Shea Butter for Your Face: Benefits and How to Use It

High concentrations of fatty acids and vitamins make shea butter an ideal cosmetic ingredient for softening skin. Shea butter also has anti-inflammatory and healing properties. Using shea butter on your body, especially your face, can condition, tone, and soothe your skin. Shea butters consistency and semisolid characteristics help your skin to absorb it when it melts at room temperature. 

Shea butter has high levels of oleic, linoleic, and stearic acids. These acids are an effective ingredient to combating oxidative stress, which is the effect the environmental toxins have on your skin cells. This helps your skin to have a healthy turnover of new cells, and also supports the structure and tightness of your skin. The vitamin E in shea butter also helps protect your skin from the UV rays of the sun, although you cant skip sunscreen just because you use shea butter on your face.

The easiest way to use shea butter for your face is to purchase a cream that includes shea butter from a health food store, pharmacy, or online retailer. Shea butter can be applied directly to your face before you go to sleep. Applying cream with shea butter as part of your skincare routine in the morning might take some getting used to, as the fatty acids and oils in shea butter may make applying makeup on top of it difficult.

You can also make a facial mask using shea butter and several other ingredients. Wash your face first with a cream cleanser or warm water. Dont expose your face to steam prior to use, as this will open your pores and make the shea butter more likely to get trapped in your skin and cause a breakout. To make your own mask, mix together: Mix well and spread out over your face. Leave the mask on for 10 to 12 minutes before gently cleansing your face with warm water and a soft washcloth for best results.

Shea butter is an incredibly low-risk topical ingredient. Allergic reactions to shea butter are rare.

Even people who are allergic to tree nuts, the family that shea nuts belong to, have a low risk of reaction to shea butter on their face. Researchers believe this is because shea nuts contain little of the tree-nut proteins that trigger allergies. 

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t any risks to using it. Given the consistency of shea butter, it’s likely to be comedogenic.

Some websites on the internet claim that shea butter is non-comedogenic or has a “low comedogenic rating.” It’s not clear where this evidence is derived from since there are no available studies to support this claim.

The American Academy of Dermatology supports the idea that shea butter can clog your pores and cause acne. This is especially true if you have acne-prone skin.