Lotion bars are also known as hard lotion and remind me of a solid form of body butter. They are convenient and easy to use, just rub over your body like you are washing up with soap. The heat from your skin melts the surface of the lotion bar and then absorbs into your skin, leaving it soft, smooth and moisturized. Lotion bars are very effective on those tough skin areas like the heels of the feet, elbows and knees. My favorite part about lotion bars is how fun they are to create using different butter, essential oils and molds. This was a recipe Big Woman and I came up with during the Christmas break and they made wonderful gifts.
Lotion Cups
I like to call these cups instead of bars because we used silicon muffin cups as the mold.
8 oz. coconut oil
4 oz. beeswax
2.5 oz. shea butter
2.5 oz. cocoa butter
2.5 oz. mango butter
(or use 8 oz. of one type of butter if you don't have all three butters)
40-50 drops essential oil
4 oz. beeswax
2.5 oz. shea butter
2.5 oz. cocoa butter
2.5 oz. mango butter
(or use 8 oz. of one type of butter if you don't have all three butters)
40-50 drops essential oil
|
|
|
Measure out the ingredients using a kitchen scale, this is the best way to measure those butters, if you don't have a scale use 1 cup coconut oil, 1/2 cup beeswax and 1/3 cup each of the butters. Melt over very low heat, I put my ingredients in a glass measuring cup and placed that in a pan of simmering water. Once melted take off the heat and add 40-50 drops essential oil, stir well then pour into mold of choice. We used muffin cups and soap molds to experiment with different shapes and sizes.
|
|
Let cool and completely harden before trying to remove from molds. After removing we placed the lotion cups and hearts on muffin papers then wrapped in plastic wrap. The paper muffin cups make for easy application without the bar melting in your hand while applying.
|
|
|
What Essential Oils to Use?
You can use one single essential oils, a couple of different essential oils to customize your own blend or choose an essential oil blend*. Choose your essential oils based upon what you want to achieve with your particular lotion bar. Do you want a wonderful scent? Try some lavender, ylang ylang or chamomile - these will also give you some stress relieving properties and calm your nerves. Are you looking to soothe sore muscles? Add some wintergreen, peppermint, pine or copaiba. Turn your lotion bar into a bug repellent bar by adding some citronella, lemongrass, or peppermint. You get the idea - Now go have some fun!
While the hearts look really cute and fun, they were a bit awkward to handle while applying, we loved the ease of use with the cups and bar.
Where to get ingredients
All ingredients for this project can be purchased from Mountain Rose Herbs or Bulk Apothecary. I have used both of these companies and while Bulk Apothecary has better pricing, you do get what you pay for. Mountain Rose Herbs has very high quality ingredients and you can tell a big difference between them both. I still use both. I find I will only use cocoa butter from Mountain Rose but I can settle for the other butters from Bulk Apothecary and I haven't noticed a difference in the beeswax as long I get the yellow.
