How to make your own shea butter cream

Sabine — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:05:00 +0000

An easy home made recipe for novices, using fair trade unrefined organic shea butter, olive oil and essential oils. Whipped shea butter cream – the ultimate in heavenly skin care. Recipe available at www.cebraonline.com/tips-trends-16-w.asp

Cebra scoops Marie Claire best fair trade product award

Sabine — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:25:00 +0000

In celebration of Fairtrade Fortnight, Marie Claire has voted our Alaffia shea butter hand & body balm the best fair trade product.

You can read their verdict by clicking here.

Naturally I am thrilled as I kept telling everybody over the last few months how brilliant shea butter is and how it can really give you a great skin if you keep using it.

In fact, I just had a phone call from a lady telling me how grateful she was for having found our website and the best thing she did was order our handmade African black soap and the rooibos & shea butter antioxidant cream – she will come back and order for her friends and relatives as well as she wants all of them to experience the healing qualities of our skin care products.

We shall soon be introducing unrefined shea butter as a refill for your glass jars. The shea butter can then be ordered as 100 g or 500 g unit. You may either refill your exisitng Alaffia jars or store the shea butter in one of our herb baskets (very decorative in the bathroom) or any clean jam jar (for example).

I am also trying to get my hands on shea butter oil. This is great for cooking but also a fantastic carrier oil for essential oils which can be mixed together and used as an aroma roll-on, bathing essence, massage oil or to use all over the body as a moisturiser.

Other new items on our website:

Handbags and stylish rucksacks (with and without leather straps) from Costa Rica.

The fabric for these is hand loomed by Borucan Indians. They are a small tribe living in the rainforest of Costa Rica and fabric weaving is a thousand year old tradition and skill that has been passed down the generations. It needs to be preserved as it is one of the few sources of outside income for these people who are now threatened by civilisation and tree logging. All the yarns for this fabric are dyed with natural colours. Read more about the Borucan Indians and our handbags on our website.

Glass beaded tea light holders from South Africa.

These are made by hand from tiny glass beads by a small group of Xhosa women. The lady who runs the group has received award by the United Nations in 2005 and she goes to extreme lengths to ensure that the Xhosa people have a regular income by creating new designs and coming up with fresh ideas every 6 months or so. I am quite fond of their products and I shall be stocking more items in the near future. The tea light holders come in two colour schemes and as a pack of three each colour. Also available are tea light holders made from porcupine quills that were collected in the bush.

Decorative Kilim floor cushion covers.

A kilim is a flat woven textile, traditionally hand woven by tribal women in Central Asia since the eleventh century A.D. The techniques and designs of the kilim weaving tradition are believed to be a legacy of Turkoman tribes of Iran, Afghanistan, and Turkmenistan. These cushions are available in four colour schemes with the main colours being: grey, indigo, red and brown. Size: 69 x 69 cm and they come in set of two cushion covers.

More unusual cushion covers will be added to the site in a couple of weeks. Watch out for our pure silk tusser cushion covers with a stunning kalamkari border. Hand made and printed in India. I love them!

As always – more stunning and new fair trade and eco accessories can be found on my website under “What’s New“. I am sure that here you will find a nice Easter present for someone special – or for yourself.

Take care for now. And thank you for supporting fair trade and our artisans.

Simply ethical. Simply fair trade and eco chic » shea butter

How to make your own shea butter cream

Cebra scoops Marie Claire best fair trade product award