Raw and unrefined..... Shea butter that is.

Have you noticed that the world is going "natural", "unrefined" and "organic"? Chances are you have come across at least a few of these products. My first major exposure to these crazes was in the produce section. I once worked as a "produce boy" and had to be able to explain the products to customers. Thankfully most people that were looking for organic food knew enough that the only questions I got was where to find it. I knew enough to know that it is a rip-off!
For those of you that have only been exposed to the mainstream fads surrounding "natural", "unrefined" and "organic" products you probably think that they are somehow "better" or are for those that are concerned with nature. If this is your idea of these products I would encourage you to do some digging, because that is not always the case. I was skeptical myself when I first came across raw Shea butter so I did some digging. I was convinced enough to buy some to try.
If you search "benefits of raw shea butter" you will get a lot of pages. I have read about Shea butter evening skin tone, reducing redness from sun burn, absorbing in skin quickly, accelerating healing of cuts, moisturizing the scalp and eliminating dandruff, anti-inflammatory properties and the lists goes on and on. While I don't know if all of these claims are true from personal experience I do know that Shea butter is popular among lotions and creams and can be spendy! If you are a girl you are probably familiar with this, or if you are around girls a lot. One claim that I could relate to was that refinement of Shea butter got rid of many of its useful qualities.
Having done organic chemistry I know that natural compounds are often very complex, take a long time to make and don't take much to destroy. Generally there are two levels of refinement. The first involves melting the Shea butter and filtering it through clay. This will remove most of the natural yellow color, which varies in every batch, making it more white and also removes much of the smell. That right there tells me there is a possibility some of the benefits are gone. The organic compounds that give the raw butter its color and smell probably provide some of its benefits as well. Further refining can be done to totally remove the smell and make the Shea butter white and odorless. This is done by filtering it with hexane, which is an organic solvent, and further removes organic compounds.
So I decided try the raw Shea butter for myself. The smell of it cannot be described adequately with words; you just have to smell it for yourself. My personal experience with it reminds me of vegetable oil and some kind of nut, perhaps peanuts, it is an earthy smell. So far I have used it on my skin by itself, and a little goes a LONG ways, and I have made a whipped body butter with it. I personally like it and look forward to what I can create with it. I would say that it is a good product worth trying if your getting into making your own personal care products.

It's just that simple.... NOT!

Have you ever looked at a tutorial online or at something homemade that looked pretty simple until you tried it? Well, that's how I feel about some of my recent exploits with shaving.

I have been exploring some different ideas with shaving supplies, like aftershave, and it seemed like it might not be too hard. Well, it's not quite as easy as I had thought and I think that the problem is in my approach rather than the materials.

For the first go round I tried a recipe from the internet and added a few essential oils that I had researched. I knew that chances were it wouldn't suspend very well and I would have to continue experimenting. Next I tested it on my face and it didn't seem too bad, so it was on to figuring out how to make it stay mixed.

I did a little research and found that beeswax, along with some borax, can be used as an emulsifier. The problem was that the few things I found about it didn't explain very well that this was to suspend small amounts of water in oil and mine was a water base. I should have researched that more! After that I decided I would have to buy an emulsifier.

After some more in depth research I decided to buy some polysorbate-80, which seemed simple enough to use. The day it arrived I was super excited and just tossed all of the stuff together that I used in the previous aftershave mix and dumped some polysorbate-80 in it to see if it worked. It kind of worked, but I wasn't very careful about it and probably wasted the stuff I used to make the second batch.

So, I finally decided to get a little more scientific with it. I mixed the same things together, but this time I divided them into groups. All of the water soluble things that make up the majority of the aftershave I mixed as a base. Then I mixed all of the oils together and poured an equal amount of polysorbate into it, like much of my research suggested. Then after mixing each batch well I placed some of the base in a second container and slowly added the oil mixture to it. This is a better way.

While I am not finished making my aftershave, maybe now that I have the basics down, it might really be just that easy. Just remember that even though it might not be something you can throw together it can be fun!