First published August 2013

To say that this post has been a long time coming is probably the understatement of the year. Well… maybe not but bear with me anyway. 

I bought some raw shea butter in Nigeria last Christmas and wanted to make my own hair butter. It took till late May before I got everything else I needed for this project and June 6th before it was made. I had already picked out the recipe I was going to use and felt confident in my decision because it promised to be easy (Full instructions here).  The article specifically said:

“Making whipped shea butter for your hair and body is not only easy, it’s fun!”

So, I set out all my ingredients, containers and spatulas (spoons) and got to work.

I did not take a picture of the raw shea butter because it was unsightly and smelled terrible and so it remained sealed until I was ready to whip up my souffle.

Shea Butter Souffle Making Instructions

Ingredients:

4-6oz of shea butter (According to the small kitchen scale, I had twice the amount of shea butter so I made a double batch)

3oz of coconut oil

1.5 oz of jojoba oil (I had a mixture of jojoba and sweet almond oil)

1tsp of cornstarch (optional) (I didn’t use)

Fragrant or Essential oil of your choice (tea tree oil cut out the overpowering shea butter smell)

Hand mixer or electric mixer (I prefer the electric mixer.) (I agree with the author!)

(For the record, I was not very bothered about using exact quantities and guestimated a lot.)

Instructions:

1. Soften the shea butter in the microwave until the consistency resembles a butter stick at room temp. Be careful NOT TO MELT the shea butter down. 30 seconds should be enough time to get it soft. Add the soft shea butter to the mixing bowl. Whip on medium speed until it starts to look like cake batter.

(I was not allowed to get the microwave or my friend’s kitchen smelling of shea butter, so I hand-kneaded the shea butter through a plastic bag until it got adequately soft – guestimations again!)
2. Slowly add the coconut oil to the mix. The coconut oil should be in a soft but solid form, NOT melted. The coconut oil will start to make the shea butter very creamy and fluffy.

3. Add jojoba oil and cornstarch, continue to mix on medium speed.

4. At this point the mixture should look like fluffy frosting. Feel free to add in your fragrant or essential oils at this point.

5. Once everything is well blended turn the mixer off and scoop your whipped shea butter into an empty cosmetic jar of your liking.

STORE IN A COOL & DARK PLACE UNTIL READY TO USE.

The last 10 minutes of mixing and prepping my shea butter souffle, as captured on my phone’s camera.

It took some mixing to get it to look like this which is nothing like the beautiful picture in the original article and by the end of the process, I had way more shea butter souffle than I knew what to do with. I gave a lot of it away. Why? I found it very greasy and while I still have some of it left for my own personal use, I don’t use very much of it and I don’t use it often. I think it would be a great sealant after a wash and deep conditioning session. Or a good deep conditioner!