Top 5 Best Skin Loving Body Butters

In the quest for the best skin care we can find, we are bombarded with thousands of options and products that promise us everything from younger looking skin to turning back the hands of time and restoring us to our youthful selves from decades past. Many of these products are filled with some amazing and natural ingredients and some… well, not so much. Its hard navigating through the jungle of marketing jargon, sexy images, and envious celebrity endorsements without getting lost in the wilderness and crying out to the heavens for help. I try to be very natural with my own skin care regime, and personally prefer oils and butters over creams and lotions as I find them still lacking for my very dry skin. I know a lot of you do too, so I sat down and researched my little heart out to bring you my list of the top 5 best skin loving body butters you can use, that give the best results, and are all natural (as long as the label says it is, keep this in mind). Enjoy the list and slather-on!

Shea: Shea has a unique fatty acid composition which makes it a great emollient for many skin-care applications, such as baby-care products, massage creams, make-up, and similar products. Shea butter has the ability to soothe, hydrate and balance your skin. Shea Butter  contains Vitamins A, E and F.  Vitamins A and E help the skin keep itself healthy. Because Shea Butter easily penetrates the skin allowing the skin to breathe and doesn’t pores it can deliver it’s benefits better than other moisturizers.

Cocoa: Cocoa butter has always been knows as an excellent skin moisturizer. An emollient, it adds a protective layer of hydration on the skin. Cocoa butter contains compounds called cocoa mass polyphenols as well as antioxidants, which is said to help diminish signs of aging. It has a hard and brittle form but melts on the skin, and gives off a sweet, mild chocolate scent (after all, that’s where our beloved chocolate comes from!) The smooth texture, sweet fragrance and emollient property of cocoa butter make it a popular ingredient in cosmetics and skin care products, such as soaps and lotions and for good reason.

Mango: Rich in vitamin C, vitamin A, folate. It is an exotic butter that is obtained from the “Mangifera Indica” native to the tropics. It is a soft, solid butter, with a slight sweet scent and has amazing emollient properties. Because it’s rich in vitamin C, mango butter can help encourage the production of collagen, which helps give skin its shape and strength. Adequate collagen promotes a firmer appearance on skin, reducing the look of sagging and bagging. Vitamin A is one of the natural ingredients that encourages healthy cell production and turnover. Since mango butter is a natural source of vitamin A, it helps to stimulate the cells responsible for keeping skin firm, reducing fine lines and wrinkles and increasing skin’s overall youthful look. Stretch marks, acne scars, and other old scars become more pliable and less noticeable when exposed to all the goodies in mango butter—moisturizers, antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and skin regenerators. Dry patches, flakiness, crepe-skin all benefit from daily application of mango butter, which goes to work deeply moisturizing. Oh, and don’t forget your lips—mango butter works great as a lip balm. Mango butter provides a more lasting type of moisturization, which can help prevent the formation of fine lines and wrinkles down the line. It also helps reduce the degeneration of skin cells, preventing that damaging process that leads to wrinkles in the first place. All this, yet mango butter is gentle on skin, and perfectly suitable for sensitive skin.

Avocado: his natural extract of avocado is rich in vitamins A, D, and E, unsaturated fatty acids, and lecithin. contains unsaturated oil that rehydrates skin. The oil soothes the upper layers of skin and is very good for dry, cracked, aging and peeling skin. Avocado oil is reputed to be beneficial in reducing age spots and the appearance of scars. It is recommended for fine lines and wrinkles. Unruly or dry hair will benefit from avocado butter, as it is rich, nourishing, and softening. An exotic butter from the tropical regions of the world. It is obtained from the oil, of the fruit, of the avocado tree. It is known to help moisturize and soften rough, dry, and cracked skin.

Illipe: Illipe Butter is the fat obtained from the nuts of Shorea Stenoptera, a wild crop in the jungle of South East Asia. It reinforces the skin lipidic barrier and helps maintain skin moisturization. For years illipe has been known for its incredible moisturizing properties for and it’s ability to restore elasticity to hair and skin. It’s extremely helpful in the treatment of dry or over processed hair. The quick absorption rate of illipe butter makes it a world class product that is only used to achieve excellent skin results making the skin tone very soft and smooth.The other importance of illipe butter is its concentration of palmatic, stearric and linoleic acid.  This is an attribute that is not in many natural oils and butter, but you can find it in lip butter.

BONUS! (Had to include this one too…):

Kokum: Kokum Butter is obtained from the fruit kernel of Garcinia indica, which grows in the savanna areas in parts of the Indian subcontinent. It is the most stable and hardest exotic butter with a high melting point.  Kokum butter is amazing to use on lips, hands, and feet, anywhere where you have extra dry patchy skin. Rich in antioxidants, vitamin E, citric acid and may essential fatty acids. Kokum Butter is non-comedogenic. It does not clog pores.