Shea butter and essential oils are a natural combination. If you add some coconut oil to the mix, you can easily whip up a batch of luxurious body butter. Using shea butter and coconut oil together results in an amazingly creamy all natural emollient. This can be used as a lotion or as a facial moisturizer.
Adding essential oils results in a therapeutic body butter. For instance, right now, in my bathroom, I have a small jar of shea butter body butter that also contains frankincense.
Frankincense has long been considered a good anti-aging remedy. It’s even been said this aromatic resin was used by Cleopatra, to preserve her beauty. Frankincense oil is one of my favorite holistic wrinkle fighters.
Body Butter With Lavender Oil
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As I mentioned earlier, essential oils add a wonderful scent to shea butter. Plus, they offer some potential health benefits. For instance, lavender and chamomile essential oil have been shown to help decrease tension.
By adding these aromatics to your body butter, you can use it at night, to help you wind down after a long day. Body butter with shea butter works very well as a night cream. You can use frankincense, as I did. Or you can add an aromatic that’s considered good for relaxation, such as lavender essential oil.
Lavender is often used by people who have a hard time falling asleep. Lavender oil is one of my best sleep remedies.
Shea Butter Recipes With Essential Oils
Anyway, shea butter is very good for your skin. This emollient is harvested from a tree that grows in some parts of Africa, where it’s dry. The oils from the nut has long been used by women in these regions to moisturize their skin. Legend has it that Queen Nefertiti used shea butter on her own skin.
I like to rotate my skincare products, which I make myself from natural ingredients, such as shea butter. Anything made from shea butter works really well as a night cream, since it seems to penetrate the skin really well.
Actually, as I said in another post, my skin sort of “drinks” shea butter.
It’s a good idea to do a 24 hour patch test before putting a new mixture containing essential oils on your face. This involves putting a small amount on the inside of your arm. If no irritation occurs, it’s probably safe to use on your face.
Shea Butter Recipes for Skin
Shea butter also works well as a carrier oil. Essential oils are highly concentrated. So you can’t apply them directly to your skin. Instead, you mix these strong aromatics with what’s known as a carrier oil. This is an oily substance that protects your skin. It also helps to “carry” the essential oil compounds into your body.
There are absolutely endless combinations of shea butter recipes that you can make using essential oils. But, first, I’ll show you how to make a basic body butter base.
Body butter is creamy. It glides on your skin. If you want a more balm-like texture, simply add beeswax. This link will take you to a recipe on how to make a basic essential oil salve, with beeswax, shea butter and coconut oil.
How To Make Whipped Body Butter At Home
It’s really easy to make whipped body butter. You need just two ingredients, plus whatever essential oils you choose to add. All you do is combine two parts of coconut oil to one part of organic shea butter. Then you just follow a few simple steps.
- Melt these two oils in a stainless steel saucepan on the stove, just until they turn to liquid.
- Then put them in a glass bowl. Place this bowl in the freezer for just 10 minutes.
- After you remove the bowl from the freezer, you’ll notice the edges have started to harden. Transfer this into a mixing bowl and whip it with an electric mixer for about 12 minutes.
- Just before you’re about to stop mixing, add the essential oils of your choice.
How to Make Body Butter Base
Obviously, if you want to make a shea butter recipe with essential oils, you’ll need pure shea butter. If you don’t own any of this natural moisturizing butter, it’s available online. I’ve never seen it in the grocery store, so I had to order my own over the Internet. Here’s the brand I use. I’ve been very happy with the quality of this USDA-certified organic shea butter.
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Lavender Body Butter Recipe
Lavender essential oil is a popular addition to DIY body butter recipes. As I mentioned earlier, this very versatile oil is often used for its soothing scent. Body butter with a little lavender essential oil added would make an excellent bedtime massage oil or face cream.
Although lavender, and its aromatic extracts, have long been used as natural sleep aids, there’s now scientific evidence that shows that lavender oil used for massage can improve the quality of slumber. This aromatic also appears to reduce anxiety, according to information published on the University of Maryland Medical Center website.
How to Make Scented Body Butter
If you’d like to make a night time body butter recipe with lavender essential oil, you could also consider adding a little Roman chamomile oil to the mix. This aromatic is also used for relaxation and tranquility.
Just remember to use just a little of the aromatic oils. Body butter requires a low dilution of 1 percent or less, as this DIY moisturizer is generally used on the face or on larger areas of the body. So you’d want to add only 7 or 8 drops of essential oil to every ounce of body butter. If in doubt, always go for the lowest strength. Earlier, I made another batch of body butter with palmarosa essential oil. I only added a few drops, which added up to much less than 1 percent.
