A slow tree. It takes fifteen years or more to fruit and can live for centuries, which is why shea parklands are protected rather than planted — the trees standing in a field were left there when the field was cleared. The nuts are gathered, cracked, roasted and pounded, and the butter that comes out is unusually high in unsaponifiables, the fraction that does not turn to soap and does most of the conditioning.

The richest single component of our balm, and the body of both hand and body formulas.

Certified organic. Shea collection is overwhelmingly women's work across the shea belt, and remains one of the few cash incomes controlled by women in the region.