Walking the Walk: Natural Skin Care
Emma’s So Natural Easy-Peasy Whipped Body Butter
So I can ‘Talk the Talk’ and offer you the healthier alternative candle, but in these ‘Walking the Walk ‘ posts, I hope to share some of the other ways that I try live by the same Earth-Friendly-Eco-Ethos that I put into my Eco-Soy Candles. In future I will include some of my very own DIY skin care treatments and I will also share some other natural skin care products that I buy, and some dietary and lifestyle choices that I have made to help me lose weight, to improve my life and to feel better.
I am fortunate in my chosen line of work to meet many like minded people who hand produce all-natural skin care products like facial serums, hand creams, lotion bars and soaps, etc. I will share my experiences with some of these tried and tested products here in future.
I try, as best as I can, to use only natural products on my skin: I try to put nothing on my body that I wouldn’t put in my body. The first of these products that I am going to share is my Whipped Body Butter, using 3 kitchen ingredients. I’ve seen a lot of similar recipes online lately, and while I’ve been making this product myself for years, I never whipped it until I saw a similar recipe a few months back having been whipped, and it is definitely much easier to use this way!
What you’ll need: equal weights solid cocoa butter, solid coconut oil and olive oil. I use 50 grams of each, which when complete fits perfectly into these recycled coconut oil glass jars that I re-use. I buy my cocoa butter from here, or here, and I buy my raw organic coconut oil from here, or here or my local health shop, and I just use my regular supermarket brand extra virgin olive oil.
What you do: Weigh and melt the 3 ingredients together in a double boiler or a glass (Pyrex) bowl over a pan of hot water, stirring occasionally. When totally melted and combined allow to cool to room temperature, and then chill in the fridge for an hour until it turns opaque and just starts to set. You can whip it now until light and fluffy with an electric hand mixer, I haven’t tried whipping it by hand, but I reckon it would be hard work! Then transfer the whipped mixture into a jar. If you forget about it and leave it in the fridge overnight as I have on many occasions, just take it out and bring it back up to room temperature – where if you put a finger in it, it has softened to a butter like consistency, and then you can whip it.
Instead of Olive Oil you could use another moisturising oil such as Jojoba oil, Macadamia oil, or even Rapeseed Oil.
You could add anti-ageing or skin soothing pure essential oils to the melted mixture if you like, but I don’t bother, I love it just as it is. I may try to produce a similar product using higher SPF natural oils for the summer months. Do be careful of using any pure essential oils that may cause skin photo-toxicity that could irritate the skin when it is then exposed to sunlight after applying the product.
I don’t store mine in the fridge, I keep it on my dressing table – follow the use by dates on the raw ingredients you use to determine the use by date for your own batch, and maybe make a note of it on the jar – mine never lasts long enough to go off!
Do let me know if you try making this product and what you think of it!