As summer is now here, at The Amazing Blog what we want is for our skin to glow and feel hydrated. so our search to find a new body butter soon became a matter of priority! We looked at the list of award-winners for 2019 The Beauty Shortlist and found the African inspired brand Kora Naturals. What attracted us to this brand is that they only use organic, natural and environmentally friendly ingredients. We tried their award-winning Body Butter as well as their new Organic Papaya Seed Oil. Although these are were originally formulated for women of colour, we found these products perfect for all of our different skin types too.
Kora Naturals was founded in 2010 by Corrine Hayford-Kwatchey who found that there was a lack of premium skincare available for (and made by) women of colour. Corrine has created her brand based on natural, ethically sourced and wildcrafted premium African ingredients. She explained about the brand name: “Kora is taken from the Ghanaian Twi language (pronounced Kraa) for the calabash, a common natural utensil in Africa and the Caribbean. It is widely recognised as a reference to the natural or 'Ital' lifestyle of using organic, unrefined products.” The idea of creating Kora Naturals came to her with the birth of her first daughter, when she was addressing post-pregnancy skin issues. It has since developed from being an artisan business into the luxury skincare brand that it is today. We think that so many unique African ingredients are very underused here in Europe (see where we recently wrote about the special African Baobab here). Kora Naturals utilises African native raw ingredients and oils, where they are all ethically produced using traditional methods, which is so refreshing.
We were excited to try the African Pearl Luxury Body Butter which is very rich and smooth. You can almost feel the vitamins, antioxidants and omegas 3 and 6 working into your skin. The ingredients include cocoa butter, organic shea butter, coconut oil, wildcrafted baobab and marula seed oil. All of these make the Body Butter effective at holding in the moisture and giving the skin a silky finish. This Body Butter certainly lives up to its reputation and is our number one choice to get our skin summer-ready. You can buy a 200ml pot here for £25.00.
Next we tried the Organic Papaya Seed Oil which is for the face, we found that it helped control sebum and remove impurities by unblocking pores. This is also another product rich in omegas 6 and 9 and vitamins A, C and E; all of which help to reduce the appears of brown spots and scars. Some studies have indicated that the enzymes of papain in papaya can decrease acne inflammation. It’s effective in removing the dead skin cells which clog the pores, and our skin did appear to benefit from using the oil - so another thumbs up to Kora. This is a reasonably priced product at £7.00 for 50ml here, we found that a little goes a long way. Both of these products can be bought directly from Kora Naturals.