Scaled Up Lotion Recipe

Some time ago, I posted my updated skin cream recipe, in a version that makes 2 oz. of lotion. Of course, when I'm making this as gifts, or even most of the time for myself, I make it in larger batches, so I thought others might like to see the scaled up version.

Batch of six 4 oz. jars:

3/4 c shea butter
3/4 c mango butter
1/4 c beeswax
1/2 c c jojoba oil
1.5 tsp vitamin E oil
16 ml essential or fragrance oil (4 ml per jar)

The instructions are the same, you melt all the ingredients except for the essential or fragrance oil in a double boiler. For the essential oil, you can add enough essential oil for the whole batch at once. However, what I usually do is put the amount needed for each jar in the jar, then pour the lotion mix  and stir each one individually.

One final tip: Keep in mind that fragrance oils are generally quite a bit stronger than essential oils. So, adjust accordingly depending on which you use and the scent level you prefer.

Solid Perfume

Since I started making body products last year, I've been wanting to expand and make a wider variety. I have all the supplies I need to start soapmaking, but so far, I haven't had the time to get started. In the meantime, I did find a recipe for solid perfume and decided to try it first.

I based the proportions of the carrier ingredients, beeswax and sweet almond oil, on this recipe from Soap Deli News, which contains and links to numerous DIY projects.

Because I wanted to be sure my perfume would have a strong, lasting scent, I used proportionally more essential oil in my recipe. So, here's what I ended up with:

2 tbsp beeswax
2 tbsp sweet almond oil

Heat these two ingredients in the microwave for 30 seconds at a time and stir until it's liquid. Then add the essential oil:

Citrus Splash - 2 ml orange essential oil, 1 ml litsea essential oil, 1 ml bergamot essential oil

This recipe makes two ounces. The texture is a little stiff, particularly in these pots, meaning you have to rub it a good bit or warm it in your hands to get it out and onto your skin. Next time, I'll either use a little more almond oil to make it softer or try putting it in lip balm tubes.

As you can see from the pictures, I also made a rose-scented version using Rose Geranium oil and something else, but try as I might, I can't remember the second ingredient. It was something I added to lighten up the rose scent and add a fresh note, but I'll just have to try something new next time.

Updated Lip Balm

If I had to pick the bath and body gift everyone seems to love most, it's definitely my lip balm! However, as I mentioned in my post on last year's recipe, I really wanted something a little heavier and more nurturing, since I tend toward painfully chapped lips in the winter.

So, armed with a year's worth of research and experience making this sort of thing, I decided to create my own recipe.

The new recipe has a few more ingredients:

3 tsp cocoa butter
1 tsp shea butter
1 tbsp beeswax
2 tsp sweet almond oil
3 ml essential oil (optional)
1/4 tsp stevia sweetener (optional)

I melted the first four ingredients in an improvised double boiler, then removed it from the heat and added the essential oils and stevia. The essential oil blends I used were:

• Citrus Spritzer: 2 ml orange and 1 ml lemongrass
• Minty Fresh: 2 ml peppermint (2nd distillation), 1 ml spearmint
• The Cranberry Fig was made using a fragrance oil.

I purchased very fine stevia powder sold for the purpose of lip balm, so I don't know it would work to use the grocery store kind.Used in this small amount, the stevia didn't actually make the lip balm sweet, but just counter acted the slight bitterness of using the essential oils by themselves.

I'm very happy with this recipe, and I can't really think of how I'd improve it. I may experiment with using a tiny amount of honey instead of stevia, so I'll let you know how that goes after I order some more tubes.

Updated Hand Cream Recipe

Since posting my DIY Hand Cream recipe, I've continued to refine the formula. I like the original recipe, but it feels a little oilier than I'd like when you first put it on. So, I've tried using different combinations of oils and butters. After a few more attempts, I've landed on what I consider my final (ok, let's be honest, final for the moment) recipe:

1 tbsp shea butter
1 tbsp mango butter
1 tsp beeswax
2 tsp jojoba oil
1/2 ml vitamin E oil
2 ml essential oil (optional - for fragrance)

Melt the first four ingredients in a double boiler. Remove from heat, and add the final two ingredients. Pour into container.

This recipe yields 2 oz. of hand cream. I've been doing my experiments in small batches, but I'll be scaling this recipe up when I start working on Christmas gifts later this month.

I also created a new essential oil scent blend that I've been really enjoying:

3/4 ml lavender
3/4 ml orange
1/2 ml bergamot

This makes for a fairly light, but soothing scent in the 2 oz. hand cream recipe. And since I don't have any new pictures of the cream to share, here's a picture of a butterfly that I took at the Minnesota Zoo this summer:

DIY Hand Cream

So, I've basically taken the month of June off from blogging because it's by far the busiest month of the year for me at work. Add to that a family reunion that also rekindled my interest in finishing up my game of Pokemon Black, and I've just been too swamped to talk about crafts online. Hopefully, this post will mark the beginning of my return to regular posting.

This hand cream is the last of the homemade body products that I made as Christmas gifts this past year. Like my body spray, I did a lot of research online and synthesized my own recipe. I would say that my final recipe owes the most to the Body Butter Bars from Green Experiments though it's not identical as I made mine softer in order to put it into a tin rather than molding it. I definitely recommend that post if you'd like a picture tutorial of the process of making something like this.

