Contribution to the constitution of shea butter sensorial standard based on Ivoirian consumers criteria

Abstract

Shea butter is becoming one of the most natural ingredients in beauty and personal formulation because it brings functional benefits to users. Despite its wide sensorial variability on Ivoirian markets, consumers always complain on its sensorial quality. Hence, sensorial preferential criteria were determined in order to constitute an Ivoirian exploitable data basis about shea butter. A survey was carried out in order to collect consumers’ criteria; markets shea butter distribution was also evaluated. The chi2 test performed on collected data revealed that white colored (51.90%), odorless (58.40%) and fondant (35.70%) shea butter were mostly preferred by Ivoirian consumers while on markets, yellow colored, rancid and compact (hard) were predominant on markets. Shea butter texture, the first criteria (85.30%) of choice, was significantly affected by consumers’ genre (1-p=99.02%), profession (1-p=99.07%) and utilization (1-p=99.93%), when the genre (1-p=99.99%) and the age (1-p=99.99%) influenced its utilization. Above all, aches treatment (83.80%) represented the main purpose, when beauty care and feeding occurred respectively for 68.20% and 20.80%.