Homemade Non-Toxic Body Lotion

I’ve been meaning to create my own body lotion for some months now. I switched over to making my own face cream, but couldn’t find a recipe for body lotion that I liked. I wanted something just as pure and natural as my face cream (shea butter, apricot oil and essential oil) but less thick and easier to spread on my entire body – my face cream is mostly shea butter, so it’s super thick.

I finally decided this morning to just bite the bullet and experiment. How hard could it be to make a thinner cream? I kept thinking I needed to add water, but then I’d need an emulsifying agent to mix the water and oil for all time, and that’s the part the kept stopping me up. Then it hit me, I could just use more oil and less shea. Ah ha! So that’s what I did. I basically reversed the amounts of oil and shea from my face cream, and since I wanted something sweeter smelling for the winter season, I decided to try using vanilla extract for the scent – I don’t know any better, so why not? I tried it on a sample and it smelled great. Vanilla-y. Imagine that.

Here’s my recipe:

8 Tbs. Jajoba oil
4 Tbs. Apricot oil
6 Tbs. Shea butter
3 Tbs. Pure vanilla extract

Using a glass container (I used a 4C Pyrex measuring cup with spout – this makes it easy to transfer the lotion to your jar later) combine the shea butter and oils. Heat on low heat, around 170-200 for 5-8 minutes. I used a toaster oven for this and it worked perfectly. Mix oils thoroughly and add your essential oil or vanilla extract for fragarance. Mix. Let cool, pour into jar or bottle. I reused the jajoba oil bottle, though mine was perfectly emptied by the 8 Tbs. I used. I suggest reusing some type of squeeze or pump bottle for this lotion.

After writing this, I went back and tried my fully-cooled lotion, and decided I wanted it just a bit thicker, so I added another 2Tbs. of shea butter. This is like any recipe in that you may tailor it to your personal preferences. Have fun!

- Jocelyn Broyles

Headline image Daquella Manera