The Best Body Butter Ingredients for Your Softest Skin Ever

We’ve all been there. Maybe you took one too many hot showers or skipped the lotion one too many times -- or maybe you just had to wash your hands a thousand times a day (thanks COVID). And you suddenly found yourself with dry, flaky, ashy, or even cracking skin.

Not great, and not something that a run-of-the-mill lotion will be able to take care of quickly and effectively. That’s where body butter can come in - but it’s all about finding ingredients that will truly nourish, soothe, and replenish the skin (without making you feel like you just slathered a stick of butter all over yourself).

Here are the best body butter ingredients to look for.

Shea Butter

A fat extracted from African shea nuts, shea butter is ultra-rich in antioxidants, vitamins, and fatty acids. Translation? Protection against free radicals, environmental aggressors, and a damaged skin barrier.

This combination of ingredients makes shea butter effective at:

• Soothing eczema and psoriasis:Shea butter has emollient and anti-inflammatory properties that are shown to help soothe conditions like psoriasis, dermatitis, and eczema.
• Reducing lines and wrinkles:Shea butter contains five essential fatty acids -- phytosterols, vitamin D, vitamin E, allantoin, and vitamin A. These can help battle fine lines and wrinkles, stimulate collagen, fight free radical damage and hydrate the skin.
• Deeply hydrating the skin:As an emollient, shea butter can soak deeply into the skin and create a moisture-sealing barrier that can last for several hours. It also contains fatty acids like stearic, palmitic, and linoleic acids, all of which can help strengthen the skin’s natural barrier and further lock in moisture.
• Providing antioxidant protection:Shea butter contains polyphenols, the antioxidants found in green tea that are known to provide photoprotective effects against UV-induced skin inflammation, immunosuppression, DNA damage, and more.
• Soothing sunburns:Finally, shea butter’s anti-inflammatory properties make it effective at treating sunburns and even first degree burns (and the emollient properties don’t hurt, either).

Cocoa Butter

Derived from the cacao tree (the same place we get chocolate from), cocoa butter is a naturally stabilized vegetable extract that can:

• Provide antioxidant benefits: Like shea butter, cocoa butter is rich in polyphenols, which are shown to reduce inflammation and prevent skin damage. This can help guard against both short-term damage and long-term skin aging.
• Richly moisturize the skin:Cocoa butter’s high concentration of fatty acids makes it extremely moisturizing and capable of restoring the skin’s natural barrier, soothing inflammation, and providing deep, lasting moisture.
• Reduce scarring and stretch marks:Cocoa butter has been used for years to decrease stretch marks and scars thanks to its high fatty acid content and phytochemicals, which can moisturize, improve blood flow, and encourage healthy cell turnover.

Kukui Nut Oil

Used for centuries in Hawaii, kukui nut oil is a natural moisturizer derived from the state tree of Hawaii that’s rich in:

• Fatty acids:Like shea butter and cocoa butter, kukui nut oil contains lots of healthy fats, including linoleic acid and omega-3. Over time, this kind of nourishing protection can not only hydrate skin but also help it better protect itself, which can ultimately lead to a healthier, more balanced, even complexion.
• Vitamins:Kukui nut oil is rich in vitamins A, C, and E. Translation? Fewer blemishes, UV protection, increased natural collagen production, and more (you can read more about the benefits of all these vitamins here).

That’s why island natives have used kukui nut oil for glowing skin, to heal damaged skin, to treat their hair, and more. It’s even been shown to help with psoriasis, eczema, and other inflammatory skin conditions.

Jojoba Oil

Ok, so it’s not onlyabout the fat that’s in your body butter. You also have to pay attention to the carrier oils and other ingredients in the formula, since these can really make or break a body butter.

If you don’t want to feel greasy and oiled up, you’ll want to look for biomimetic oils -- aka oils that are super similar in composition to our own sebum, or face oil. That way, your skin can naturally soak it in without thinking it’s something foreign or strange.

Jojoba is one of those oils. It also has a ton of beneficial compounds of its own, including vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin D, and fatty acids. These make it naturally antibacterial, antiviral, antifungal, analgesic (pain-relieving), hypoallergenic, andanti-inflammatory. Not too shabby!

Aloe Vera

Fats and oils work primarily as emollients and occlusives, sealing moisture into the skin. But if you don’t also have a humectant - which actually draws that moisture in and holds onto it - you’ll just be sealing in all your dryness. And that’s where a lot of body butters go wrong. You feel greasy and thick, but as soon as you wipe it off, the flaking is still there. As if!

That’s why you need to make sure your formula also has a great humectant like aloe vera.

In addition to its humectifying properties, aloe vera also contains:

• Polysaccharides: These give aloe its hydrating, anti-inflammatory properties and make it an excellent product to protect the skin’s natural barrier.
• Phytosterols:These are anti-inflammatory and they can help calm itchiness and irritation. They also give protection to prevent trans-epidermal water loss (aka they help your skin keep its moisture over time).
• Vitamins and minerals:These include vitamins A, B, C, D, and E - all of which have tons of benefits for the skin - along with minerals like magnesium, potassium, and zinc.
• Glycosides:These promote cellular regeneration and have antihistamine properties.

Final Thoughts

The right body butter will have a combination of moisturizing, nourishing, and skin protecting ingredients that will leave you feeling totally hydrated, glowing, and ready to take on the day.

No gunk. No greasiness. Just good, clean beauty.

Find all of these ingredients in the expertly crafted Coco Cocoa Creme Body Butter.