I never thought I’d be making my own cosmetics. Growing up, I assumed the best things to put on your skin were created in a laboratory.
Now, I love making my own beauty care products, including body butter. It’s so easy to make this all natural luxurious cream that you can use on your body, as well as your face. Adding a little beeswax to the mix will make add firmness.
Body Butter with Beeswax
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Just in case you’re not aware, body butter is wildly popular, especially among people who prefer to make their own moisturizers and skin creams. Pure natural beeswax is often added, because it lends firmness to the recipe.
How to Make Natural Body Creams
Now I know better. The only types of skin creams I use are made from natural ingredients. I love what plant-based ingredients do for my skin. It appears as if the thing I’m giving up are artificial ingredients, such as parabens, a class of chemicals now found in many products.
Parabens are used as preservatives. But it’s also known that they mimic estrogen and disrupt the hormones. There are growing fears that they could one factor behind the current breast cancer epidemic.
Benefits of Beeswax in Body Butter
So, anyway, I’ve joined the growing number of people who are now making their own body butter. You can make body butter with just coconut oil and shea butter. Adding a little natural beeswax the mix makes it firmer. If you add enough, it takes on the consistency of a balm. So you may have to experiment a bit to get the consistency you want.
I’ve used body butter as a general skin cream, much like I used to use lotions and moisturizers that I bought at the drugstore. Making body butter is a lot easier than I ever imagined, as long as you have the right ingredients.
Whipped Body Butter Recipe With Beeswax
It is possible to make body butter without beeswax. This is something I did myself last winter. The base was made with mostly coconut oil, and, because it was cold out, I wasn’t worried about it melting. However, now that summer’s almost here, beeswax is something I could use for the next batch.
Body butter, in case you’ve never used it, is absolutely luxurious. I spent a few hours experimenting, and ended up with enough of this exquisite emollient to give away.
I loved giving my friends and family members little jars of homemade body butter, scented with essential oils. The last batch I made was with palmarosa essential oil, an aromatic that’s considered very good for the skin. This is why it’s often used by people with eczema and other types of rash-like eruptions.
How to Make Body Butter With Beeswax
I’m going to use mostly the same recipe I used last winter, which consisted of coconut oil and shea butter, which adds some hardness. Beeswax will contribute some additional firmness. You have to use this ingredient judiciously, or else you will end up with something that resembles a balm. (However, this, in and of itself, is not a bad thing, depending upon what you’re looking for.)
Anyway, here’s how to make homemade body butter with beeswax. You may want to play around with the measurements, to arrive at a consistency you like. I’d suggest making very smell test batches, before using a lot of your natural emollients in one batch. Because I’d never made body butter before, I made just a tiny bit the first time. Once I realized this was a recipe that worked, I made a larger batch. But here is the basic recipe.
Shea Butter Coconut Oil Beeswax Recipe
- Put 4 parts coconut oil to 2 parts of shea butter in a clean stainless steel pan. Then add 1 part of pure beeswax pellets to the mix. (You will want to use pellets, because they will melt easier than bars.) You can also experiment by adding less beeswax, or more if you prefer a balm-like texture. You don’t necessarily need beeswax to make body butter. But it will help your mixture hold up better in warm weather, especially if you plan to use your body butter for gifts.
- Next, gently heat these ingredients just until they become liquid. Then, transfer them to a clean glass bowl.
- When they are cool (about 15 minutes) put the bowl in the freezer.
- Remove the bowl promptly after 10 minutes. It should be starting to get solid around the sides. This is just how you want it to look.
- Then transfer everything to a mixing bowl and whip it with an electric mixer for about 12 minutes. Just before you are done, add essential oils for scent. For body butter, a 1 percent or less dilution of essential oils would work well, especially if you plan to use it on your face or on large areas of the body. This would be about 1 drop of essential oil to every teaspoon of body butter.
Where to Buy Pure Beeswax
Your local grocery store may not carry pure natural beeswax, but, like so many of the other things needed for DIY cosmetics and lotions, it’s available online.
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. People with bee allergies should also seek medical advice before using beeswax.
For Additional Reading
How to Make Body Butter With Shea Butter
