The health industry can be somewhat fickle at times, moving from trend to trend, leaving old cosmetic methods to die forgotten and unloved. And it is for this reason that it is so very impressive when we find a type healthcare product that has withstood the test of time.
This is right where body butters come in. They have been used to maintain optimal skin health for centuries, and body butters are coming back in a big way.
What Are Body Butters?
Body butters are all-natural skincare products that are applied directly to the skin, which is intended to improve skin health, protect from skin disease while healing dry skin, all improve general skin quality.
Traditionally used on ‘problem skin areas’ such as knees, elbows, and feet, these butters are only know being seen for what they truly are – a high quality product that can improve skin quality in many ways.
Body butters also have moisturizing properties. Typically thicker than more traditional skincare lotions, these butters are renowned for feeling extremely pleasant when they make contact with the skin, offering both nourishment and rejuvenation to dry and damaged skin.
Body butters are one of the best skincare products available on the market – and one of the very few that have truly stood the test of time. Interestingly, there are a number of different types of body butters available on the market, each of which offering unique positives in regards to their impact on skin health.
What Are the Best Types of Body Butters?
Although there are a multitude of butters available on the market, there are three that generally stand above the rest: Kokum Butter, Cocoa Butter, and Shea Butter.
Each of these butters offer excellent options in their own right, having the potential to improve skin health and skin quality through unique and different mechanisms.
Kokum Butter
Kokum butter is arguably the most unique body butter on this list. Used traditionally in eastern medicinal practices for centuries, it is derived from the seeds of the Kokum Tree’s (Garcinia Indica) fruit, where it is refined into a white butter with a very mild, sweet, odor [1].
This particular butter is non greasy, has a smooth, yet dense, texture, and actually gets absorbed into the skin once applied.
While Kokum butter is derived almost entirely of fatty acids (it is a butter after all), it also contains specific compounds that exhibit both antibacterial properties. This makes it an excellent option for those individuals who suffer skin disease or skin infections in a regular basis [1].
With this, it also exhibits unique ant-inflammatory effects on the cells of the skin. This causes huge improvements in skill cell health and function, leading to smoother, softer, and more elastic skin.
Cocoa Butter
As its name obviously suggests, Cocoa butter is a natural oil extracted from the coca bean. It is essentially the fat source used to make chocolate – although it has many other unique benefits beyond that.
True organic cocoa butter has a mild fragrance and an extremely smooth texture, and is well known for is incredibly potent hydrating capacity. It is for this reason that cocoa butter appears so frequently within skincare products – it truly moisturizes the skin.
In conjunction with its hydrating qualities, cocoa butter is also extremely rich in antioxidants. With this in mind, cocoa butter has excellent potential to fight both skin disease and age related declines in skin quality [2].
This makes it especially useful when it comes to improving skin quality in older individuals, while also protecting us forma decline in skin health as we age.
It is important to note that cocoa butter is also known as ‘Cocoa Butter Lotion’ in some healthcare circles, and that the names can be used interchangeably.
Shea Butter
Shea Butter is a cream colored fatty substance that comes directly from the nuts of the Shea Tree. While this particular compound has been used as a skin treatment in Western Africa for the better part of a millennium, it has only recently become commonplace within the modern day health industry.
This particular cosmetic butter is extremely dense in Vitamin A, which has shown to help heal skin conditions, blemishes, and wrinkles.
Additionally, she butter is also extremely rich in both anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor compounds. As a result, it offers an excellent option for those looking to improve skin quality and reduce the risk of developing skin cancer [3].
Interestingly, the application of Shea Butter has also shown to boost collagen production within the skin. This can greatly improve skin health, while simultaneously protecting us from age related declines in skin quality.
Kokum Butter vs Cocoa Butter vs Shea Butter vs Coconut Oil
One of the more common questions we get in regards to body butters relates to how they compare to coconut oil – with specific emphasis on its capacity as a skincare treatment.
Coconut oil does contain an interesting fatty acid profile, and as such its application to the skin has been shown to improve the health and hydration of skin cells. With this in mind, it also has the potential to improve the skins resistance to UV rays and environmental damage, suggesting that it does have the capacity improve skin quality in the long term [4].
In saying that, coconut oil appears to have most benefit as a pure skin moisturizer, as its impact on skin health is markedly less than the positive effects observed with body butters.
As a result, we would actually recommend you use both – first moisturizing with coconut oil and then applying your body butter immediately after.
Summary
Body butters are an extremely potent skincare product, in which they have been demonstrated to both improve skin health and skin quality significantly.
With this in mind, the application of body butter (whether it be Kokum Butter, Cocoa Butter, or Shea Butter) has the potential to protect our skin from disease and illness, while also improving hydration status. As an added bonus, they also appear to reduce the negative effects of aging on the skin, making them an incredibly useful product for the maintenance of long term skin health.
If you have had any experiences with these butters, we would love to hear about them – so drop us a comment and we will get back to you ASAP.