Two shea-butter formulas for dry to very dry skin: a 50 ml ultra-rich day cream for the face and a 50 ml hand care for chapped hands. Certified organic, gift-wrapped in tissue paper.
What is in the set
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Ultra-Rich Shea Day Cream, 50 ml jar. A dense face cream for skin that stays tight and flaky through the day, particularly in winter.
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Shea Hand Care, 50 ml tube. A high-shea hand cream for hands that are actually cracked, not just in want of a nice cream.
What shea butter does, precisely
Shea is the fat pressed from the nut of Vitellaria paradoxa, a tree of the West African savannah. It is high in stearic and oleic acids and unusually high in unsaponifiables — the non-fat fraction responsible for its distinctive softening feel. Its job in a cream is occlusion: it forms a layer on the skin surface that slows water loss.
That is a genuinely valuable mechanism, and it is the whole of it. Shea does not repair, regenerate or rebuild skin; it stops water leaving, which lets skin that was drying out become comfortable again. Any brand telling you more than that is going past the evidence.
The trade-off you are buying
Rich means slow. These creams take longer to sink in and leave more of a feel on the skin than a light lotion would. That is the point — the residue is the protective layer. If you want something to apply before putting on makeup or before typing, this is the wrong set. If your skin is genuinely dry and nothing lighter has held, this is the right one.
Not for oily or combination skin
Worth saying plainly, because gift sets often go to the wrong recipient. An ultra-rich occlusive face cream on skin that already produces plenty of sebum tends to feel heavy and can leave people looking shiny by mid-morning. This set is for dry to very dry skin.
Natura Siberica
Weleda
Propos'Nature
