Homemade Lotion Bars

I love these lotion bars, they are great for your skin and also make great gifts.

Ingredients:

Oil of your choice (I usually use sweet almond oil or avocado oil)

Beeswax

Shea Butter

Essential oil or Fragrance oil

You will also need:

A scale

Something that is microwave safe to melt the ingredients 

Containers of your choice, I like to put the lotion in little metal tins

A soap or lotion mold, I have one that has a bee on it but you could also use a regular muffin tin

To start with you want to decide the total weight of you final lotion bar.  The mold I have makes bars that are 1.33 ounces.  The rest is easy...

Multiply this weight by the number of bars you plan to make, in my case I made 3 bars of the coconut scent and 2 bars of the lily scent.  So for the coconut, I multiplied 1.33 X 3.  Then subtract the amount of fragrance you plan to add, I like mine to be fairly strong (I allowed for 0.5 ounces of fragrance).  Then divide by 3, and this is the amount of each ingredient (the oil, beeswax and shea butter) that you need.

Add the liquid oil, beeswax and shea butter (do not add the essential oil or fragrance oil yet) to your microwavable container (I used a large glass measuring cup).  I generally microwave for 30-40 seconds, take out the container, swirl the contents and then microwave for another 30-40 seconds.  I like to microwave for short periods to make sure I don't overheat and/or burn anything. Repeat until all ingredients have been melted.

Once everything is melted, remove from the microwave and add the essential oil or fragrance oil.  Swirl them together and then pour into your mold.

You can either allow the lotion to harden at room temp or you can speed up the process by putting them in the freezer.  I like to put mine in the freezer for 30-40 minutes.

While the lotion hardens you can put together the containers you have decided to put the lotion in, I like to use these little tins.  The metal tins allow you to add a label and they make the lotion easier to take with you on the go.

After the lotion has hardened, you can remove them from the mold and insert into the container of your choice.  

I also make soap and I'm working on creating a recipe for some homemade whipped body butter.  Stay tuned for  how-to posts on these in the near future.