Nourish your skin with this luxurious Homemade Body Butter recipe. It’s so simple to make with just a few ingredients, and you can customize the scents.
You can easily make your own DIY homemade body butter recipe for way cheaper. In fact, my recipe yields about 12 oz (nearly double the amount the natural brand at the health food store) and less than half the price – even at 6.5 oz.
Plus, the ingredients are organic, simple and nourishing to the body to soothe skin that’s good enough to eat – really.
What is Body Butter Good for?
Body butter is a skin moisturizer that typically contains cocoa butter, shea butter, coconut oil or another vegetable-based oil. It’s thicker than lotions and is extra effective at rejuvenating dry skin, whether used all over or only on problem patches, such as elbows and knees.
How to Make This Homemade Body Butter
This Homemade Body Butter makes an excellent gift, so be sure to double or triple the recipe to give out to friends and family. Now if it’s hot outside, it may lose a bit of its whipped consistency. That’s okay, it’s still amazing – and you can put it in the fridge to harden it up and then whip it again in the food processor.
1. In a food processor, add 1 cup coconut oil, 1/2 cup shea butter and 10 drops Lavender essential oil (or essential oils of your choice to customize for your own scent).
2. Pulse high until the body butter is a whipped-like consistency, about 2 minutes.
3. Use a spatula to remove and store in a Mason glass jar.
Did you know that conventional body lotions and creams contain a number of toxic ingredients? Look up your body lotion in the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) Skin Deep Database for a rating on the ingredients. You’ll be surprised what you’ll find.
Why You May Want to Avoid Store-Bought Body Butter
Even many so-called natural brands have questionable ingredients and cost a small fortune at the stores.
Here’s the ingredients list in a popular brand of body butter:
Aqua (water, eau), helianthus annuus (sunflower) seed oil, glycerin, cocos nucifera (coconut) oil, cetyl alcohol, prunus amygdalus dulcis (sweet almond) oil, parfum (fragrance)*, sucrose stearate, mel (honey, miel), butyrospermum parkii (shea) butter, simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) butter, theobroma cacao (cocoa) seed butter, tocopherol, lactic acid, magnesium aluminum silicate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, glyceryl laurate, sucrose polystearate, glycine soja (soybean) oil, xanthan gum, phenoxyethanol, geraniol, coumarin
Seems natural right? This company is using botanical names to make the ingredients sound natural, but a few of them are anything but natural.
First, there’s no indication what’s in the fragrance. This could be synthetic fragrances that can cause allergic reactions. There’s also soybean oil, which is highly refined and processed. All of the other ingredients rate between 1-3 (on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being low toxicity and 10 being high toxicity), according to the EWG.
But at $13.99 for just 6.5 oz you’d expect to get the best ingredients, right? Nope. There’s no indication any of these ingredients are organic, fair trade or GMO free. So what are you paying for?
Benefits of this Body Butter Recipe
Coconut oil is great for dry, scaly or itchy skin. It helps to naturally moisturize.
Shea butter is derived from the nuts of the shea tree, grown in Africa. It’s incredibly moisturizing and can help to protect skin from dryness.
Lavender essential oil is soothing to the skin and has a calming aroma – making it a perfect addition to any beauty or body care product.
An Inexpensive Body Butter Recipe
Organic coconut oil ($0.46/oz)
Organic shea butter ($0.75/oz)
Lavender essential oil ($0.20/drop)
Grand total to yield 12 oz = $8.68
This is even cheaper when you get Lavender essential oil at wholesale price. I chose to use organic ingredients. You can use raw or unrefined shea butter (not certified organic) to bring down the price or even substitute cocoa butter for shea butter to make it cheaper.
How to Use This Homemade Body Butter
Scoop out about a dime-size amount and rub in hands. Smooth over skin, including legs, arms, waist, and neck. Use more body butter as needed for luxuriously soft skin.
Top Tips for This Body Butter
- Don’t worry if your your skin feels greasy once you put the butter on, your skin will absorb it and it will be less greasy
- Store in a mason jar, in a cold dark place, lasts around 6 months
- Shea butter especially can vary in texture and color depending on the brand, but they will all work well
- Using a spoon or spatula to dip rather than your fingers will extend the life of the body butter.
How to Get Started with Essential Oils
- Sign up for my FREE essential oil email course in order to learn the basics.
- Check out my FREE online webinars all about essential oils and this beginner’s guide to essential oils.
- Get my essential oils online course – complete with video tutorials, e-book and everything you need to get started with essential oils.
- Find out how to buy essential oils at wholesale, and get a starter kit for 60% off retail prices. It’s the best deal around and a great way to get started with essential oils. Plus lots of freebies just for you.
More DIY Recipes You Might Like
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Want More DIY Recipes?
Check out my book Natural Beauty Made Simple. It comes with 45 homemade skincare recipes with a set of printable labels and gift tags. You can download it instantly to your phone, computer or e-reader, so it’s portable and can go with you anywhere!
With this book, you’ll learn how to:
- Make your own organic beauty and skin care products for less than $25 a month!
- Learn simple techniques to make your own skincare – without the fuss of complicated recipes or hard-to-find ingredients
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- Create beautiful gifts for friends and family with the printable labels and gift tags I’ve included with this book
Nourish your skin with this luxurious Homemade Body Butter recipe. It's so simple to make with just a few ingredients, and you can customize the scents.
- 1 cup coconut oil
- 1/2 cup shea butter
- 10 drops Lavender essential oil or essential oils of your choice
In a food processor, add coconut oil, shea butter and Lavender essential oil.
Pulse high until the body butter is a whipped-like consistency, about 2 minutes.
Use a spatula to remove and store in a Mason glass jar.
Photo credit: Shutterstock / maramorosz
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How long is the shelf life of this recipe?
Also, you mentioned above, if someone had a sensitivity to shea butter to ‘increase the beeswax a bit’ … however, your recipe doesn’t mention beeswax at all? How much wax should it have???
Thanks for pointing that out. I would use a double boiler and melt 1 cup of coconut oil with 3 tbsp of beeswax. Stir until the beeswax is totally melted. Then turn off the heat. Add essential oils to the mixture and pour into a glass jar. Let it cool. You can use as is and it’ll be a thick lotion. Or you can spoon out into a food processor and whip it.
Do you store this in the refrigerator? and can this be used on infant babies? Oh I love, love your website!
Thank you! I find I don’t need it in the fridge since the temperature where I live is pretty moderate. But you can if you feel the need to – if you live in a really warm climate. It is safe to use on babies – as long as the baby doesn’t have an sensitivity to shea butter.
What do you suggest if your baby does have a sensitivity to shea butter?
You could skip the shea butter and use cocoa butter or just coconut oil and increase the beeswax a bit.
This is very well explained recipe for making body butter at home. It will save more money than other chemical products. Thanks for sharing..!!
What can you use as a substitute for the coconut oil? I’ve tried recipes with coconut oil before and they really don’t moisturize my very dry skin at all. Thanks.
Olive oil and almond oil work well