Body Butter

Tonight I am making more Body Butter. We had included it Christmas gift baskets and it got wonderful reviews! I love this stuff. It is clean and full of moisture and has no chemicals so skin drinks it in.

2 cups Cocoa Butter
1 cup Extra Virgin Coconut Oil
1 cup Almond Oil
3 tbsp EMU OIL (optional)
White clover infused olive oil
Essential Oil of choice

Melt the shea butter and coconut oil together. The best method for this is to melt them in a double boiler or set a quart sized canning jar in a sauce pan and boil the water. Once the oils melts, remove from heat and let sit for 1/2 hour to cool.
After the half hour, add the almond oil and emu oil if you have it. The emu oil can be left out. This is also the time to add your essential oils. I chose cinnamon bark for this batch.

Put it all in your mixer bowl and put in freezer for 30 minutes. This jump starts the set.

Whip until the mixture feels buttery. I used my KitchenAid Mixer with Wire Whisk . While mixing, if it clumps too much or is just sticking to the wisk, you add infused olive oil one tablespoon at a time until it literally reaches the consistancy of butter. I chose white clover infused olive oil that I have going on my windowsill at all times. If you don't have infused oil, you can use regular olive oil or even more almond oil. Just be sure to add conservatively. You can see how it peaks off the wisk in the photo.

And that's it. You have body butter that is creamy and feels wonderful on your skin. You can store in glass jars and they make wonderful gifts. I store mine that I keep in empty coconut oil jars.

Creamy like butta on the mixer whisk.

Use any essentials oils that you like. These were my choice for today.

Homemade Body Butter. 

Homemade lotion with coconut oil

I have been making lotions for the first time ever this summer. "Have been making" means I have done it twice before. But I love that it fits in with my new homesteady ways and also really love that it is natural and I can moisturize without chemicals.
So far I have made lip lotion and dandelion lotion.
BUT I wanted a smoother and more creamy lotion so I played around with my ingredients and came up with something that I really like.
I smathered it on my face, neck, hands, elbows all last night and couldn't be happier so I am sharing what I did.

Home made lotion with Coconut oil, Emu oil, Tamanu Oil, and white clover olive oil.

 Here are the ingredients I used. In a 1 cup measuring cup I  added about 1/2 inch of Emu oil, 1/4 inch Tamanu oil and topped the cup off with white clover infused olive oil that I have been "steeping" for about 3 weeks.

Tamanu Oil, Emu Oil, Coconut Oil, White clover infused Olive Oil, beeswax pastilles.

White Clover infused olive oil. 3 weeks old.

 I put this cup of combined oils into a pint sized canning jar. To this I added 1/2 cup coconut oil and 1/2 cup beeswax pastilles. It goes into a pan of WARM water on the stove. (if you put it into already boiling water, you may explode your jar). Bring the water to a boil while stirring the oil mixture.

Once the oil mixtures gets hot enough, you get that magical moment when the beeswax starts melting and everything combines together.

Stir until you can no longer see the pastilles and then remove from heat. Let the mixture cool to room temperature and stir with a fork while it cools to make it creamier. I had used the rest of my coconut oil for this batch so I chose to pour the lotion into the empty coconut oil container. I also set the new container in a pan with cool water to rush the cooling process along. I have the patience of a flea for cooling stuff down and didn't want to walk away before it cooled and realize I didn't stir and it got too hard.

While it was still super watery, I added some mango flavoring to give it a nice smell. This would also be the point for you to add up to 3/4 teaspoon of any of your favorite essential oils or even some vitamin E oil. No more than 3/4 teaspoon combined oils, though.