Murumuru butter offers numerous benefits for skin and hair care. Applying it to your skin can condition, tone, and soothe, while using it on your hair helps protect against damage. As a great moisturizer, its high fat content gives it emollient and humectant properties.
Murumuru butter is sourced from the Murumuru palm tree in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest. It’s been a popular cosmetic ingredient for centuries, historically used to soften and protect hair. Its richness in vitamins and fatty acids, along with its easy-to-spread nature, makes it ideal for smoothing and conditioning. The butter is odorless and ranges in color from white to yellowish.
Its healing properties are known for addressing issues like skin rashes, sunburns, scars, stretch marks, frostbite, burns, athlete’s foot, insect bites, and acne. These benefits stem from plant sterols such as oleic, palmitic, stearic, and linolenic acids present in the butter. Murumuru butter shares similarities with coconut oil due to its composition, consisting of 85% saturated fats, 12% monounsaturated fats, and 3% polyunsaturated fats. These characteristics enable it to penetrate hair cuticles, lock in moisture, and nurture both skin and hair.
In hair care, murumuru butter helps minimize protein loss across all hair types. Its rich lauric acid content allows it to penetrate the hair shaft effectively, making it an excellent moisturizer. Moreover, it offers anti-inflammatory properties that can reduce redness and swelling on the face.
With its lauric acid content, murumuru butter can kill odor-causing bacteria. Applying a bit under your arms, for instance, can help you stay fresh all day. Similar to cupuaçu butter, it also contains vitamins A and E, enhancing its antioxidant activity. These antioxidants are crucial for combating aging by protecting skin cells from free radicals and promoting collagen production, leading to a youthful appearance.
Murumuru butter can deeply moisturize your skin, leaving a soft barrier that retains moisture for hours. It absorbs better than many lotions and can be used alone or mixed with natural ingredients like ungurahua oil to create homemade lotions. Its blend of moisturizing and healing properties is due to various phytonutrients, which aid in the quick healing of wounds, cuts, and abrasions.
Our skin constantly sheds dead cells, about 30,000 to 40,000 daily. Murumuru’s moisturizing capabilities help generate healthy new cells, improving overall skin appearance.
Chemical treatments like perms and relaxers can strip hair of moisture, but murumuru butter can restore lost hydration and protect against harsh weather and free radicals. Its anti-inflammatory compound, lupeol cinnamate, reduces skin inflammation and may prevent skin mutations, benefiting acne-prone individuals.
The butter’s antibacterial, antiviral, and antiseptic qualities make it an excellent treatment for skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis, while nourishing and healing cracked skin and minor injuries. It also softens hair, maintaining elasticity, boosting color, and fostering a healthy appearance. Additionally, murumuru butter strengthens hair follicles, reducing hair loss and improving scalp health.
Applying murumuru butter can help prevent and lessen stretch marks—common during pregnancy or weight changes—by restoring skin elasticity and enhancing collagen production. For best results, use on slightly damp skin after showering, focusing on dry areas like elbows and heels.
Overall, murumuru butter is celebrated for its multitude of benefits, from softening hair to shielding skin from dryness. Its hard, waxy form possesses notable antibacterial and antioxidant properties. If you’re curious to try it, murumuru butter is readily available online, such as on Amazon.
