Unrefined Shea Butter is simply another way of saying Raw Shea Butter.

Unrefined butter is the product as it has been extracted from the Shea nut. No additional heat or processing has been used to modify or refine it in any way.

For the product that has the most natural healing properties, you want unrefined shea butter.

Some of you may not like the natural “Nutty” aroma that is present in Raw Shea Butter. So, some manufactures will remove the aroma from the butter for you.

There are a few methods to accomplish this.

Should you prefer your butter to have less scent then I recommend that make sure your product was refined by a process of filtering through clay.

If not, you will probably have a product that was unscented using harsh chemicals such as hexane or other solvents.

Using solvents to remove the scent of natural unrefined butter will create a refined product that has solvents remaining in the butter.

As some of the solvent will remain in the butter, when you place the butter that has been refined in this manner, you will be placing solvents on your body.

Some people tend to prefer a more consistent color so there are some manufactures that will bleach their product for you. Bleaching shea butter does not improve the quality.

Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, the quality of the unrefined shea butter is not represented by the color.

The color of unrefined shea butter is determined only by the nuts that have been used to produce the butter. Some nuts produce light creme butter, while other nuts produce a darker colored butter.

Think of unrefined shea butter like wheat bread vs white bread.

You can buy a product that has more beneficial properties or you can buy a bleached, refined product where some of the good qualities have been removed during processing.

As always, the choice is yours.