The short answer
Shea trees grow wild across a wide belt of Africa south of the Sahara, and the butter is not all the same. Shea from East Africa, including Uganda, comes from a different subspecies than shea from West Africa. Its butter is commonly described as softer and smoother, with a milder scent.
Why it happens
The shea tree is a wild tree. It is not planted in rows. It grows across a broad band of the continent, from the west toward the east, and people have gathered its nuts for a very long time. Shea nuts are traditionally gathered and processed by women.
Botanists describe two subspecies. West African shea comes from Vitellaria paradoxa subspecies paradoxa. East African shea comes from Vitellaria paradoxa subspecies nilotica. The name nilotica points to the Nile region, where this one grows. They are the same species with different local forms, much as two apple trees can be the same fruit and taste quite different.
What that means in the jar is a matter of feel more than anything. Soft or firm, smooth or a little waxy, mild or earthy are all words people use for shea, and they change with the tree, the soil, the weather and the way the butter was made. It is better to open a jar and judge it on your own skin than to trust a claim on a label.
That difference shows up in the butter. The nilotica butter is commonly described as softer and smoother in the hand, with a milder scent than the West African kind. People who work with shea often say they can tell the two apart by touch. Touch is subjective, and that is a general description, not a measurement, and the butter in any one jar will vary with the harvest and with how it was made.
How the butter is made matters too. Cold pressed means the butter is pressed without added heat. Unrefined means it is not put through the extra steps that remove color and smell. An unrefined butter keeps the look and scent it came with.
What helps
Unrefined shea is ivory to pale gold in color, and the shade can vary a little from batch to batch. The smell is mild and earthy. Some people notice it for a minute and then forget about it. Others like it. If you are particular about scent, remember that unrefined butter will always smell like itself.
The butter is solid in the jar and melts at body warmth. Take a small amount, rub it between your palms until it turns to a soft oil, and press it onto skin. A little goes a long way. If you can see a layer sitting on top, you used more than you needed. It works best on skin that is still slightly damp, because shea holds in the moisture that is already there. It does not add water on its own.
Now the part that surprises people. If a jar sits somewhere warm, such as a hot car or a sunny window, and then cools, the butter may turn grainy, with tiny bumps through it. That is normal. Shea is made of several kinds of fat, and they do not all set at the same speed when the butter melts and cools. The slower ones form small grains. Nothing is wrong, and the butter is fine to use as it is.
To smooth it, warm the jar gently. Hold it in your hands for a few minutes, or set it in a bowl of warm tap water, not hot, until the butter softens. Stir it with a clean spoon or a clean fingertip, then let it cool and set in a spot out of the sun. A second try is often smoother than the first. If it is still a little grainy after that, it works just the same, and it melts the moment it meets your skin. Keep the jar closed, and keep it away from the stove and the dashboard.
People sometimes ask whether a natural ingredient needs a patch test. It does. Plant ingredients are made of many compounds, and skin can react to any of them.
As with anything new, patch test first on the inside of your forearm. A natural ingredient can still bother some skin.
When to ask for help
Shea is a cosmetic ingredient. If your skin is broken, bleeding, hot, swollen or painful, or if a rash is spreading, see your doctor before you reach for any jar. If you notice redness, stinging or bumps after using shea, wash it off and stop, and ask your pharmacist or your doctor. Swelling of the lips, eyes, tongue or face, or trouble breathing, needs a call to 911.
The AHOTO note
Our shea is East African, cold pressed and unrefined, and the jars are made in Uganda. Pure Shea is that butter and nothing else. Golden is built on the same unrefined shea, with oat kernel flour, rice bran extract, hydrolyzed soy protein and a light essential oil blend for scent. Golden contains oats and soy.
Shea nuts are traditionally gathered and processed by women, and that knowledge is far older than our label.
The jar is new. The wisdom is not.