! LOL…silly.
this is a wonderful piece. It’s nice to know the care that’s taken on some of the poducts you use.
So much heart and hard work put into something we tend to take for granted…. I have much more appreciation for Shea butter now… Thanks for sharing!
Wow. Quite a bit of hard work goes into making this resource. *holds up mini tub of pure shea butter* Thank you, ladies! Both my hair and me appreciate it!
Thank you for sharing this link. Good info about how something I get so easily requires so much effort.
wow, this was a great slideshow!…I actually went through the whole thing twice. I didn’t realize it was such a long and tedious process. It’s unfortunate that these women aren’t benefiting from the foreign demand for shea butter but I suppose locally the demand is pretty high as well otherwise they wouldn’t still be in business.
Actually, Karen from the “more than a ruby” blog on wordpress uses shea butter made by village women in Ghana as well and she was the first person to open my eyes to the amount of work these women put into the making of it. This is like their source of livelihood.
I get my shea butter from Nigeria only because I have family there but I wouldn’t be surprised if the shea butter I get is made by women from local Nigerian villages also. Great link! maybe we should come up with some sort of “support local women in africa” brand shea butter for the natural hair community. It would be a great way to get people the products they want AND support a good cause.
Yes, the one you get is made by local Nigerian women and if your family buys it in Nigeria, it’s probably also processed by them. In West Africa, shea nut harvesting is mostly a woman-based business and what’s locally sold is made by these women. The women earn pennies, however. Foreign processing companies and exporters make the real money.
Totally unrelated: It’s advisable to place your tub of shea butter in a bowl of hot water if you want to melt it instead of microwaving it. Microwaving nukes nutrients and hot water melting doesn’t take a lot of time.
I’ve read about the process but seeing it in pictures really opened my eyes. My family looked into planting the trees and making shea butter. After we saw how tedious the process it we quickly changed are minds!
The outer layer of the shea nut is quite sweet and juicy.
Yes, the process is very laborious. 1kg of nuts produces about 400g of butter and the whole process from picking the nuts and churning into butter can take 2 weeks.
Haven’t read the article yet…but I’ve had this question since I went natural: “Why is it that many African women with coily hair not have great length if (1)there are such great natural ingredients like Shea butter over there and (2)protective styling like braids are traditional?
That was fascinating. Thanks for sharing.
@Dee – Funny, I was just discussing the same thing w/ my sister (no great length, but natural ingredients + protective styling available). One thing that I’ve noticed is that, in Nigeria at least, a lot of people who live in cities (vs. living in a more rural area) aren’t into “local” hair care products, considering them inferior to imported products. Asking around a smaller city I stayed in for a couple days about where I could buy shea butter, some women had no idea (or why I wanted any). Then, I think traditional braiding techniques can actually be quite damaging, considering how tightly hair is pulled. Add to that, having hair relaxed from a very young age and lack of retention doesn’t seem too unusual.
@cherchezlacurl:
2 reasons for many city Nigerians not using local hair products, or just beginning to use them:
1. Fake products/medications flooded the Nigerian market in the 1980′s and it hasn’t gotten any better. Couple that with a lot of (if not most) local products are low quality for any number of reasons, many people here just don’t trust the mostly unregulated locally-made products and (if they can afford not to) won’t buy them and a lot of the time for good reason. A few months ago, I got a gift of coconut oil bought in a market and it smelled like rotting meat. That’s when I started making my own coconut oil at home.
2. Discovering that nature’s better a lot of the time than the lab is a new notion for many Nigerians, who have been convinced over decades that the lab is better. This is no different from the West: organic food only became popular in the last decade, black women in the West have been using blue grease and relaxers for decades, etc. We’re just a little behind in realizing it.
By the way, traditional masseuses, some local salons, and some high-end hair and nail salon employees use or sell shea butter. The first two would be more affordable than the third. My mom’s manicurist sells hers for more than 3 times what the shea butter woman who sells to my local salon sells hers for and the only difference is in color and not quality.
yeh man! my sis just came back a few months ago and bought me some..shout out to all my Ghanaians ;)
@cherchezlacurl- thanx 4 the response. I figured conforming to what seems more “modern” or widely accepted in the Western world had something to do with it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the pictorial. I am not shocked that the process is a labour intensive one. I am happy though that the world demand has increased, hopefully these women can use the demand to improve their lives. Buy fair trade where possible.
Wow this is great, thanks for sharing!
Im Proud to be from Ghana!
Wonderful site. Plenty of useful info here. I’m sending it to some friends ans additionally sharing in delicious. And certainly, thank you to your sweat!
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Click HERE for a fascinating piece on the process women in a Ghanaian village go through to create shea butter.
