When you’re cruising the aisles of your favorite drugstore, choosing between one leave-in conditioner or another, it is so easy to feel completely removed from the source of that product, and the process that placed these bright bottles on the shelves in your local Target. We in the curly community are getting better and better at deciphering our ingredient labels, but take it one step further and you have to wonder, where are these ingredients actually coming from? Do you feel comfortable supporting this operation?

Since its origins, producing traditional, handcrafted shea butter while involving the community has always been the main focus of SheaMoisture. Recognizing the challenges Grandma Sofi Tucker might have faced back in 1912 has encouraged SheaMoisture to play an active role in including fair trade and community commerce. Because of their active participation, we are able to enjoy high quality products while the women of Northern Ghana can work under ethical, safer and more sustainable conditions.

Higher Quality, Better Conditions

In an otherwise extremely unregulated industry, SheaMoisture includes 5 cooperatives of approximately 250 women processors and about 1250 collectors. This has given the women of Northern Ghana negotiating power, a chance for a better living for their families, and safer, cleaner, more efficient workspace. This allows them the opportunity to focus on producing a high quality butter without settling for the previously tougher conditions.

The true spirit of giving

Employees also receive proper training and the cooperatives are offered royalty for each product sold, thus allowing them to reinvest in their own businesses and finance and educate their families.

In the evolution of efforts to lift communities out of poverty, SheaMoisture will continue to participate in empowering women through their work while improving living and work conditions. They say the most important product is this: women’s gold. Beautiful women creating a beautiful product in turn, will make the whole world happy.

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This article is sponsored by SheaMoisture.

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