Let's face it. Winter in the Midwest is dry. My hair gets static-y from the dryness, my hands get rough, and my skin itches from the lack of moisture in the air. Not to mention going from indoor cozy to outdoor Hoth doesn't help the situation.
I've struggled with this most winters since I moved to Omaha and based on an internet search for homemade skin moisturizers, I'm not alone. I have long been interested in making my own skin care products. I've been a hobby aromatherapist since I was 14 years old. In high school, I thought the coolest job in the world would have been to do product development for Aveda (this was after Jim Henson passed away, sadly, and I had to give up my first dream of moving to California to become a Muppeteer. And alas, I didn't do so hot in high school chemistry). Over the years, I've dabbled in making my own moisturizers and lotions with very mixed success.
A little over a year ago, I had a health issue which led my doctor to run multiple tests to rule out several different types of cancer. While waiting for the results, I truly knew deep down that I was not going to be going through cancer diagnosis and treatment, but the possibility alone scared me enough to renew my interest in researching common ingredients in everyday products that most of us use and to revitalize my pursuit of creating my own usable, effective moisturizer.
After reading through several websites about the "dirty dozen" skin care ingredients that are commonly found in everyday items that many of us use and looking everything in my bathroom up on the Skin Deep website, I was pretty appalled by what I found. Ultimately I threw out a lot of items that I had been using on a regular basis. It's not like I didn't know about all of this information before; I just chose not to think about it and to instead succumb to the marketing that we are bombarded with on a daily basis.
After ridding my cupboards of the offending ingredients, I took out my essential oils and carrier oils to try and come up with an alternative body moisturizer that would work effectively without leaving my skin too dry and itchy or too oily and greasy. In this process, I accidentally made the most amazing lip balm along with some super-moisturizing body balm that works really well for softening calluses on your feet. But here it is, another cold winter season already and I am still struggling with finding a good, daily body moisturizer.
So I decided to run a little test. After looking at quite a few body butter recipes, I decided to compare a common go-to ingredient, shea butter, with a new (to me) ingredient, mango butter. Over the past year, I have tried different combinations of shea butter mixed with cocoa butter, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, etc...all with the final outcome of creating something a little too greasy for my taste. I ran across several recipes online that incorporated corn starch into the mixture, claiming that it would lessen that greasy feeling. Okay, I'm game to try it. So I went out and bought some more shea butter (since I had used my last bit of it in the Accidental Lip Balm Incident of 2013). Later that same evening, while visiting a friend who also makes her own skin care and household products, we got to talking and she pulled out the mango butter. I had heard of mango butter and was quite intrigued but had never had the opportunity to try it first-hand. Oh my! Just the mango butter alone left a completely non-greasy feeling, soaked right into my skin and left my skin feeling amazingly soft. I am in love with the mango butter for that reason alone. However, curious about the use of corn starch with shea butter, I had to give this recipe a try.
I halved the original recipe (just in case it turned out that I wasn't a fan), and half of the original recipe has still given me plenty of luscious body butter. And just for the record, I am definitely a fan!
I used avocado oil rather than the sweet almond or kukui oil in the original recipe. And instead of Rosehip OR Sea Buckthorn oil, I used a combination of the two because I just happened to have both on hand.
I added the solid items (.75 oz cocoa butter and 3 oz. shea butter) to my favorite make-shift double-boiler (i.e., my basic cooking pot with a little water in it and my medium Pyrex measuring container), and I heated on medium-low for about 20 minutes, until the solids all became liquid.
In a small bowl, I mixed the other oils (2 Tbsp avocado oil, 1 Tbsp Jojoba oil, 1 Tbsp combined Rosehip and Sea Buckthorn oils, and 1/4 tsp Vitamin E oil) and dissolved 1 tsp of corn starch in that oil mixture.
Then once off the stove, I added the corn starch mixture with the melted cocoa and shea butters, and proceeded to mix everything together with my electric mixer.
Once the mixture had cooled to room temperature, I added 5 drops of carrot seed and 10 drops of ylang ylang essential oils. After mixing with the electric mixer some more, I put the Pyrex container into the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. When I took it out and mixed it once more...
It turned into this beautiful, creamy, fluffy, frosting-like mixture. And the more I mixed, the more fluffy it got.
And here is the final product. The texture is amazing! It's not too soft to be oily and not too hard to be difficult to dig into. The butter itself melts right into your skin. And it leaves NO GREASY FEELING! I had no idea that corn starch would do the trick so well! I am definitely loving this stuff and looking forward to using it over the next few weeks to really test it out.
I will post Part 2 next week, where I will go into the details of my experience with the drool-worthy mango butter.
