The Many Wonders of Shea Butter

Shea butter has been enjoying a type of beauty renaissance and has lately become a trendy buzzword for the global beauty industry. Although the main product directed towards the consumer is not 100% pure, it is still gaining a lot of visibility in beauty products.
Natural, unredefined Shea butter is generally an off yellow or ivory in colour and is extracted from the seed of the African Shea tree. The fat from the tree - which makes the butter - is crushed and boiled at high temperatures. Shea butter is edible and in Africa it is often used in cooking products, such as cooking oil and it also can be used for making chocolate. It also can be used in candle making.

I grew up and was introduced to the miracle of shea butter at an early age by my mum. I also used copious amounts for my two children whilst they were young babies - it was especially good for nappy rash and the mild childhood eczema that my youngest child faced.
Shea butter has many uses. I use it for a moisturiser for my skin. The best way to apply it is to warm it ever so slightly (about 10 seconds) in a microwave and rub it on damp skin. It's also excellent for a hair butter and really benefits afro hair. I also mix essential oils in some of my shea butter jars - rosemary being the main one for my hair usage.
Also, if you've had a rough workout in the gym or your generally feeling run down and your muscles hurt, or your joints feel stiff, shea butter is an excellent antidote to sooth away the aches and pains.
I always carry one of my homemade shea butter products in my bag, as I never know what and when I may need it for.

Part 1: Revelations and Reverberations of an Abandoned State - 2.8.07

Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, far away from home.
But I have to prefix that and state, a fatherless child as well, and what, is ‘home’? to me, what does it mean to have a constant 'home?' A solid foundation?

The above mantra is constantly entering my current consciousness.
It’s like the refrain of my life - the coda to my life.

I’ve never comprehended the notion of home and family, I guess, that’s why, somewhat unconsciously (subconsciously?) I was always ‘seeking’ for the notion of family; basically, somebody to love me. It was hard to ‘love’ me when, as a young, black skinned female child, I felt that I had been abandoned by the parents who were chosen to give me life.
I was fostered at an extreme early age, to foster parents who I have conveniently repressed. Maybe, cleansed away with my own racial myopia and a lack of loving that I thought was created when my parents procreated me. Certainly, due to the sexual, physical and mental abuse that I had gone through at the time. There was no such thing as Childline back then. I had to ‘suffer’ in silence and graciously smile and flash my dimples, be patted and rubbed on my head as a good luck charm and told to be a ‘good’ girl. I guess, that is why, in reflection, why I found libraries, the golden age of Hollywood and daydreaming of being part of my internalised flight from my surrounding realities.

These white foster parents, who remain anonymous to me this day – this is most probably due to the passing of a mother who remained eternally secretive to me and a father who abandoned me – were the template of my early years and home life. What were these early years and home life to me? Why have I suddenly suffered from historical amnesia? Is it because it’s so convenient to fit into my life at the moment, where I feel that I am suffering from some kind of melt down? Where I feel hopeless, abandoned and lost, floating within self-pity?

At this point, if anybody, who is reading this blog and is further interested on transracial fostering within the West African community in the UK, I came across a succinct article online article in the Guardian, which touched on some salient points : http://society.guardian.co.uk/adoption/story/0,,1219560,00.html


2007 and has not been easy for me. I enter this year of my forty- fourth birthday and I feel that I have achieved nothing.

In January, I got a temporary job, where I was informed to ‘hit the floor and run’ Why, this has been the motto with my life, especially with my constant nomadic roaming around since leaving home at the age of 17, or was it 18? Again, my historical amnesia is serving me very well.
I stayed on this job like a faithful servant. Not letting anybody down, getting no sense of assistance and support from my line manager – she was going through her own personal demons and crisis with senior management – and working with clients, managing staff who had no initial confidence of me due to the constant changeovers. However, I managed to succumb to all of this, even to the detriment of ill health. I was afflicted by a mysterious illness, where my initial doctor couldn’t diagnose anything. I had to take several blood tests. Afterwards, I took time off – approx two weeks, without sick pay – and came back to the organisation in total confusion. I decided, at that point, to hand in my notice. The staff that I was managing pleaded for me to stay on; the clients were sad to see yet another member of staff to disappear in the void due to the overall organisation’s disrespect of their staff. I was asked to apply for the post permanently. However, the pay wasn’t up to my standards. Additionally, it wasn’t where I wanted my career to be headed.
After a while, they (senior management) persuaded me to stay on. I did. Reluctantly. Only to be stabbed in the back whilst I was in Holland with Enson. I found out, through a phone call, that I wasn’t needed back. Just in time for the new tax year. How convenient.

So, I licked my battle wounds and notched it up as experience and subjectivity.

The issue of being fostered by white foster parents is an issue that I am constantly exploring. I only wish that I had a great wealth of knowledge of what had really happened in my early life. I wish that I could ask my parents about this. Because then, I guess, I would then start feeling ‘whole’ within myself. I am constantly in a state of flux. Trying to figure out my identity and trying to understand where I ‘fit’ into this global community.

This, and other issues, I will be addressing on this blog. It’s therapeutic to me. It’s healing to me. It’s time.

In the analogy of show business, I will be breaking my leg to discover the truth about who I be…