Cosmetic Butters, #3

Butters, or more about butters and their uses, #3.

Kokum Butter
Garcinia indica
Country - India
A nice and usually under-rated butter from the Garcinia tree. This naturally white and smooth butter has high compositions of beneficial materials to help regenerate tired and worn skin cells. It also supports elasticity and general flexibility of the skin wall. A great ingredient to add to healing lotions, creams, and body butters. It can be directly applied to the skin in its solid state, though for me, it's too hard and I prefer using it as part of whipped butter blend. I've also used it as part of a lipbalm and lotion bar blend, with success. I'd recommend it to those that are crafting cosmetics with the intent of producing a skin healing product.
Extraction- Expeller Pressed/Refined
Color- White
Texture- Hard

Mango Butter
Mangifera indica
Country - India
This butter is cold pressed from the seed kernel of the Mango tree. It is an exceptional quality base ingredient for body care products, such as lipbalms, an additive for lotions or creams, lotion bars or in a whipped butter. This butter is almost similar to cocoa butter (deodorized), but is not quite as hard, so it makes it much easier to work with. This is one of my favorite butters. An all around butter, useful in just about everything.

Color, off-white and Texture is more of a medium, not too hard, not too soft.

Sal Butter
Shorea robusta
Country - India
Sal butter comes from a native and prominent tree in several parts of India and has similar properties to Mango butter. While mango butter really has no scent, this one has a slight scent and a different color too. It is high in stearic and oleic acids and is wonderful for the skin because of its high emolliency properties and its excellent oxidative stability. This is valuable for those of us who enjoy keeping our skin moist and protected from harsh elements. (wind and cold, winter)
Has a low odor and is valuable as a cosmetics ingredient because of its pliability. It can be directly applied to the skin in its solid state, but it may require a mild amount of heating to improve applicability, as it's not like some of the other butters that will just almost melt on contact, examples would be shea or shealoe.

Coffee Butter
Coffea Arabica Seed Oil / Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil
I hadn't done a write-up on this butter, as I'd never used it, but since I have it now, I can write about it. It's a light brown, almost coffee with cream looking butter and has the scent of freshly brewed coffee. It's made by blending fresh coffee oil with hydrogenated oil, making it a nice spreading butter, that I love for lipbalms (don't need any other flavor!) or lotion bars (natural flavor again). It can be used for balms (up to 100%, but I add beeswax as it's too soft for me), soaps (3 - 6 %),
lotions and creams (3-5%).
Coffee oil contains polyunsaturated linoleic acid with a high content of palmitic acid. Coffee Butter offers high oxidative stability (a lower linoleic content) with an exceptionally smooth and elegant skin feel. Coffee Butter has excellent spreadability, making it ideal as a body butter or balm.  May be used in cosmetics, toiletries, soaps, massage oils & balms, hair care and sun care preparations. I don't think I'll be using it in sun care products, as I have others that I prefer more and I also prefer the scent of extra virgin coconut oil to coffee in sun care products.

Illipe Butter
Bassia Latifolia Seed Butter
This butter comes from the Illipe Tree (Shorea Stenoptera), which grows in the Borneo forests. It's very similar to Cocoa butter, the deodorized kind, and in that sense, I will use the cocoa butter over this butter, just due to pricing. The color is a light-tan and it, like cocoa butter has a higher melting point and is very moisterizing. It's almost identical to the properties of cocoa butter,which is why I tend to stick to cocoa butter. It's a good all-around butter on it's own though and something new to try. Usage is:
Lotions & Creams: 3-5%, Balms: 5-100%, Bar Soaps: 4-8%, Hair Conditioners: 2-5%. I would not use this butter at 100%, no more than I'd use cocoa butter at 100% as it's just a bit hard for that.

Macadamia Seed Butter
(Macadamia Ternifolia Seed Oil / Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil)
Another butter I've recently gotten and tried and I do like it a lot, though I also like the carrier oil by the same name, and reordered that too :)
How do you get Macadamia Butter? It's made by cold pressing of the nuts (seeds) of the Macadamia (ternifolia) tree followed by a full refining process to give an oil which is light in color and mild in odor. During the pressing, the natural oil contains essential fatty acids, but also contains unsaponifiables as natural waxes/paraffins, which are collected during the refining and deodorization process and are blended with hydrogenated macadamia seed oil to render it “butter-like” that's great for personal care products. Macadamia Seed Butter offers an exceptionally good emolliency and lubricity, while at the same time exhibiting good dermal penetration. The last is a very good thing for "any" butter or oil to have, the ability to penetrate the skin. I like both the butter and the oil and this isn't a nut butter, but a seed butter.
Usage:  Lotions & Creams: 2-5%, Balms: 5-100%,  Bar Soaps: 2-6%, Hair Conditioners: 2-5%

Here are a few more, with descriptions for now. There are still more and I will get to them, usually close to when I've recently used them. To view the other articles on butters, you may check here:

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976844422
or here:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976846607

mn - 2007