Here's my recipe, which produces about six ounces of hand cream:

1/3 c shea butter (slightly heaped)
1/8 c beeswax
1/4 c fractionated coconut oil
2 ml vitamin E oil
6 ml essential oil (optional - mainly for fragrance)

Melt the shea butter, beeswax, and fractionated coconut oil in a double boiler. Remove from heat and  add vitamin E oil and essential oil. Pour into containers and allow to cool. I used 2 oz. tins, so each batch produced three tins.

I used the same essential oil blends for this that I used for my body spray. The amounts are different, but the proportions are the same. The blends are:

Fir Needle Orange - I love this one, but it smells "wintery" to me for some reason.
3 ml Fir needle
3 ml Orange

Clary Sage Herbal - This one is very earthy and neutral.
2 ml Clary Sage
1.5 ml Anise
1.5 ml Basil
0.5 ml Lemongrass

Cedarwood Rose - The rose geranium is very strong, so the rose note is most prominent in this mix.
2 ml Cedarwood
2 ml Hungarian Lavender
1 ml Rose Geranium
1 ml Bergamot

I've really enjoyed using this lotion myself, and I've gotten good feedback about it from several people who received it as a gift. My only small complaint is that it feels a little oily when you first apply it. It absorbs pretty quickly and doesn't  leave that oily feeling behind, but I'd prefer if it were never there in the first place. I'm experimenting with other oils and proportions, so I'll continue to let you know how they turn out.

If you like this, you should also check out my body spray and lip balm.

DIY Body Spray

As I mentioned in my previous post, I started making homemade body products this winter. While I didn't love it quite as much as some of my other experiments, I still think this body spray has its place in the line up.

I pulled from several recipes and tutorials to come up with the final recipe that I used, but I think my favorite was this one by Nicole Stevenson of Random Nicole. That said, I ended up with a slightly different blend. My final recipe is:

Body Spray
0.5 oz (1 tbsp) Sweet Almond Oil
2.5 oz Vodka (1/4 c + 1 tbsp)
About 3 ml Essential Oils
Distilled Water

I put the first three ingredients in a 4 oz bottle and let it sit for about a week, shaking it every now and then. At the end of that, I filled the bottle the rest of the way with the distilled water.

I made three different scent blends. The amounts of essential oils were:

Fir Needle Orange - I love this one, but it smells "wintery" to me for some reason.
1.5 ml of each


Clary Sage Herbal - This one is very earthy and neutral.
1 ml Clary Sage
0.75 ml Anise
0.75 ml Basil

0.5 ml Lemongrass


Cedarwood Rose - The rose geranium is very strong, so the rose note is most prominent in this mix.
1 ml Cedarwood
1 ml Hungarian Lavender
0.5 Rose Geranium
0.5 Bergamot

This recipe produces a light fragrance that fades pretty quickly. It's nice for a little pick me up, particularly when it's hot, but it doesn't stick around long enough for me to consider it a stand alone fragrance. In the future, I'm going to experiment with making a perfume oil that will wear longer.

I'm also interested in developing some new fragrance blends. What kind of scents would you like in a perfume oil?

All Natural Lipbalm

When I was looking for handmade Christmas gift ideas this past winter, I ran across a number of recipes for homemade, all natural body products. I decided to give them a try, and I'm a total convert. Eric and I are using my homemade lotion exclusively now, and I want to learn how to make my own soap as well. So, this is the first of (definitely) several and hopefully (many) more posts about my own "line" of bath and body products.

Not wanting to get too adventurous my first time out, I made this lip balm using this recipe I found on A Sonoma Garden. I made two changes to the original recipe. First, I substituted sweet almond oil for the olive oil. Also, I added two milliliters of essential oils to each batch to add a little scent and flavor. The resulting lip balm is pleasantly light and slick. It's definitely great for keeping your lips hydrated. To recap, the final recipe I used is:

1 1/2 tsp beeswax
1 7/8 tsp coconut oil
1 1/8 tsp cocoa butter
1 tbsp sweet almond oil
1/8 tsp (0.6 ml) vitamin E oil
2 ml essential oils

I melted the first four ingredients in an improvised double boiler, then removed it from the heat and added the vitamin E and essential oils. The essential oil blends I used were:

Minty Fresh - 1 ml spearmint, 1/2 ml peppermint (1st distillation), 1/2 ml peppermint (2nd distillation)
Citrus Spritzer - 1 ml bergamot, 1/2 ml orange, 1/2 lemongrass

Finally, I poured it into the tubes using a tiny funnel. I could fill six or seven tubes, depending on spillage. Tip: I found that rubber-banding  the tubes together helped them stand up and made it easier to go from tube to tube without spilling. After it cooled, I scraped up the spills off the dish and put it in a tub to apply with my finger. No waste!

While this recipe is great for everyday maintenance, I did find that it didn't work as well as I'd like for the extremely dry, chapped lips I sometimes get in cold weather. For next winter, I want to experiment with making a heavier lip balm using some additional wax and maybe another moisturizing butter of some kind.

I gave these as gifts with body spray and hand cream.