BODY BUTTER
In the dry air of winter, I go through a lot of “body butter”! I have been buying it from Burt’s Bees at $13 for a small tub and it was adding up. I like to apply it all over my body after I shower and butter goes on smoothly and sinks right into your skin and really hydrates. For an updated version of my body butter with lavender, go to my post Lavender Scented Honey Body Butter.
After going through some recipes on line and experimenting with several, I came up with one that works great and costs about half of what I was paying. Plus, I got to use some of my beeswax from my hives! The whole process is so easy, I don’t know why I was spending all that money before.
First of all, gather your ingredients.
I shopped for my oils at MOM’s Organic market. You could try WholeFoods or a good pharmacy, or online. I used 1 Cup of Shea Butter, 1/2 cup of Coconut Oil, 1/2 cup of Sweet Almond Oil, and 50 drops of Vitamin E. If you can’t find Almond Oil, you could substitute olive, jojoba, or any other liquid oil. I also use about 4 Tablespoons of Beeswax. The Beeswax is hard to measure, so I just broke off a hunk from my stash and chopped it up into smaller pieces. The beeswax keeps the butter from becoming too soft and scents the body butter with honey. Here is the recipe:
Honey Scented Body Butter
1 C Shea Butter
1/2 C Coconut Oil
1/2 C Sweet Almond Oil
4 T Beeswax, broken up into small pieces
50 drops of Vitamin E Oil
Melt the Shea Butter, Coconut Oil, and Beeswax in the top of a double boiler until all lumps are melted.
The Beeswax has the highest melting temperature, so will be the last to melt. Beeswax has honey deposited in it so you get the fragrance of the honey from your added beeswax.
Remove from heat, letting cool slightly, and add the Sweet Almond Oil and the Vitamin E drops.
Stir until mixed and place into the refrigerator for about an hour.
While in the refrigerator, the mixture will turn opaque and become very thick.
Bring the mixture out and whip it with a mixer or immersion blender or mixer.
Place in containers. I used an old Burt’s bees container and just some other containers that I had sitting around.
Don’t worry if you forget the mixture in the refrigerator and it gets too hard. Just gently warm it until it softens enough to whip.
With this recipe, I made about 3 1/2 cups of body butter that cost about $25 for materials. I was spending $13 for a 6.75 ounce container from Burt’s Bees. After some calculation, I figured that if I bought 3 1/2 cups of body butter from Burt’s Bees, it would have cost me twice as much. Plus, I knew exactly what went into it.
I am thinking about making another batch for Christmas gifts!
