Homemade Natural multipurpose body balm

Why Should you swap to natural products?

I made the swap to making home made body creams and deodorant when my firstborn was young.

I had read and heard about the potentially harmful effects of artificially fragranced beauty and household products and potential link to increases in cancer over the decades. This was my attempt to remove as many unnaturally derived fragrances from my home and where possible use only natural products.

What’s wrong with artificial fragrance?

Beauty products and creams are notoriously bad for containing chemicals and nasty hidden ingredients. Have you ever looked at the back of one of your face creams? Who even knows what half that stuff even is?

Did you know that legally companies are not required to say exactly what ingredients are used to provide scent in beauty products and they can just use the term “fragrance”? That stuff is being smeared all over our faces and bodies and we really do know so little about what is even in them.

What is homemade natural balm good for?

This all natural multipurpose cream has many uses

Make-up Remover
Dry skin
Nappy cream (I used it for my daughter all the time and it really helped clear up soreness)
Pregnancy bump balm
Stretch Marks. Although not proven to help I found this really helped my post birth stretch marks
Hand cream
Lip balm

Is it hard to make natural body lotion?

In one simple answer, No!

Once I discovered just how easy it was to make body butters and creams at home, using all natural and safe ingredients you can easily obtain, I’ve never looked back.

You do need to have the initial funds to buy the raw ingredients and I appreciate that I am privileged in order to be able to do that. What I would say is after an initial cost of around £15-£20 to buy the items in bulk, it has lasted me well over 3 years and counting. This also includes occasionally making it for friends and family too.

The upfront cost is reduced further if you buy smaller quantities too.

What Ingredients do I need to make DIY face and body creams?

The ingredients here can be interchanged, depending on what you are able to get hold of or your personal preference.

You can swap in or out any of the butters; shea butter, cocoa butter and mango butter are all interchangeable here. If you have allergies to coconut oil you can easily replace it with another oil. I have historically swapped in rapeseed oil for my MIL who is allergic to coconut.

The same goes with the olive oil, you can use vegetable oil, almond oil or rapeseed oil, or any you have at home to your taste.

Recipe

You will need

An electric hand or stand mixer
Clean containers to put your cream into
A Saucepan of hot water
Glass bowl for a bain-Marie
A spatula for scooping

Ingredients

1/2 cup pure shea butter
1/2 cup pure cocoa butter
1/2 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup olive oil
15-30 drops of essential oil/s of choice

*This recipe will make quite a lot of cream, roughly 2-3 small jars (I use old pesto ones).
If you want a smaller batch use 1/4 cup or for one pot only use 2 tablespoons of each.

Method

Melt all the ingredients apart from essential oils in a bain marie, mixing continuously.
Leave to cool a little then pop in the fridge for an hour or so until starting to harden a bit.
Add any essential oils you fancy 15-30 drops depending how strong you want the scent
Using a handmixer whisk until thick and creamy.
Decant into clean containers- old jars work well
Refrigerate overnight to harden. its ready to go.

In warmer months the cream may separate in the heat so either keep in the fridge or re- whisk and refrigerate to harden again.