Body Butter Recipe With Palmarosa Essential Oil
A few months ago, I whipped up a batch of body butter with palmarosa essential oil. I love the smell of this aromatic, which comes from a tropical grass. It smells like roses, with some berries thrown in. It’s found in both DIY and all natural commercial cosmetics, since palmarosa oil is considered good for the skin. It has a lovely scent, and is often used as a natural wrinkle fighter.
Palmarosa essential oil mixes well with chamomile, clary sage, cedar, lemon, lemongrass and ylang ylang. So you can consider adding some of these to your body butter.
All Natural Body Butter Recipes for Pain Relief
You can add various oils that are considered “hot” to your body butter mixture. These would probably be a good choice if you have sore aching muscles. In my house, peppermint essential oil is one of my “go to” pain relievers. This aromatic mixes very well with clove, laurel, black pepper and ginger root essential oil. If you don’t own some of these more uncommon oils, it’s possible to buy a blend that contains all of them, and more, if you’re interested in making your own analgesic body butter.
Rapid Relief Synergy Blend is sold by Plant Therapy, one of my favorite essential oil companies. It works with world famous aromatherapist Robert Tisserand and its oils are tested twice. One of the tests is done out of house by an independent third party.
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Body Butter Recipe Using Essential Oils
Citrus oils are considered good for lifting the mood. So you may want to make a citrus body butter recipe to use whenever you need a lift. You may want to consider adding grapefruit or tangerine essential oil to your mix. I love to use citrus oils during the day when I’m working. They seem to dispel anxiety, without making me drowsy, so I can concentrate on what needs to be done.
Small Jars for Body Butter
When I make a batch of body butter, I always have more than I need myself. So I like to give it away to my family and friends. In recent years, I’ve become increasingly concerned about all of the chemicals added to women’s beauty products. So I’ve started making my own moisturizers and skin creams. Your friends will appreciate your paraben-free creations, which you made yourself. You can order empty cosmetic jars online, if you’d like to use your body butter recipes as gifts.
The cosmetic jars shown below are made from glass, so you don’t have to worry about plastic compounds leaching into your healthy DIY creations. Also, the blue color helps keep light away from the essential oils.
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Disclaimer
These statements have not been approved by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not use essential oils unless directed to do so by a healthcare professional.
For Additional Information
How to Make Body Butter With Shea Butter
What Do You Use Shea Butter For?
How To Dilute Essential Oils For Skin
I am also a big fan of Shea Butter , Coconut Oil and Essential Oil. Ylang Ylang is the one I use. It’s good for balancing hormones in Woman as well as men.
FYI…Cleopatra was no beauty. She wit and charm but fell short on the looks.
I’ve never met Cleopatra in person. So I have to go by her legend as a great beauty. 🙂
I loved it. Tried the body butter and I m very happy with the results. Thank you 😘
Hi Maria, it’s a really easy recipe and it works. Thank you so much for your feedback.
I tried an anti aging cream with almond oil, coconut oil, beeswax, jojoba oil, shea butter and 5-6 drops of sandalwood essential oil. After applying the cream, my face has a tingling almost burning sensation and it starts to sweat. It eventually goes away but it’s not very pleasant. Is that normal?
Beverly, no it’s not. I am not a professional aromatherapist but if it were me I would either use less essential oil, more carrier oil or a different essential oil altogether and also do 24 hour patch test on the inside of my arm. If no irritation then I would use the DIY mixture on my face.
I want to try the whipped butter but I’m afraid to use my mixer, how do you clean it afterwards? Last time I made a lotion bar with shea butter I had to use hand sanitizer to clean my bowl.
I have a hand mixer so it’s easy. I would recommend investing in a cheap hand mixer and using it for that. You can probably find a really inexpensive one for about $10 at a discount store. I’d probably be hesitant to use a nice mixer with this recipe as well.
I bought an old Sunbeam mixmaster stand mixer for 8 bucks at my local thrift store to use for my jars of butter instead of using my Kitchen Aid mixer. For me, with my arthritic hands, it is nice to not have to hold the mixer plus I’m not able to hold it long enough (10-12 minutes) for it to become whipped enough. To clean I wipe everything clean with a paper towel, then wash by hand, then put in the dishwasher, and then it’s ready for the next batch.