The brand's mission to offer the healing properties of the plant to as many people as possible and - above all - to promote the work of the women who produce it in Africa. Carole Tawema looks back at the history of what was originally an association project, as well as its many commitments in terms of quality, social justice and fair trade. How was the Karethic brand born? Carole Tawema - Karethic was born in 2005 as part of my thesis on strategies for developing the international shea trade in Africa. I had identified the fact that shea butter was similar to olive oil but that it had not been valued in the same way. At the time, shea butter was only talked about as an effective hair fat. No one was really interested in the origins of this ingredient, in the fact that it came from a sacred tree, a carbon sink, a source of food for newborns during rainy periods, precious for women in rural areas of seventeen African countries, as well as for biodiversity and the fight against the effects of climate change. It was by approaching shea from the perspective of its positive ecological and social impact that my sister and I realised that everything had to be done. And the priority action was to make the general public aware of the real African shea butter: the raw shea, which we called Karité Grand Cru. It is the richest vegetable oil in terms of active repairing principles when it is not industrially refined. What Makes the Brand Different Karethic is a pioneering brand in terms of offering beauty products based on raw shea butter. What was originally an association project became a brand because, in 2005, no beauty brand in France wanted to offer cosmetics with this raw shea butter. The laboratories explained to the beauty brands that the shea produced by African women was of poor quality and had to be refined. The precious vitamins in the shea butter that the brands were promoting to the consumer were in fact destroyed by the refining process. It was therefore necessary to prove that shea butter produced by African women could be of superior quality, provided that the women's income was higher and that they worked under dignified and healthy conditions. This quality, which avoids the polluting refining stage, makes it possible to formulate highly effective cosmetics with few additional ingredients and often no preservatives, since most of the repairing and preserving agents are in the raw shea. Our goal is to get all beauty brands to do exactly as we do by consistently guaranteeing a fair and premium price for shea producers, not just selling raw shea. Shea is one of the most popular products among cosmetic consumers. Given the diversity of the offer, how can we know if it is a qualitative, responsible and ethical product? The signs of quality and guarantee are the organic and fair trade labels. Some brands explain that they don't have them because they cost money, but that's not true, they prefer to put their own interests before those of the shea producers. In 2022, ensuring the intrinsic ecological and social quality of a product should no longer be a choice based on private interest. Guaranteeing quality is mandatory from a regulatory point of view, so is providing proof of one's claims if one is truly a responsible brand. Passing off refined shea butter as genuine African shea butter is purely and simply a deception of the consumer. The color of the shea is also a clue. A natural, raw, good-quality shea is never white. It has a cream to straw yellow color and an aroma of cocoa, vanilla, caramel or aniseed depending on the country of origin, the rainfall, and the nature of the soil.
The Brand's Commitments We are pioneers in this field of organic and fair trade raw shea butter, and we have been providing the consumer with the most guarantees with labels and certification by an independent body for over 10 years. But it is quite logical and coherent because we started with the shea production stage in the north of Benin with 700 women in an area recognized as a 'Biosphere Reserve' by UNESCO. Karethic was created to improve the living and working conditions of women. If we just wanted to create a cosmetics brand, we would have been content to buy and sell shea butter, marketing it as a natural ingredient sold at twice the price, without any guarantee that the women would be paid, or that the shea butter did not come from areas contaminated by pesticides. Karethic is often perceived as an 'overly committed' brand by other beauty brands. I think you can never be too committed when the climate is being disrupted by over-exploitation, over-production, and over-consumption and this impacts the poorest people on the planet first and foremost. We are doing our part, and if we have been able to do so for more than 10 years, there is no excuse for brands that make ten times our turnover. There's no mystery about it, we have to make the problem known and talk about it as much as possible to the general public. Everyone can understand that 62 euros a year is not enough to live in dignity, even in Africa where life is much cheaper! Yet this is the average annual salary of a woman who lives from shea. As a consumer, we can change things. Whenever possible, let's give preference to fair trade and organic certified products. Not only to pay the producers better, but also to choose better quality products. This is true for any ingredient, and even more so for shea butter. While waiting for the media to talk about it, we launched a new product around the shea tree in 2018, the shea flower honey. The aim of this honey is to provide an additional income for women producers while motivating people to preserve the shea trees whose flowers are harvested by bees, and to renounce the use of synthetic pesticides. What Types of Products Can Be Found at Karethic? Carole Tawema - We started with dermo-cosmetics with formulas rich in raw shea butter, to save affected skin that could not tolerate the creams available in pharmacies, and textures ranging from ointment containing 70% raw shea butter to serum with shea flower honey, whose properties have been objectively assessed by the Centre d'Etude des Substances Naturelles du Grand Lyon (Centre for the Study of Natural Substances in Greater Lyon), as well as shea butter cream or silky oil enriched with raw shea butter. We use raw shea in all our products because we produce it and our aim is to work with more and more women producers to improve their income. There are 700 women who can now send their daughters to school and feed their families during the rainy season thanks to the price we guarantee them, but in Benin there are 39,000 women waiting to live better thanks to shea. At the end of 2021, we launched the responsible dermo-capillary offer with the first care shampoos and leave-in conditioners with raw organic and fair trade shea butter, always with a zero waste, zero plastic approach. If we want to have a large impact, we must urgently limit the amount of plastic packaging but also petrochemical ingredients that irritate the scalp, pollute the air and are discharged into the water.
What Are the Main Benefits of Shea? As long as it is raw and therefore unrefined, shea is the richest vegetable oil in active repairing principles. It is of interest to all industries, cosmetics and food, for its vitamins but also because it resists heat well and has a balanced fatty acid profile. We have started to study the aromas of raw shea for cosmetics and fine gastronomy with the help of an expert in sensory analysis and master sommelier. This is a long-term project that will only bear fruit if the quality standards linked to a geographical indication for shea butter are established and recognized by the European Union. For the skin, it is important to know that shea has the same molecular structure as sebum in the same way as macadamia or jojoba oil. It is of course nourishing, but also healing, disinfectant, anti-inflammatory. It is necessary to melt it in the hands before applying it by massaging; which makes it possible to activate the micro blood circulation. It is not comedogenic in its raw state, but leaves a light film on the skin that prevents the evaporation of water and therefore maintains hydration. Social and Climate Justice for Shea Women This petition aims to inform and mobilize the general public and the media on a subject of social and climate justice for women who have contributed to the success of many French beauty brands. It was launched following a study by the FAO which showed that the shea tree had a negative carbon footprint, i.e. that it captures more CO2 than it releases despite the fact that it comes from the African continent. The study also specified the average annual income of a shea producer: 62 euros per year. This should not leave anyone indifferent because shea is present in many cosmetic products and is rarely guaranteed fair trade. It is as if this poverty is acceptable, whereas adjusting the income of these women so that they can live with dignity would have very little impact on the final selling price of the products, would enhance the value of the shea tree and would prevent them from being cut down. Karethic remains a grain of sand in the beauty industry. Time is running out. It is necessary that a maximum of people become aware quickly that it is high time to change our way of life and to choose fairness, social and environmental justice whenever it is possible. Source