For years, Marketa ignored Shea butter despite knowing it was a skin superfood for one simple reason… its application was a pain. But a little over two years ago, when all other natural remedies failed to cure her unbearable after-swim rash, Marketa finally gave Shea butter another try. And to her surprise, her skin healed within a couple of days. That led to Marketa’s very first blend of Shea body butter. She blended 90 per cent Shea butter with coconut oil just so she did not have to waste “a half-hour rubbing in chunks the raw Shea butter leaves on the skin.” She then decided to add in Vanilla to her next blend to mask the strong nutty smell that she wasn’t particularly fond of. Once she had the blend to her liking and started using it daily, she noticed that the Shea butter lived up to all the hype leaving her with a hydrated, healthy and noticeably radiant skin. In her words, “knowledge does no good until it’s translated to experience.”
Now an ardent advocate of Shea butter, Marketa recommended it to her friends and family only to realise that Shea butter wasn’t a popular choice even with people who knew about its healing effects. She established four reasons for this- 1) It was difficult to apply, 2) The products sold as Shea butter in the market were highly diluted, mostly with cheap oils, 3) There was an absolute dearth of choice in terms of blends and 4) Regular users aside, many like Marketa did not appreciate the nutty smell.
Now on a mission to share her knowledge with everyone, Marketa took it upon herself to bridge this gap between what’s available in the market and what people really want.
She then submerged herself in research for the next two years on ways to formulate a blend with the highest possible Shea butter concentration. Her extensive knowledge of essential oils that she had gained under the guidance of holistic medicine expert, Late Prof. Paul Henderson, largely aided her research. She noticed that many homemade blends that were infused with essential oils were using them without appropriate warning or using in dangerous quantities. For instance, she came across one Shea butter blend infused with essential oils that came with no warning whatsoever about one of the oils being harmful during pregnancy or another blend with tea-tree oil that contained a lot more than recommended portions.
Cut to present day: after countless experiments and constant feedback, Marketa finally has the blends perfected in terms of their ingredient ratios, their healing capabilities and their texture.
Now that she had the blends to everyone’s liking, herself included, another realisation hit Marketa… a blend is only perfect if it takes care of your specific skincare needs and is to your liking. Since everybody has different preferences and different needs, people should have the choice to build their own body butter. While one could have a preference for a certain fragrance, another could have an aversion to a particular ingredient and yet another person could need an additional ingredient for a specific skin condition. It was for this reason that she decided to not just provide people with pre-made Shea body butter blends but also give them the option to customise their blend as per their liking or one that would best suffice their skin needs.