I've struggled with this most winters since I moved to Omaha and based on an internet search for homemade skin moisturizers, I'm not alone. I have long been interested in making my own skin care products. I've been a hobby aromatherapist since I was 14 years old. In high school, I thought the coolest job in the world would have been to do product development for Aveda (this was after Jim Henson passed away, sadly, and I had to give up my first dream of moving to California to become a Muppeteer. And alas, I didn't do so hot in high school chemistry). Over the years, I've dabbled in making my own moisturizers and lotions with very mixed success.
A little over a year ago, I had a health issue which led my doctor to run multiple tests to rule out several different types of cancer. While waiting for the results, I truly knew deep down that I was not going to be going through cancer diagnosis and treatment, but the possibility alone scared me enough to renew my interest in researching common ingredients in everyday products that most of us use and to revitalize my pursuit of creating my own usable, effective moisturizer.
After reading through several websites about the "dirty dozen" skin care ingredients that are commonly found in everyday items that many of us use and looking everything in my bathroom up on the Skin Deep website, I was pretty appalled by what I found. Ultimately I threw out a lot of items that I had been using on a regular basis. It's not like I didn't know about all of this information before; I just chose not to think about it and to instead succumb to the marketing that we are bombarded with on a daily basis.
After ridding my cupboards of the offending ingredients, I took out my essential oils and carrier oils to try and come up with an alternative body moisturizer that would work effectively without leaving my skin too dry and itchy or too oily and greasy. In this process, I accidentally made the most amazing lip balm along with some super-moisturizing body balm that works really well for softening calluses on your feet. But here it is, another cold winter season already and I am still struggling with finding a good, daily body moisturizer.
So I decided to run a little test. After looking at quite a few body butter recipes, I decided to compare a common go-to ingredient, shea butter, with a new (to me) ingredient, mango butter. Over the past year, I have tried different combinations of shea butter mixed with cocoa butter, coconut oil, sweet almond oil, etc...all with the final outcome of creating something a little too greasy for my taste. I ran across several recipes online that incorporated corn starch into the mixture, claiming that it would lessen that greasy feeling. Okay, I'm game to try it. So I went out and bought some more shea butter (since I had used my last bit of it in the Accidental Lip Balm Incident of 2013). Later that same evening, while visiting a friend who also makes her own skin care and household products, we got to talking and she pulled out the mango butter. I had heard of mango butter and was quite intrigued but had never had the opportunity to try it first-hand. Oh my! Just the mango butter alone left a completely non-greasy feeling, soaked right into my skin and left my skin feeling amazingly soft. I am in love with the mango butter for that reason alone. However, curious about the use of corn starch with shea butter, I had to give this recipe a try.
I halved the original recipe (just in case it turned out that I wasn't a fan), and half of the original recipe has still given me plenty of luscious body butter. And just for the record, I am definitely a fan!
I used avocado oil rather than the sweet almond or kukui oil in the original recipe. And instead of Rosehip OR Sea Buckthorn oil, I used a combination of the two because I just happened to have both on hand.
I added the solid items (.75 oz cocoa butter and 3 oz. shea butter) to my favorite make-shift double-boiler (i.e., my basic cooking pot with a little water in it and my medium Pyrex measuring container), and I heated on medium-low for about 20 minutes, until the solids all became liquid.
In a small bowl, I mixed the other oils (2 Tbsp avocado oil, 1 Tbsp Jojoba oil, 1 Tbsp combined Rosehip and Sea Buckthorn oils, and 1/4 tsp Vitamin E oil) and dissolved 1 tsp of corn starch in that oil mixture.
Then once off the stove, I added the corn starch mixture with the melted cocoa and shea butters, and proceeded to mix everything together with my electric mixer.
Once the mixture had cooled to room temperature, I added 5 drops of carrot seed and 10 drops of ylang ylang essential oils. After mixing with the electric mixer some more, I put the Pyrex container into the refrigerator for about 20 minutes. When I took it out and mixed it once more...
It turned into this beautiful, creamy, fluffy, frosting-like mixture. And the more I mixed, the more fluffy it got.
And here is the final product. The texture is amazing! It's not too soft to be oily and not too hard to be difficult to dig into. The butter itself melts right into your skin. And it leaves NO GREASY FEELING! I had no idea that corn starch would do the trick so well! I am definitely loving this stuff and looking forward to using it over the next few weeks to really test it out.
I will post Part 2 next week, where I will go into the details of my experience with the drool-worthy mango butter.
I wanted to tell you that Rosehips are awesome. I use them in my sunburn spray.
ReplyDeleteOoo, thanks for the tip! If you are up for sharing, I would love to know what all goes into your sunburn spray (especially with summer approaching)!
Delete