Kokum butter is known to cure chappy lips, prevents dry skin, rejuvenates skin, works as an anti-aging agent, heals wounds and cracks. Kokum Butter is a one of the most sought-after vegetable butter.
It’s also one of the hardest butter. The interesting fact about Kokum butter is that it remains solid even at room temperature.
The butter is gaining much popularity not only as a butter but also as a therapeutic agent. To know more about its health benefits scroll down.
Table of Contents
What Is Kokum Butter?
Kokum butter is produced from the seeds of the Kokum tree. The tree is widely grown in the central east region of India. Further for use, it is refined resulting in a white butter. It has a smooth dense texture and a non-existent odor.
The triglyceride composition of it is uniform and has 80% of stearic-oleic-stearic (SOS) triglycerides. It has a very powerful antioxidant Vitamin E.
It is highly oxidative and has a relatively high melting point which makes it suitable for use in lip balms and lipsticks.
The butter remains solid at room temperature but melts immediately when comes in skin contact. Due to its composition, it is often used as a substitute for cocoa butter. The refined form of butter is often used in the cosmetic, toiletry, and confectionary products.
Another interesting fact about kokum butter is that the ultra-purified derivatives of Kokum butter are used as substitutes and stabilizers when manufacturing chocolates. It is because with this the chocolates won’t melt during transport and sale in the hot summer season.
Health Benefits Of Kokum Butter For The Skin
Kokum butter benefits our skin in lot many ways due to its high healing compounds and properties.
Few of the most amazing benefits on the skin are as follows:
1. Fights Dry Skin
Kokum butter is an excellent emollient, antioxidant and a moisturizer. Its pure form can be applied as a moisturizer.
You can apply it to your skin and face as it readily gets absorbed in the skin and hydrates it from inside. It gives a soft, supple, and smooth skin.
It is the best day-time moisturizer, with no chemicals and absolutely side-effect free. You can use it as a daytime moisturizer even if you have sensitive skin.
2. Cures Chappy Lips
Kokum butter is a moisturizer that nourishes the skin without clogging the pores. You can use the pure butter as a lip balm to get soft supple lips.
Even in the beauty industry many of the lipsticks, lip balms, and lip cream contains kokum butter because of its non-greasy creamy texture. It slides on the skin smoothly and keeps them hydrated too.
3. Skin Rejuvenation
Kokum butter is enormously high in materials that help in regeneration of worn out skin cells. It also provides elasticity and flexibility to the skin wall.
Not only this, it heals any abrasions, pimple, or bumps too. It is even added to many body lotions, creams, and body butter.
You can directly apply it to the skin. However, in winter season you have to heat it mildly for smooth application.
Additionally, you can even mix it with other butter and oil for enhancing the nourishment. It also helps to soften the skin and heal ulceration on lips, hand, and feet.
Th butter works on the skin by reducing the degeneration of skin cells and restoring the elasticity of the worn out cells.
Anybody can use it. Nevertheless, if you have any skin allergy or any other skin issue, do consult your doctor before using the butter.
4. Anti-Aging Agent
Kokum butter has antioxidants that alleviate the aging process. It reduces fine lines, wrinkles, and rough skin. It also keeps the skin hydrated, nourished, and increases the skin elasticity too.
5. Heal Cracks
Kokum Butter helps heal cracks and dryness in your feet. It moisturizes the feet and makes them soft and supple. For best benefits, apply it daily on your foot before going to bed.
6. Heal Wounds
Kokum butter has healing properties too. For small wound and cuts, you can use it as a medicine. It gives a calming effect and a speedy recovery.
Benefits Of Kokum Butter For The Hair
Kokum butter is great for hair too. It has many restorative properties. It works well for dry and damaged hair by making the hair root and hair follicles strong.
Kokum butter oxygenates the scalp tissue and nourishes the scalp with nutrients. All this eventually prevents hair loss and promotes hair growth too.
Kokum butter strengthens the already damaged hair by making them non-greasy and hydrated. This also prevents breakage and hair thinning.
You can apply it to your hair directly just after shampooing your hair. Use the purest form and apply it to your tips, just like you apply a hair conditioner. After application, just rinse it off for smooth manageable hair.
How To Use Kokum Butter?
You can use kokum butter in many ways. You can mix it with other ingredients or directly apply it for maximum benefits. To help you a bit more, down below are the ways to use Kokum butter.
1. Cold Processed Soap
You can add Kokum butter to make soap out of it. However, you can only add 10% of Kokum butter as it has high stearic acid content.
Stearic acid gives the soap the required amount of thickness as its a very good thickening agent. This quantity is fair enough to give you the moisturizing benefits.
High concentration of kokum butter in soaps is not recommended as it makes the base too oily.
2. Body Lotion
Kokum butter is widely used to make body lotions as it has stearic acid content. Stearic acid gives the lotion the required amount of thickness as its a very good thickening agent.
