Home made body butter!

Finding a moisturiser that is both free from nut/soy/sesame oils etc and free of petroleum and parabens aaand which is relatively unscented is a bit of an ask too far.  So I set out to finally try and make my own body butters and lotions, something I’ve dreamed of doing ever since I was a little girl and my mum was gifted a beautiful book on herbs.  In the book there were the most wonderful concoctions made with natural stuff, much of which you could grow in your own garden!  Unfortunately our herb plot doesn’t contain the plants that we need to be using for very dry, eczematic skin (especially calendula and chamomile) so I have bought the ingredients we needed.

(all the little finger marks in this photo are from my little boy enjoying touching the cream. He loves smearing body lotions and creams all over the place ;-))

I was incredibly excited about the first batch of salve I made until I got tired of having to melt it in front of the heater every time I wanted to use it as it was so hard. I then tried to add more oil to it to make it softer but just ended up with something horribly lumpy which my son wasn’t too impressed with. Nevertheless, I was quite convinced that even this lumpy salve was helping soothe his itching and calm down his flared up eczema. I used it in place of steroids even when his eczema was pretty fiery.

Then when I was in Neals Yard talking about making my own stuff, the lady showed me a really simple body butter recipe.  Last night I couldn’t remember the recipe and couldn’t find anything online that matched my ingredients, so I made it up!  The beauty of it is that you can add whatever essential oils you like that match whatever you’re trying to treat e.g. eczema.

Using a standing mixer to whisk your own body butter certainly seems a bit funny at first but the consistency of the end product is just amazing.  Wonderfully enough, my mother in law absolutely loved it and asked for a tub for herself!  Its incredible how easy the body butter is to make and how shop-like the end result is.  I’ve tried countless body lotions, creams and butters on myself over the last couple decades as I’ve also got really dry skin. And this easily is the nicest, most effective, most natural one I’ve ever used.

So, to the ‘how to’!

(all the ingredients can be bought at Neals Yard and almost all are organic)

Ingredients: 

30g beeswax

20g cocoa butter

1/2 cup of olive oil (I should think you could substitute in any oil here (jojoba/vegetable/grapeseed etc) apart from hemp which I think gets damaged at high temperatures)

3tbsp coconut oil

2tbsp macerated St John’s Wort

3tbsp macerated calendula

5 drops of lavender essential oil (I hope to also add Roman Chamomile next time. I didn’t buy it first time round as Neals Yard say that you need the much more expensive Blue Chamomile for dry skin. Reading around online tho it seems that the two Chamomile essential oils are quite interchangeable so using the cheaper one will do!)

5 drops of tea tree essential oil

How to:

Melt the beeswax and cocoa butter in a bain-marie (a saucepan with a bowl/measuring jug over it or sitting in a steamer so that the bottom of the bowl/jug is submerged and not touching the bottom of the saucepan where you have simmering water).  Once it’s completely melted, pour it quickly into your standing mixer bowl with a whisk attachment (or use a hand-held whisk) . Whilst whisking slowly, add the coconut oil and then the rest of the macerated and essential oils.  Turn the whisk to a high speed and leave it for about 5 minutes.  You’ll see your concoction transform into a smooth, creamy substance, just like butter/dairy-free spread is transformed by being whisked for a few minutes into being soft, and fluffy and much lighter in colour than it originally was.

I poured the butter into an old (clean) tub I’d had a body butter in before straight away.  Initially it will seem too runny, but don’t worry, as it cools it will take on its perfect consistency!

Hope you enjoy making this one! I hope to make it this week for my mother in law and her sisters but am yet to figure out how to decorate the jars I’m buying to make the gift look pretty as well as smell yummy.  Any ideas?