Probably among the lesser-known plant-based butter, kokum butter earns its reputation thanks to its many purposes and benefits.
Found in western India, kokum seeds are generally used like spices to cook typical dishes and add a sweet-and-sour taste. Kokum can also be found in sweets, medicine, and cosmetics.
We are going to focus on the cosmetic aspect today as we want to explain why we chose this ingredient for our jojoba oil solid makeup remover.
First of all, where does kokum butter come from?
Kokum comes from Garcinia indica, a tree only found in western India's rainforests. Once spring has sprung, these trees produce red round fruits that contain dark purple pulp when ripe.
After picking the fruits, they are traditionally left to dry out in the sun. The pulp gives 5 to 8 seeds per fruit, this is where the secret of kokum is held. These very rich seeds (23-26% of oil) are extracted and pressed to obtain what is called kokum butter.
What benefits does kokum butter have?
In cosmetics, kokum butter is a very exciting raw material as it can easily be combined with other ingredients. Its composition is very balanced thanks to its stearic, palmitic, and oleic acids.
Its texture is naturally white and smooth, which allows products to have a creamy, smooth, and uniform texture without leaving your skin greasy. This butter has many moisturising and non-comedogenic actives.
Kokum butter also has numerous nourishing and protectives properties for the skin. Rich in vitamin E (which helps to deeply moisturise), this butter allows tired and dry skin to regenerate. It is also an antioxidant, helping to slow down skin ageing.
Why use kokum butter in our solid makeup remover?
As you probably know, we offer products with short compositions, with a maximum of four ingredients. The choice of ingredients is therefore crucial and requires thinking it through properly. For all the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph, we decided to opt for this butter in our makeup remover.
Each day, our skin, and more precisely our face, confront many aggressions (pollution, makeup, etc.). It is therefore important to take care of our skin and remove all these impurities. That's where our makeup remover comes in handy: not only does it remove makeup, it also cleans your skin.
Kokum butter is a universal and non-comedogenic ingredient, meaning it doesn't block the pores of your skin. It helps to obtain a creamy and soft texture, making our makeup remover ideal for all types of skin: normal, dry, oily, sensitive, mature, wrinkly, damaged, atopic, and sensitive.
Also, this raw material can be kept very easily. We decided not to add any preservatives to our makeup remover, just like all our other products. It is therefore important to choose ingredients capable of being kept for a long time without any added preservatives.
Does kokum butter have an impact on the environment?
Today, kokum is only cultivated in India and is planted just before the monsoon season. This tree lives several years (around 5 to 7) and a well-kept tree can give 300 to 400 kg of fresh fruit throughout its life.
This yield being important, producers don't need any GMOs or pesticides.
To harvest kokum, the tree doesn't need to be cut down as only the seeds are used. Kokum culture therefore doesn't have a heavy environmental impact. Resistant, it doesn't need any particular care.
In a nutshell, as its culture doesn't need intensive farming, kokum butter is a sustainable resource. This noble material gathers many beneficial properties for our skin, particularly its nourishing and protective virtues which is what convinced us to use kokum butter in our solid makeup remover. 🙃