Merin Kind's Shea Butter Series, Part 4 of 4
Quick Answer
Unrefined shea butter is extracted and prepared using traditional methods (hand-crushed, roasted, and boiled, with no chemical solvents), which preserves more of its naturally occurring vitamins, antioxidants, and beneficial compounds. Refined shea butter goes through additional processing — often involving heat, filtration, and sometimes chemical solvents like hexane — which extends shelf life and removes shea's natural scent, but also strips out many of the same beneficial compounds. Shea butter is graded, with Grade A referring to unrefined, minimally processed butter — the standard Merin Kind uses.
What's actually in shea butter
Shea butter's reputation as a skincare powerhouse isn't just tradition talking — there's real chemistry behind it. Shea is rich in oleic and stearic acids, which give it its emollient, moisturizing texture, along with smaller amounts of other fatty acids. Beyond fats, unrefined shea butter contains a range of unsaponifiable compounds — triterpenes, tocopherols (a form of vitamin E), phenols, and plant sterols — that research links to anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity. It's also been studied for natural UV-absorbing properties, which is part of why it shows up in sun-adjacent skincare formulations.
Here's the part that matters most when you're comparing products: how much of that is still present depends almost entirely on how the butter was processed.
Unrefined vs. refined: what actually changes
Unrefined shea butter is the closest you'll get to what comes out of the traditional process described in the rest of this series — hand-crushed, roasted, boiled, and cooled, without chemical solvents or high-heat industrial refining. It typically carries a mild, nutty scent, a slightly inconsistent color (ivory to pale yellow, sometimes with natural variation batch to batch), and a firmer texture. Research comparing crude (unrefined) shea butter to refined shea fractions has consistently found that refining reduces levels of phenolic compounds, tocopherols, and plant sterols — the very compounds responsible for much of shea's antioxidant and antibacterial activity.
Refined shea butter, by contrast, goes through additional processing — often bleaching, deodorizing, and sometimes solvent extraction — to produce a whiter, odorless, longer-shelf-life product. That processing makes it easier to formulate into mass-market products with a neutral scent, but it comes at a real cost to the beneficial compounds that make shea butter valuable in the first place. Studies note that refined shea also shows measurably lower antibacterial activity than the crude, unrefined form.
Neither is "fake" shea butter, technically speaking. But they are meaningfully different products, and most consumers have no way of knowing which one they're actually buying unless the brand tells them.
What grading actually tells you
Shea butter is commonly graded, with Grade A typically referring to unrefined, minimally processed butter extracted via traditional or cold-press methods with no chemical solvents — the standard most artisanal and direct-trade brands use, including Merin Kind. Lower grades generally correspond to more heavily refined or chemically processed butter. Grading isn't perfectly standardized across the industry, which is exactly why sourcing transparency matters as much as the label itself — a brand that can tell you where its butter comes from and how it was processed is giving you more useful information than a grade letter alone.
Why Merin Kind uses unrefined, Grade A shea butter
Every product in our whipped shea butter collection starts with unrefined, Grade A shea butter sourced directly from our partner cooperative in Ibadan, Nigeria. We whip it — we don't refine it — because refining is exactly the step that strips out the compounds this ancient process was designed to preserve in the first place. The mild nutty scent, the natural color variation, the slightly firmer texture off the shelf: these aren't flaws to engineer away. They're evidence that nothing was stripped out along the way.
This closes out our four-part series on shea butter — from the economics behind who profits, to the women whose knowledge sustains this industry, to the trees themselves, to what's actually inside the jar. Our hope is that the next time you pick up a jar of shea butter — ours or anyone else's — you'll know enough to ask better questions about what's in it.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between refined and unrefined shea butter?
Unrefined shea butter is minimally processed with no chemical solvents, preserving more vitamins, antioxidants, and natural scent. Refined shea butter undergoes additional bleaching, deodorizing, and sometimes solvent extraction, which extends shelf life but reduces beneficial compounds like tocopherols and phenols.
What does "Grade A" shea butter mean?
Grade A generally refers to unrefined, minimally processed shea butter extracted through traditional or cold-press methods without chemical solvents — the highest quality classification most direct-trade brands use.
Is refined shea butter still beneficial for skin?
It still offers moisturizing benefits from its fatty acid content, but research shows refining measurably lowers antioxidant and antibacterial compounds compared to unrefined shea butter.
What grade of shea butter does Merin Kind use?
Unrefined, Grade A shea butter, sourced directly from a women's cooperative in Ibadan, Nigeria.
Sources referenced: peer-reviewed fatty acid and phytochemical analyses of shea butter, and comparative studies of crude vs. refined shea butter, 2026.
