Why unrefined shea smells like that

The first thing people say about unrefined shea is that it smells odd. Nutty, a little smoky, faintly like a nut that has been sitting in a warm room. It is the most common note in our messages, and it is usually framed as a complaint.

It is also the point.

Shea comes out of the nut as a grey-yellow fat carrying a set of compounds — cinnamic acid esters, mostly — that do the actual work of sealing and calming skin. Refining strips those out along with the colour and the smell. What you get back is a white, odourless butter that spreads beautifully, photographs well, and does noticeably less.

We buy ours unrefined from a women’s cooperative in Ghana, which means every batch smells slightly different depending on the harvest. Batch 026 was nuttier than 025. Nobody planned that.

The smell fades from skin in about fifteen minutes. The cinnamic acid esters do not.