The more that any natural product is heated, the more of it's effectiveness it can lose. Melting one of these products can make it much easier to use and store though. It can also sometimes improve the appearance; and give you more convenience to use heat in the packaging process.
So what should you do? This is a decision that you need to make for yourself. There is no answer that is right for everyone. But here's what to consider when you need to figure it out. Lightly heating natural products will take away some of their effectiveness...but not very much. As the temperature is increased though, you lose dramatically more potency from your products. Increasing the temperature by an extra 10 degrees can cause you to loose twice as much potency. Leaving the shea butter or other natural product heated for any longer than necessary also causes it to lose significantly more of it's strength. You do not need to heat your shea butter at all. Africa Imports sells raw shea butter that has never been heated. You can order the unheated shea butter in one lb bags or in 25 lb. or 55 lb. boxes.
Creamy shea butter and whipped shea butter are also produced with no heating and give your shea butter a much more workable texture. For shea butter or other products that have been heated, Africa Imports uses the minimum heat necessary to package them, and no more than this. Shea butter is one of the most powerful skin healers in the world. This very modest heating does not change this at all. It is still amazingly potent. You will almost never notice any significant difference at all in the strength of the raw shea butter from Africa Imports no matter how it is packaged. This article is free. You can publish or circulate this article on other websites as long as you give credit to Africa Imports; and include a link back to africaimports.com at the end of the article.