Refined, Deodorized, and Bleached: Important Concepts to Understand About Butters
When purchasing raw butters to use as ingredients in your botanical beauty products, you may run across specific terminology used to describe how they are extracted and processed, along with other details that point to their purity and quality. This information is usually found in the product description, shared by the supplier, or provided in the butter’s data profile, as well as on the label.
The most common terminology you will find to describe the purity and quality of a butter is whether it is “unrefined” (or “raw”) or, on the other hand, “RBD” (which stands for refined, bleached, and deodorized). RBD means that after the butter has been extracted, it has been put through additional processes to remove (1) particulate matter and impurities, (2) any residual plant odors, (3) any residual color pigments, and (4) certain chemical constituents that consumers may find undesirable, like the heavy fatty molecules in coconut oil.1
For those of us using butters and vegetable oils for botanical beauty recipes, it’s good practice to understand how these different methods of processing affect the ingredient’s quality:
— Refined: A citric acid solution is used to draw out chemical components of the butter that may cause the butter to spoil quickly; this type of refining may in some instances help stabilize the butter for a longer shelf life.2
Another kind of refining process involves pouring the melted butter (or oil) through a sieve to separate out any minute particulates.3
— Deodorized: The volatile aromatic components of the butter are removed through a steam distillation process.4
— Bleached: The color pigments are removed using clays to draw out and absorb pigments and waxes.5
The best practice, however, is to look for minimally processed butters and oils that still have their genuine colors and odors intact, which means many of their health-benefiting properties are still present.
