Sunday, January 3, 2016

Homemade Lotion Bars

My sister has been into using essential oils for a long time, and she's been giving me a few to try when she's almost out of it (so I get partial bottles for free, which is awesome!). We used them when we had the flu--in a diffuser, making it easier to breathe at night. Beyond that, I never really sought out buying them, except for lavender oil for sleeping, and peppermint oil because I liked it.

Anyway, Dave's aunt invited me to a DoTerra class where they talked about the oils and their uses. I'm still not going to spend a lot of money on them, or become a distributor, but I'm starting to see that they have a huge variety of uses. DoTerra is a more expensive company though ($90 for a 1.5 oz of Frankincense??) but my sister gets them a lot cheaper though her company, Butterfly Express ($4 for the same amount of the same oil).

I was browsing through blogs, looking for uses for these oils, and came across a recipe for homemade lotion bars! Three ingredients: beeswax, coconut oil, and shea butter (or cocoa butter). I bought a few ounces of beeswax, already had coconut oil, and found some shea butter at Whole Foods. Melted them down using one part of each, plus some oil. I made lavender, lemon, and peppermint bars. I also used paper baking cups for the molds.

My supplies: beeswax, coconut oil, shea butter, essential oils, and baking cup molds.

The finished product! I think I could find some cuter molds at various thrift stores (Yerington has 3, sometimes 4 thrift stores and Carson City has a lot more) but these work just fine! I'm thinking even tea lite holders could work as molds! I made three different kinds, but what I really wanted was a peppermint bar, and that's what I ended up with.

I did make a pretty good mess in the kitchen while I was melting everything down, mixing in the oils, and pouring the molds, but I just told Dave not to look! I gave a couple bars to one of our neighbors and she said she loves the "thick seriousness" of it...we all have dry hands out here and this has made a huge difference! My cracked fingers healed and my feet are actually soft! Dave's cousin's wife made some whipped body butter with cocoa butter and orange oil so I may have to try that soon.

I got the recipe from Wellness Mama's blog.