How to Make Homemade Body Butter

185 Shares

If you’re looking for a great, non-toxic homemade body butter recipe, you’re in the right place! This recipe is easy-to-make, not super time-intensive, customizable, and actually nourishes the skin without harmful chemicals. Keep reading to find out more benefits of making your own body butter at home and for the homemade body butter recipe!

Why Make Homemade Body Butter

I’ve been making my own homemade body butter for several years now and even sold some on my Etsy shop and to local friends and family. I no longer sell it on there, but I do have lots of printables and planners to help you be productive and stay organized! I started making it, not to make a big business out of it and make money, but kind of selfishly. I wanted a good moisturizer for my hands and body that wouldn’t break my skin out or make my eczema itch worse. I wanted one that would actually keep it moisturized and HELP my eczema to heal.

1. Clean Ingredients

I’m all about using products with clean, safe ingredients. So many household and beauty products out there are filled with harmful chemicals. You can check out my post Why I Switched to Clean Beauty for some harmful chemicals to look out for, why I made the switch to clean beauty, and why you may want to as well. I’ve personally dealt with hormonal imbalance, and that’s one big problem chemicals, like Parabens and phthalates in most beauty products, can cause.

I’ve also had eczema for the past 15 years or so. I NEEDED to keep my skin moisturized, but so many different lotions I tried made my skin WORSE. Products with fragrance and artificial colors can cause skin irritation – which I definitely did NOT need more of. Using clean, natural products is important for not irritating eczema more (or irritate your skin at all, whether you have eczema or not!) and keeping it moisturized while it’s healing.

If you have eczema or have a family member that does, just know that this body butter is NOT a cure all! Healing eczema is so much more than putting something moisturizing on your skin. It is more of an inside job. Read my post How to Heal Eczema Naturally for more on that. But this body butter is a great addition to your routine.

2. Cost Effective

Making homemade body butter can definitely save you money. You’re gonna pay AT LEAST $10 for an 8 oz jar at any retail store, Amazon, or Etsy. And they’re gonna have fillers and water that bulk up the volume and the weight. But they don’t actually provide any additional value to your skin. This body butter recipe uses only ingredients that actually nourish your skin – no fillers or extra nonsense here! It costs me about $7 for each 8 oz jar I fill.

It may cost more than a bottle of lotion from the drug store, but

a) no additives, and

b) it’s a more concentrated product and you only need to use a TINY amount. So it’s gonna last way longer than a bottle of lotion.

3. Moisturizing

Okay, so the reason we all love body butter in the first place – it’s SUPER moisturizing. I’ll share more about that when I talk about the ingredients in it. But this stuff WORKS! It’s able to soak into your skin and lock in moisture. And moisturized skin is skin that looks more youthful and healthy. This can be used on your face as a facial moisturizer (depending on your skin type), all over on your body, on dry, cracked hands, lips, or wherever you need some nourishment.

Okay, so let’s get to the ingredients and the recipe!

What You’ll Need

1/2 lb. Shea Butter (The shea butter and cocoa butters come in big 1 lb. blocks. I just break it into 1/2 for the shea butter and into 1/4 for the cocoa butter.)
1/4 lb. Cocoa Butter
2 Cups Coconut Oil
1 Cup Almond Oil
1/2 Cup Beeswax Pellets
2 Tbsp Vitamin E Oil
40 drops essential oil of choice
Jars of your choice – I use these ones

Why Shea Butter?

Shea butter comes from the nuts of shea tree. It’s super moisturizing, and it doesn’t clog pores like many lotions can do. It naturally contains Vitamins A (retinol – which is SO much better for you than synthetic Vitamin A in many skin care products) and E, which are antioxidants. So, it also provides anti-aging benefits!

Shea butter also contains compounds that keep collagen production up and fatty acids that are able to absorb easily and lock in moisture. So it’s not going to just sit on your skin and make it oily. It can also actually repair broken skin.

It has so many other great benefits. Shea butter is the star of this recipe!

Why Cocoa Butter?

Cocoa butter comes from cocoa beans, the same beans chocolate is made from (yum!). It is another great, natural fat that nourishes the skin and holds in moisture. Cocoa butter has many of the same benefits as shea butter, but it lacks the antioxidant vitamins.

But what it does have over shea butter is a great chocolatey smell! For that reason, I do use less of it. I’ve tried more cocoa butter, and the smell overpowers the essential oils. So, if you don’t want chocolate-smelling body butter, follow the instructions and use less cocoa butter than shea butter.

Why Coconut Oil?

