Does Shea Butter go Bad or Expire? If you are the person who loves to keep shea butter at home then you might have wondered if this product can expire or not. Well the answer is yes, it can go bad after 1 or 2 years of manufacturing. After this time period shea butter can get staled.
How Can You Tell If Shea Butter Has Gone Bad?
If the shea butter has gone bad, it can harm your skin. It doesn’t have any moisturizing properties or nutrients after getting rancid. There are no vitamins in expired shea butter. Also you can always tell by smell if the product is rotten or not.
What’s the shelf life of shea butter?
If you are using raw shea butter then you can expect it’s shelf life upto 12 months to 24 months. It varies from brand to brand so it’s better to check the label. If on the other hand you are using refined shea butter then it can expire in 3 years or more.
Smell of shea butter
If your shea butter has gone rancid, you can get an idea about this by it’s foul smell. You will feel like something is rotten in your home or you can get a smell of bad olive oil. You will feel a drastic change in the smell of shea butter than how it used to smell before.
What does rancid shea butter smell like? How can you tell if it is rancid?
A rancid shea butter will smell like tainted food. The smell is pretty much similar to vinegar. You can clearly tell whether this butter has expired or not by just smelling a little bit. You used it before too, so if the smell now has changed, it means it has gone rancid now.
How to Store Shea Butter?
You should always follow the instructions mentioned on the pack of shea butter. You should never put shea butter at a place where it can get exposed to sunlight or high temperature. Rather you should keep it in a very cool and dark place.
Avoid touching it with wet hand, make sure your hand is dry when you touch it,
Use glass containers to store it, avoid plastic because if the quality of plastic container that you use is low, there is a chance of plastic leach into the product inside it and may become toxic, although it is a rare case, it is better to avoid.
Does it need to be Refrigerated?
You have to keep shea butter away from sunlight. If you are putting it in a normal temperature or in a dark place this will be enough to save it from getting damaged. If you want to keep it in the refrigerator then it’s up to you. This will also help shea butter not to get stale before expiry date.
Is it OK to use Expired shea butter?
You shouldn’t use anything after expiry and shea butter is no exception. After expiry it doesn’t have any moisturizing properties, vitamins or nutrients left in it so it is of no use to your skin. Also it can harm your skin and can cause rashes etc after expiry. So You should not try to use shea butter after the expiry date.
Is Shea Butter Supposed To Be Yellow Or White?
Shea butter comes in two types – white and yellow. The difference between these two are white shea butter is refined whereas yellow shea butter is natural and unrefined. If you want to use something more healthy, you can go for yellow shea butter. Although you may not tolerate the earthy smell of this one. On the contrary the other type comes with no smell.
Is Shea Butter Good If It Turns White?
What does it mean if the shea butter is getting white? Well, it means that shea butter is getting oxidized or exposed to high heat. In this process shea butter can lose some of it’s moisturizing properties. Hence it is not good if shea butter is turning white.
Does Shea Butter Mold?
If you are using yellow shea butter or unrefined shea butter then it can mold. In order to prevent it from mold you have to keep it away from external factors like moisture.
What happens when Shea Butter is Heated? Can You Melt It?
If you heat shea butter it can become grainy. It is flammable so it can easily catch fire, be super careful if you are attempting to heat it. It will lose some of it’s healing properties while getting heated. And yes it will melt very quickly.
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