Shea Butter and Baobab Oil: How to Use Them Together

People arrive at our door having already decided. Team butter or team oil. The butter crowd finds oil too slight to bother with. The oil crowd finds butter heavy, slow and faintly ridiculous in July.

Both camps are right about the other one's weakness. That is precisely why the answer is to stop choosing.

Raw Shea butter and cold-pressed Baobab oil come from the same landscape, from trees that grow within sight of each other, and they were used side by side long before anyone wrote a skincare routine down. They solve opposite problems, which is a very useful thing for two products to do.

What each one actually is

Raw Shea butter is a solid fat pressed and kneaded from the nut of the Shea tree. It is rich in oleic and stearic fatty acids and naturally contains vitamins A and E. It stays solid at room temperature and melts on contact with skin. It sinks in and leaves a soft protective layer behind, and that layer is the whole point of it.

Cold-pressed Baobab oil comes from the seed inside the Baobab fruit. It is high in omega-6 and omega-9 fatty acids with some omega-3, and it carries natural tocopherols, which is vitamin E. It is thin, golden, and absorbs remarkably fast for an oil this nourishing.

Both are non-comedogenic, which means neither one clogs pores. That surprises people about the butter especially.

Why they work better as a pair

Think of it as two different jobs.

Baobab oil goes in fast. It is light enough to sink through the top layers quickly, so it delivers fatty acids where you want them without leaving your face looking varnished.

Shea butter does both. It melts into the skin and leaves a soft layer behind that slows the rate at which water escapes. On its own that is excellent. Over an oil, it becomes a lid on everything the oil just delivered.

Use only the oil and it absorbs, does its work, and offers less cover against a January wind. Use only the butter and you get a superb barrier, though it asks for a little more time and warmth in your hands. Together, one carries and the other keeps.

Which to reach for, and when

None of this is a rulebook. It is simply how most people, including the women who make both, tend to end up using them.

Face, morning. Baobab oil on its own suits most mornings. Two or three drops are usually enough, and it absorbs fast enough to get dressed straight afterwards.

Face, night. Many people like Baobab oil first, then a small amount of Shea butter warmed between the fingers and pressed onto the drier areas rather than across the whole face.

Body. Shea butter is what most people reach for when skin feels tight, especially in the cold months. Warm it in your palms until it turns to oil and it goes in easily.

After the beach. Sun-kissed skin loves Shea butter, and there is nothing better after a day in salt water. Rinse the salt off first, then let the butter do what it does.

Hands and feet. Shea butter, more generously than feels reasonable, works best last thing at night.

Hair. Baobab oil through mid-lengths and ends. Shea butter suits the scalp and coarse or coily hair, warmed properly first.

Summer. Most people lean on the oil when it is hot, and come back to the butter when the weather turns.

The same two ingredients, ready to be used alone or blended into one cream.

Or stop layering and make one thing

The simplest version is to combine them once and be done with it. Roughly one part Baobab oil to three parts Shea butter gives you a cream that spreads like a lotion and behaves like a butter.

Warm weather note: this cream will soften considerably in a hot room. That is a sign there is nothing in it holding it artificially firm.

What they have in common matters most

Neither of these has been refined, bleached, deodorized or thinned with anything cheaper. The butter is handcrafted the way it has been for centuries. The oil is cold-pressed, which keeps the fatty acids and tocopherols intact rather than cooking them off for the sake of a longer shelf life and a blander smell.

The women who make both run their own cooperative. They set their prices, they earn from their own skill, and their children are in school because of it. Two products, one landscape, one group of women who have been using this combination on their own families for far longer than either of them has had a marketing category.

Curious about either one on its own? Read the full list of Baobab oil benefits, or why raw Shea butter beats the refined kind. For the whipped version with essential oils, the recipe lives here.