Coconut oil comes from coconuts (duh!). You’ve probably heard some benefits of coconut oil by now. For one thing, coconut oil is filled with beneficial fatty acids that help keep your skin moisturized.

Coconut oil can reduce inflammation – so it’s great for eczema and acne.

I do use less of it in this recipe because it is more oily than the other ingredients and doesn’t absorb as well as shea and cocoa butters.

Why Almond Oil?

Almond oil is another great oil that’s FULL of antioxidants and fatty acids. It helps reduce inflammation, is a gentle moisturizer (great for eczema!), helps heal wounds, helps protect your skin from sun damage, and keeps it looking young!

This one, unlike the other oils so far, is liquid at room-temperature. So using too much in a body butter wouldn’t work. But you can use it by itself to oil cleanse your face or as a moisturizer after cleansing your face.

Why Beeswax?

Beeswax is essential to this recipe for a few reasons.

First – it helps hold everything together. Without it, the body butter would be a more liquidy lotion.

Second – it provides a protective barrier, keeping toxins from entering your body, while still allowing the skin to breathe. Beeswax is naturally anti-bacterial; so again, great for keeping bad bacteria out!

It’s also moisturizing. It’s a main ingredient in my homemade lip chap as well! Great for locking in moisturize!

Why Vitamin E Oil?

Vitamin E is in shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil, and almond oil. But I like to up the Vitamin E with this oil.

This pure Vitamin E oil is made from sunflowers, but many Vitamin E oils out there are synthetic (made IN a plant, not FROM a plant) and contain many different ingredients, including fragrance. So check the ingredients!

Vitamin E oil is great for healing wounds, reducing itchiness, reducing lines and wrinkles, and lots more!

Why Essential Oils?

Essential oils have so many benefits. The benefits depend on the specific oil you choose, but one benefit most oils bring is a great scent! Since we’re not adding synthetic fragrance here (thank goodness!), essential oils take that role – without causing hormone disruption.

My favorite essential oil to add is lavender. Lavender essential oil is a nice, calming oil. It can calm your skin (another thing that is so beneficial for eczema) and your mind. Whether I diffuse it or wear it, lavender essential oil definitely helps me relax.

Some other great oils to try are Citrus Burst (a blend of different citrus essential oils from Plant Therapy) for uplifting, energizing benefits, Frankincense for anti-aging benefits, and Tea Tree for anti-itching (a great one for eczema, bug bites, or poison ivy).

What To Do

Now that you have your ingredients, let’s get started making the body butter!

Melt the Oils

First, get a double boiler going. I don’t have an actual double boiler. If you don’t either, here’s what to do! Just fill a pot with about two inches of water. Place a large bowl inside of it, resting in the water. I use my Dutch oven for the water and the stainless steel bowl from my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer inside.

Then add all of the ingredients EXCEPT for the essential oils to the bowl.

Turn the burner on high to get the water boiling.

Once it’s boiling, bring it down to medium-low and allow it to simmer.

Stir the oils together occasionally and keep it on the double broiler until all the oils and beeswax are completely melted.

Harden the Body Butter

Now, take the bowl of melted oils off the burner and place in the freezer to cool down and harden.

Allow it to cool for about 3 hours, or until it’s completely hardened.

Then take it out of the fridge and allow to soften a bit so that you’ll be able to whip it up. I let it sit out at room temperature for about another hour.

Whip the Body Butter

Using your stand mixer or a hand-held mixer, whip the body butter on high for 5 minutes, or until it starts to get fluffy and resemble frosting!

Add whatever essential oil or blend of oils you’d like at this point. Mix for another minute to incorporate the oils.

Divide Into Jars

Now, use a spatula to divide the body butter evenly into jars. It will make about 4.5 8-oz jars full of body butter. Of course, it could be a little more or less depending on how much air you whip into the body butter.

Pop them into the fridge for an hour to harden the body butter back up a little bit in the jars, and then they’re ready to go!

Just a note – this body butter is free from binders, thickeners, stabilizers, or preservatives. So – it CAN melt when it’s super hot. It’s not a good idea to ride around with this stuff in your car during the summertime. It WILL turn into liquid oil. Think coconut oil. It’s solid at room temperature, but turns to a liquid when heated. But no worries. If it does melt, just stick it in the fridge for a few hours to harden back up. And you can always rewhip it if it melts and hardens and doesn’t have that same “frosting” consistency.

I hope you all try this and love it! Let me know watcha think! Have you made your own homemade body butter or any other homemade beauty product yet? What essential oil are you going to use when you try this?