Shea and Cocoa

Are you sick of having multiple products in your bathroom drawer? Well, this body butter is multi-purpose – You can use it anywhere that needs hydration. It can be used as an all-over skin moisturiser, cuticle balm, lip balm, for cuts, scraps, and foot balm. You can even add some sugar or salt to use as a body exfoliate! You name it! I think you are going to love what it does for your skin.

This homemade body butter is a must-have – and honestly, the smell is amazing! The best thing? It is 100% natural, with no preservatives or chemicals. So you can be confident using it on you & your kids.

A body butter is made by combining solid and liquid oils. Basically, you can make body butter with any oils, as long as it is 25% liquid and 75% solid, with this recipe I chose to work with cocoa butter and shea butter as my solids, and apricot kernel oil as my liquid.

Cocoa Butter has a beautiful distinct scent – so yes, you will smell… delicious! I love working with cocoa butter as I feel I don’t need to add any essential oils for smell, as it already smells amazing. It contains fatty acids which help to retain moisture and build elasticity and also has properties which can help ease dermatitis or rashes.

ingredients  

What you need:

  • 100 gram Shea butter refined
  • 100 gram Cocoa butter
  • 4 tbsp Apricot kernel oil 
  • 2 Containers

Step One: I am using a double boiler to melt my oils – I boiled the water on the oven to boiling point and then removed and placed on my chopping board – The steam from the water will be enough to melt my solid butter. The cocoa butter can be quite hard so I recommend chopping them up into small pieces to make the melting process go a bit faster.

 pot boil

Step two: Once the butters have melted – add your apricot kernel oil. Then place into the freezer for about one hour – until the liquid has turned to semi-fluid. Not too soft, but not too hard it won’t whip up!

oil freeze

Step Three: Whip until the oil turns into a thick cream-like consistently.

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Step Four: Add to your containers – Done !

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When you apply this body butter to your skin, it leaves a beautiful layer of oil, your skin will absorb. Your skin feels absolutely amazing and will stay moisturised for hours! I chose to keep mine in the fridge, as it will last for months!

Give it a try, we would love to hear your comments!

 

10 Comments

  1. Isabel

    Hi Koko, thank you for this recipe! I will be trying this recipe out today!

    Reply
  2. margaret.stokes

    Hi Koko firstly thank you very much for the recipes. I made the body whip with the avocado and coconut oil – just delicious. Also made this body balm but finished up increasing the % of liquid to solid to 50/50. Another lovely body product but I found the 25/75 ratio made a balm that was very difficult to scoop from the container especially since I am keeping my home made body products in the fridge. Am going to try the lip balm recipe next. I will add mica to the recipe for a bit of colour. Looking forward to experimenting. Margaret

    Reply
  3. Heather

    Hi guys, i tried this recipe yesterday but its turned out very hard. Any suggestions as to why this has happened. Only thing i can of is i use cocoa pellets rather than the butter. Would that had made it harder?

    Reply
    • Brian Simpson

      Hi Heather, sorry for the delay getting back to you. It may be the mix of butters to oils is a little off, Cocoa can be very hard so try upping the oils a little to soften up the recipe’. Sometimes it takes a little tweaking.

      Reply
  4. Lyn Butler

    Can you use Sweet Almond Oil instead of the Apricot?

    Reply
    • Brian Simpson

      Hi Lyn, yes this should work fine. Give it a try and let us know what you find. Thanks:)

      Reply
  5. Paula Robinson

    Hi I was wondering if it is possible to tweak this recipe to make a moistourising bar or perhaps you may have a recipe to make one. Thanks’
    Paula

    Reply
    • Brian Simpson

      Hi there, to be honest I’m not sure. The author of this post/recipe is no longer with us and we’re on the hunt for a new ‘beauty blogger’. Perhaps another reader will be able to help. Thanks.

      Reply
  6. lindacsmith74

    Hi, I’m just about to make this recipe & was wandering if i could add a few drops of essential oils like Lavender or even a few drops of vitamin E oil to this recipe?

    Reply
    • Customer Service

      Hi Linda, yes you can add a couple drops of Lavender Essential Oil or Vitamin E to this recipe.

      Reply

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