Use around 1-3% of kokum butter when making lotions as higher concentration can make the formula thick. This amount is suitable to give the desired lustre to the lotion.
3. Hair Conditioner
Kokum butter is an excellent hair conditioner. If you suffer from rough dry hair, you should use kokum butter. It’s efficient to give shiny, manageable, and smooth hair.
Once you finish shampooing your hair, just apply it on the ends. Leave it on your hair for god 15 minutes. Next, rinse it off with plain water. Be cautious, use the purest form of kokum butter for the best results.
4. Lip Balms
Kokum butter has moisturizing properties. It works well for cracked chappy lips. You can apply the lip balm directly on your lips, although it will firm. If you want to make it soft you can add little coconut oil to make it a bit greasy.
For making a lip balm three ingredients are used beeswax, butter, and oi in the same ratio. Kokum butter can be mixed with beeswax, candelilla wax, coconut oil, almonds oil, and chia seed.
5. Body Butter
Kokum butter has a smooth silky texture. It melts and slides on the skin pretty well. So, you can use it as a hydrating body butter.
Nevertheless, for easy application prefer melting kokum butter before applying it on your skin as its stiff. More, you can even mix kokum butter with other butter to make a balanced hydrating body butter.
How To Make Kokum Butter At Home?
Raw kokum butter is a white colored fat with a yellow tint extracted from oil mills. First, the kokum seeds are gathered from the natural forest.
They are cleaned to removed dust and foreign matters. Next, the clean seeds are sun-dried to remove excess of moisture. Once the seeds dry up, the outer shells are removed. The end product gives kokum kernels.
Next, these kernels are boiled in a steam boiler and the fat or oil from the top is taken out as kokum oil. Then, the crude kokum oil is heated more to remove any extra moisture. The filtration of oil is a lengthy process as all the impurities like debris, scum, etc. have to be removed.
Double filtration is done to extract pure kokum oil. This oil cooled down to create kokum butter slabs and cubes. These cubes are then packaged and sold.
DIY Kokum Body Butter
If you want to make body butter using Kokum butter, we have a DIY kokum bod butter recipe for you. This one is a very easy-peasy recipe that you can make at home using few ingredients. Let’s start with the recipe.
Ingredients Used
Half cup of unrefined kokum butter, quarter cup of coconut oil(you can choose any oil of your choice like almond oil, avocado oil, etc.), and few drops of lavender oil for fragrance (you can use any oil as per your liking like rosemary oil, tea tree oil, etc.)
Instructions
1. Melt the kokum butter and the oil of your choice in the bowl. For my recipe, I used coconut oil. For boiling, you have to use a double boiler or a microwave.
2. Once melted, just give a quick stir to mix both the things.
3. Let it sit and cool.
4.Once the mixture starts to solidify, whip it with a beater or a blender.
5. Add few drops of lavender oil or any other roil of your choice. Alternatively, you can even skip this step if you don’t have any essential oil.
6. Transfer it to a wide bottom container. Level it out with a flat spoon. Your body butter is ready.
7. You can store it at normal temperature.
The kokum body water is very good for the skin due to various reasons. It is highly moisturizing because of the two emollients.
It promotes regeneration of skin cells and keeps skin dryness at bay. The most important benefit is that it is purely natural and thus free from harmful chemicals.
Kokum Butter Vs Shea Butter
Both Kokum butter and Shea butter are excellent moisturizers. They both work well on skin. They are obtained from two different trees.
Kokum butter is obtained from kokum tree using kokum seeds and shea butter is obtained from African shea tree.
One noticeable difference between the two is kokum butter is hard and excessively dry to touch and sight. However, it melts quickly in contact with skin. On the other hand, shea butter is little greasy and soft to touch and sight.
You can use both the butter for the damaged dry skin. They work well for almost all the skin types. Even the composition of both the butter is a bit same.
The Kokum butter has a uniform triglyceride composition with essential fatty acids, vitamin e, and is non-comedogenic. The shea butter has essential fatty acids, vitamins a, e and f, and provides collages to the skin.
There is not much difference between the two. You can choose anyone as per your liking or you can even use a combination of both. However, if you have a nut allergy, consult your doctor before using kokum butter.
Final Talk
Kokum butter is an extremely potent skincare product which has been known to improve skin health and skin quality significantly.
Regular use of Kokum butter protects the skin from diseases and illness. It also keeps your skin hydrated all day long. As an added bonus, the butter also alleviates the effects of aging. All these properties together make it an amazingly useful product for long-term skin health.
The butter is side-effect free and unlike other butter, it won’t make your skin oily or greasy. However, you should be careful with your purchase. Purchase the purest form of kokum butter for zero side-effects.
Nevertheless, if you develop an allergy or any discomforting sign immediately stop the use and consult a doctor if necessary. Do let us know in the comment section about your experience of using kokum butter.
