DIY Ultra Moisturizing Whipped Body Butter

Body butter has to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Seriously, before I had first learned to make body butter myself, I had only ever used lotion. That first time that I slathered on my own body butter concoction and felt just how soft and smooth it made my skin, I never wanted to go back. My skin has never felt softer, and happier with me than after I put on fresh homemade body butter.

The best part is, this makes a really great holiday gift. Whether you scent it with essential oils or leave it plain with the nutty scent of the butters, everyone out there could use a good moisturizing body butter during the winter. You can put this butter into a really cute glass jar such as a mason jar, decorate it and fill all the stockings in the house with it!

My favorite scents to wear would be lavender lemongrass, lavender and vanilla, and any sort of citrus combination that I can possibly come up with. (Though be careful about putting body butters with citrus oils in them and then going out to tan afterwards. Citrus oils can cause a sensitivity to sunlight, so be sure to use your butter AFTER you go tanning.)

Body butter is made with oils and butters, not water

The truth is, not only is it really easy to make, it is so much more moisturizing than lotion because it's not made with water. Being made with only oils and butters also means that there is no need to worry about preservatives either. Anything made with water needs a preservative to prevent bacteria from growing. Water also makes it where it sinks into the skin immediately so you get immediate moisture with a lotion but not an all day moisture. With body butters, the moisture is super healing to the skin because it keeps the skin hydrated for a much longer period of time.

There is a secret to silky smooth body butter

What a lot of blogs out there fail to mention, when it comes to making your own body butter, is that there is actually a secret to melting the butters so that they don't get grainy later. When I started making body butters for my shoppe on Etsy, I sold body butters that I had made the same way most of the other recipes online called for, and when it got cold my butters (and even my salves and lip balms that contained shea butter) started to get a weird gritty feeling. Now this is not because the product has gone bad, in fact it is still totally usable, it's merely because the maker of the product didn't know that they had to leave the butters on the heat for 20 minutes to process it. If you perform this step when making anything with butters/coconut oil, you will find that it will not turn gritty on you later.

 

  DIY Ultra Moisturizing Whipped Body Butter

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup unrefined shea butter (or another kind of butter such as cocoa butter)
• 1/2 cup unrefined mango butter (or another kind of butter such as cocoa butter or more shea butter)
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 1/2 cup liquid oil or any combination of oils (such as almond, hemp seed, rosehip seed, sunflower seed, grapeseed, olive, etc.)
• 2 Tbsp. arrowroot powder (optional - helps the oils from the body butter to sink into the skin faster, leaving a less greasy feeling)
• 1 tsp. vitamin e (optional - helps to moisturize skin and to keep the oils from going rancid longer)

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine the butters and coconut oil in a double boiler (or makeshift one with a pyrex/glass bowl over a pan of water) and melt.
2. Once mixture has completely melted, start a timer for 20 minutes and let the butters stay at the melted temperature until the timer beeps.
3. After 20 minutes, remove from heat and pour into a bowl to cool quickly in an ice bath. (larger bowl underneath filled with ice and water to help the bowl above it cool quicker.)
4. In a separate smaller container, combine liquid oils, vitamin e, and arrowroot powder. It's easiest to combine the arrowroot powder into the oil with a fork.
5. When it looks like the butter is half way hardened, meaning there is still a small pool of liquid on top, pour in the liquid oil/arrowroot powder concoction and take out your electric hand mixer or emulsion blender.
6. I usually use the whisk attachment on my electric hand mixer, blend until there are no chunks of hardened butter left. This can not be done by hand. I usually take a spoon and chip away the bottom pieces first to make it easier to blend in the final result.
7. If you added the liquid oils too soon and it's still not solid enough to pour into your containers, put the bowl of body butter mixture back onto the ice bath for a minute or two more then blend with it there in the ice bath.
8. Spoon butter into the containers that you plan to store the butter in.
9. If adding essential oils, this would be the point that you would add them into the butter. I like to add them into each container individually so that I can tailor make the butter's scent to the person I am giving it to!
10. The consistency of the butter will be more solidified into it's true consistency, over night.

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