Shea butter is one of those beauty ingredients that has mass appeal, no matter where you fall on the consumer spectrum. Folks who prefer a bare-bones beauty routine love it in its raw form. Browse through the shelves of a hair product fiend on Instagram, and I'd be willing to bet at least two-thirds of their stash hasbutyrospermum parkii(这是科学措辞谢伊butter) on its ingredient lists. The stuff is everywhere, and for some women with natural,kinky-curly-textured hairin particular, it's a staple.
But if you ask the women who actuallymakethe shea butter we use in our beauty products, shea is way better in their food. For a westerner like me, that was a surprise, but for women like Fati Adam, it's just another ingredient for the stews she makes for her family. Adam works at the Kukuo Tiyumtaba collective, one of 15 which supply shea butter toSundial Brands, the parent company forSheaMoisture,Nubian Heritage,Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Culture, andNyakio. So yes, many of those leave-ins, deep conditioners, and face scrubs you're used to seeing on your store shelves contain shea butter made by the women on these collectives in places in northern Ghana like Wa and Tamale.
The women work with Sundial's Community Commerce program, which aims to empower them through their trade. The program began in its supply chain form in 2014. "It isn’t charity or philanthropy," says Emmet Dennis, chief community officer for Sundial Brands. "Since the start of our company, we have formed our business around a community reinvestment model rooted in commerce, meaning we use our business to help elevate other entrepreneurs and businesses by providing access to resources and opportunities, and by doing business with them." In essence, Community Commerce takes what these women know best — making shea butter — and allows them to do it on a larger scale. The goal is to fight generational poverty in those areas of the world that are often overlooked, make them see more profits in their labor, and improve the quality of life in these communities. Over 10,000 women in all work at their collectives in Ghana.
Visiting the collectives
这样一个崇高的使命,我必须去看看Community Commerce in action for myself. So I traveled all the way from my home in Harlem to Ghana to get the full experience. As a consumer in the West, I definitely have quite a few Sundial-branded items in my stash. Even before I started seriously writing about beauty, you could find several SheaMoisture products in my beauty cabinet. The brand'sMongongo & Hemp Seed Oils Co-Washis a midweek favorite for gently cleansing my hair, and it makes my curls ridiculously soft when I wash it out. TheJamaican Black Castor Oil Strengthen & Restore Leave-In Conditioner让我的头发融化在应用。我的意思是,如果哟u think you're going to find any dry strands or a single snarl in my crown after I slather this on, you're dead wrong. Theshea oilis a staple in my wash day L.O.C. (that's liquid, oil, cream) method and theCoconut & Hibsicus Curl Enhancing Smoothieis something I've seen in the homes of anyone with curls — regardless of gender identity or curl texture. Oh, and theNubian Heritage African Black Soap Body Lotionis absolutely saving my skin from this super dry NYC winter air.
Courtesy Jihan Forbes
Seeing how the products work on my hair and body, It's obvious why they're in such demand, but it also speaks to just how far-reaching the work of the women in these collectives truly is. As I sat in an SUV, barreling down a country road on the way to the Kukuo Tiyumtaba collective, the red dust of the earth billowing behind us, I realized the moment I was going to experience: I was about to meet the very women who I can credit for making my hair look so good in the above photo.
Once I got to Kukuo Tiyumtaba, it was truly something to take in. All around me were women working on shea butter in its various stages, but I was most fascinated by watching them knead the thick, brown goop that was a couple of boiling sessions away from turning into the ivory or yellow-hued confection we know and love.
Yes, folks, in some cases, that shea butter is churned by hand — by women in colorful wax-printed headscarves, wearing coordinating swaths of cloth tied around their waists, maybe even with a fully passed-out baby tied to their backs. (Low-key, I was taking some style notes.) It is a scene that has been playing out for ages. For many of the women at the collectives, they're in the family business. They learned the art of making shea butter from their mothers, who learned from their mothers. They are village women not so unlike Sofi Tucker, grandmother to Sundial Brands CEO Richelieu Dennis, who sold handmade shea butter soaps, salves, and other products herself.
Tradition across generations
"They grew up seeing their grandparents and their mothers doing this, but at the time, there weren't big markets [like Sundial]," says Fahad Mohammed, junior advisor for agriculture at SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, which works with Sundial overseeing the collectives on the ground. Sundial's products can be found in 10 countries, including the U.S., Mexico, Kenya, Australia, South Africa, Trinidad, Canada, Nigeria, Columbia the and U.K. Sundial's demand for shea butter has given the women more opportunities to sell, making them less susceptible to a wishy-washy market. According to the brand, the women on average have seen their income quadruple, up over 700 percent between 2014 and 2016. Between 2014 and 2017, production with the collectives has increased tenfold — from 21 metric tons of shea butter per year to 206 metric tons in 2017. The women get a larger market and a semblance of consistency. In return, the rest of us get moisturized skin and equally as radiant hair.
