I know, you’ve all been waiting on pins and needles for this one!
To my surprise, my homemade lotion was a big hit this year as Christmas gifts and a few people have asked for the recipe. So here it is.
If you have never used homemade – chemical free lotions before you might be a little thrown off by the texture of it. It’s kind of like getting rid of high fructose corn syrup in a doughnut. You have to get used to it, but once you do, you’ll never go back.
Homemade lotion is extremely moisturizing, I think I have mentioned before that we live at high altitude. I have extremely dry skin in the winter living at sea level. Since we moved here it’s worse, that’s just the nature of living at high altitude. In the past the only way I could keep up with the dryness was to moisturize about 3-4 times a day and not take hot showers. But then I find myself doing dishes 50 million times a day with scalding hot water and then my hands start to crack and it can get pretty bad.
Then my sister, Rachel, and I decided it would be fun for everyone to make homemade gifts to exchange at Christmas. You have to remember I have 5 siblings, 4 of us married, 1 engaged and 1 at home still and then there’s 8 grandkids (and 2 on the way this year! Thankfully not from me though). So that is a lot of people to have to buy Christmas presents for and it gets expensive. So I decided to do lotion as part of my gift. In the process of figuring out how to make the stuff I think I made about 8 different recipes and this is my favorite. There are two very good variations, one with only olive oil and one with olive oil and cocoa butter. I think they are both amazing. The cocoa butter does smell a little chocolate-y and olive oil one smells like olive oil, I don’t add any scent to them.
But since I started making and using all these recipes I have noticed only needing to moisturize once every other day. AMAZING!
At first I wasn’t totally convinced it was a great idea because the lotion is, well, it’s weird. But hey, it works.
So give it a try and see what you think.
Ingredients
200 grams cocoa butter
160 grams olive oil
OR use 360 grams of olive oil
4000 IU’s vitamin E oil
60 grams beeswax, grated
620 grams distilled water
40 grams liquid glycerin
Preparation Instructions
Get the jars you want to fill ready, make sure they are clean and remove the lids.
Have 2 separate mixing containers (we recommend using the 87 ounce buckets these are microwave safe and easy to use.
In container #1 weigh your cocoa butter, olive oil, and beeswax and melt these down using one minute increments in your microwave.
In container #2 weigh out your water and liquid glycerin and warm these for approximately one to two minutes in the microwave.
Begin stirring the melted mixture in container #1 with your stick blender (if you have one that would be ideal, I don’t so I actually used my kitchen stand mixer with the whisk attachment and beat on high and cover with a towel UPDATE: I acquired a hand mixer and that thing works awesome for this) while slowly adding in the water and glycerin from container #2. Only add a little at a time, giving it a chance to incorporate. Once it seems like it is taking longer to do so, stop adding the water. You may not need all the water you heated up, but if you add too much then the oil mixture will separate from the water.
You will need to continue blending the mixture with your stick blender for about 10 minutes (give your blender a few seconds to cool down within the 10 minute time allotted, otherwise you may burn up your motor). Blend these all together so that you have a very smooth and consistent whipped body butter.
Transfer the finished body butter into the jars of your choice.
Recipe yields approximately 40 ounces of product. Compare the cost of buying it already made vs.you making it and the savings are awesome! Not to mention the quality is beyond comparison.
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