Homemade Shea Body Butter

My Homemade Shea Body Butter

Today I thought that I would share with you a recipe that I tried out at the beginning of the week. A friend encouraged me to try making my own body care products and this one comes straight from Healthy Living How To with a couple of tweeks. Let's get the recipe started and I'll write about it at the end.

Shea Body Butter

You need

• 1/2 Cup of Shea Butter
• 1/4 Cup of Coconut Oil
• 1/4 Cup of Jojoba Oil
• Essential oils of your choice

You also need

1. Pyrex Jug
2. Wooden Spoon
3. Electric Hand Whisk
4. Big bowl
5. Piping bag and nozzle
6. Jar to put your body butter in 

Oils melting on the stove top.

• Sterilise EVERYTHING! I cannot express how much you need to do this. I made sure that everything I was about to use went through a very hot dishwasher cycle on their own as I didn't want bugs in my body butter to start with. (See this process as one of the most important aspects.)
• Place the Shea Butter, coconut oil and jojoba oil in the pyrex jug and put it in a big pan of warm water on the stove top. (The water doesn't have to be deep). 
• Stir the oils (not the essential oils) together until they all melt - the Shea butter will be the last to dissipate. 
• Take the jug out and place in the fridge for 20 mins to cool
• Place the jug in the freezer for about an hour and every ten minutes stir it round so it gets an even consistency. You want to take it out when it is just about to set solid. 
• Place the mixture in the big bowl and use the whisk to really whisk it up for about five minutes.
• Take your essential oils and add 10 drops to the mixture.
• Continue to whisk until it has the consistency of whipped cream. 
• Place the mix into a piping bag and pipe it into the jar/container. 
• Enjoy!

A T-Towel over the jug in the fridge
helps to stop food smells.

There are a few reasons why I wanted to share this with you on the blog. Over the years I have talked a lot about slowing down, getting to know what is going into and onto your body and have encouraged readers to source their food from responsible sources. As I have been travelling and talking with people, I have wanted to see if there is a way to coming back to a basic principe that I picked up through Michael Pollan's book 'In Defence Of Food', which is basically if you can't pronounce the ingredients in your food, should you be eating it?! Also, he challenged me to really start looking at how many ingredients there are in food - 6 should be enough. So if I am doing that for my body intake, could I do that for my skin intake, seeing as that skin is the doorway into the body?

Whipped just before I added
essential oils

Now don't get me wrong, it's going to take more than a mashed organic avocado to make me stop using Dermalogica! As far as toxic ingredients, they are quite low as you search through the majority of  their products. I love their skin care and I can't beat them as far as results in the treatment room and at home. Plus, I simply can't imagine life without PreCleanse and Daily Microfoliant. 

But, I still want to cut down my ingredient and toxin overload, so making some of my own skin care can't be a bad thing, especially when I can invest in raw organic ingredients that are sourced fairly. 

Making this Shea Body Butter started with the question "If I blog about this, could my friend with her two kids (both under 4), do this with out too much bother?".

The answer is that she probably could in the evening. The recipe just requires you to be around for the stirring whilst the mixture is cooling (and I set a timer to make sure I remembered to do it). Then it needs 20mins for the whisking, essential oil dropping and piping. It's not difficult, it's just an hour and a half of being around it. Also, it took me a couple of days to get the required ingredients posted to me, so that also needs to be taken into account. 

However, I was thinking of another friend who has two girls under 12 and thought that it would be a lovely thing for them to make together during the summer holidays and maybe do enough for three small jars that can all be personalised with the oils that they each like. 

A zip-lock with the corner cut
and the pipe nozzle in place
made the jar filling a breeze.

It also makes a wonderful small gift! I am spending time this weekend making some body scrub and shampoo to trial and the three in a gift bag would be a very different thing to make and give to friends and family. 

I have been using it for a couple of days and really enjoy it. I have been taking a clean teaspoon to get it out of the jar as I hate fingers in products - it's just a germ haven and fingers don't help keep things clean! The first time I used it I forgot that it was an oil, not a cream, and used too much. It melts on the skin so it goes a long way and you don't need much. As it's a natural product it takes a few minutes to sink into the skin, but I quite like that as I allow it to absorb as I'm doing my skin care and hair. 

I will certainly be making it again and would love to hear what you think about it through Twitter of Facebook. What would you change? What oil combinations did you use? How would you make this personal to you? Let me know as I would love to hear from you.