Focus: Shea butter and skin aging

Focus: Shea butter and skin aging

FOR THE LOVE OF SMOOTH SKIN

Focus: Shea butter and skin aging

The largest organ of your body is your skin; it protects every other organ from direct contact with the environment and dangerous micro organisms. But the issue is it takes the brunt of the hostile environment, the cruel weather, harsh ultra violet rays from the sun, bad chemicals from your soaps, creams and cosmetics. And when you begin to age, though other organs in your body are relatively silent about your age range, your skin tells the whole world how old you look. But the issue it a times, it tends to lie about it.

So what should you do?

Out of the numerous options you have, I will like to focus on Shea butter, an excellent natural product you can easily find in the market raw or in lotion/ creams. (It is better to go for the unprocessed one). But first, let’s talk about the benefits of Shea butter.

One of the things Shea butter would do for you is to heal the effect of bad weather on your skin. It will help heal your skin of sun burns and dryness. This is the same reason it is good for your hair especially in dry weather.

Shea butter has Oleic acid and its derivatives which help your skin to retain moisture. The oily nature o Shea butter enables it to slow down the rate at which you lose water.

Shea butter has mild but natural SPF 5 protecting your skin from the ultra violet rays of the sun which is a cause of photoaging.(Shea butter has a high level of cinnamic acid, a sun screen agent)) This in turns prevents wrinkles and fine line which are signs of aging.

Because it is rich in antioxidants found in vitamin A, E, F it helps fight free radicals which damage the skin cells and triggering cancer and fast forwarding the process of aging.

Though most good creams or lotions you see on the shelves in your cosmetics shops should give you results by 14days but Shea butter just like most natural products tend to be slower as regard result. With patience you should see an excellent result within 4-6 weeks

Teju duru is a free lance journalist and make up artist (beauty consultant) based in Ibadan