But buying up the shea butter alone isn't what it's all about. One important aim of Community Commerce, as mentioned before, is to help develop the women's businesses. "One of the most prominent examples of this piece of Community Commerce is our shea butter supply chain," says Dennis. "It is more than just buying ingredients or supplying a steady market. We partner with the women, we work with them to ensure they have the infrastructure necessary to do business with us in a consistent and quality way, and as a result, with the premium wages they earn, they are able to uplift their families and communities via education, healthcare, micro-lending, and other support systems."
That means in addition to fair wages, there is an investment in infrastructure at the collectives, like purchasing machines to aid in the shea butter processing, bringing electricity to some of the locations, or even building warehouses for the women to store their shea nuts through the season. According to Sundial, the Community Commerce program ultimately affects over 30,000 people, including the workers, their families, and their communities at large.
Paying it Forward
Of course, with greater financial independence comes greater responsibility, and many of these women are the breadwinners in their homes, which they mentioned their husbands don't mind. Salaama, who works at the Kukuo Tiyumtaba collective tellsAllurethrough an interpreter that many husbands are happy for the extra money. However, they don't want it to seem as if their husbands are helpless. Sometimes the women give their partners the money in secret, so as to keep up appearances.
As I went from one collective to another speaking to the women, I heard story after story about how much the extra money has changed their lives. Many women said they were able to pay their children's school fees and send them off to university. A woman at the collective in Naro told me that her marriage was previously in turmoil due to finances, but the extra flow of income they've been getting from Sundial has brought relative peace to their household. The Sungbawere women's collective in Kperisi was able to build a waiting area for their town's local medical facilities. A nearby school block also bears the name of the Kperisi women who donated it. The outside is decorated with paintings of a goat, a chicken, a rabbit, a rooster, and the Ghanaian flag.
Courtesy Jihan Forbes
As an American, particularly under the Trump administration, the attitude of "I've got mine, so forget you," can seem pervasive. While not all Americans subscribe to such dubious thinking, too often once someone gains wealth or is able to ease some of their financial difficulties, it ends there. But for these women, investing in their communities is just as important as putting money into themselves and their own families. At the Sagnarigu collective, the women created a whole lending system for their community.
Madame Safia, who oversees the Sagnarigu collective, tellsAllurethat Sundial's Community Commerce program is creating quite a buzz in the streets for those who aren't part of it. "Other women processors hear about Sundial and they see how we are benefitting from [the partnership]. They admire it." But just because they're not officially working with Sundial doesn't mean that they aren't being touched by what they're doing. In fact, though they could be seen as competition, the Sundial women still reach out to those unaffiliated processors.
"We support the women shea processors who don't have equipment. We have equipment from mills to tools and protective wear. At [our facility], there's a workshop for women processing groups," Safia says. "Other women groups who don't have these facilities, we help them through what Sundial is doing for us. We're extending our hand in a small way." Among the upgrades she's mentioned they made are more roasters for the shea nuts, work clothing, as well as basins and pans which they use to make the butter.
Beyond that, the women on Mme. Safia's collective started a micro-lending fund called the Village Savings and Loan Association — VSLA for short. "What we do is train our fellow women to come together, form a group, and select a six-member committee to manage the fund," Safia says. "Then we train them to buy shares every week. They meet on a weekly basis. After they have gotten some money, they buy shares and also do some savings. The shares they buy is a savings in a way. The money is theirs, but there's also a social fund established. This social fund is what we use to run the support activities for the communities."
But even though it was clear to me, through the enthusiastic testimonies of the women, that their lives (and businesses) have significantly improved since working with Sundial, there are still some major challenges to overcome. The women overwhelmingly (naturally) wish for more orders from Sundial, but of course, the number of orders they get are contingent upon several factors, including demand for certain products, organic certification, and in some cases, getting the processing facilities up to snuff so that the women are able to produce quicker. Sundial appears dedicated to taking on these challenges and finding solutions for them, because, again, their involvement is more than just about a transaction — it's about building something better for the women who supply them with the ingredients for the products we love.
Right now, we're living in a time where women's empowerment is a topic that's being discussed more than ever. And while I do consider myself a strong and independent woman, the drive, perseverance, selflessness, and concern for the community the women at the shea collectives have is truly remarkable. And it put things into perspective for me. Being strong and independent is more than just collecting a paycheck and providing for your family (though that's also super important). It's also about extending that concern for your community. It's being a leader but also knowing when and how to collaborate with others. And it's recognizing that when you share your wealth, you're gaining far more than you might lose.
