DIY Shimmer Body Butter

I have annoyingly sensitive skin, and shopping for cosmetics and body products just peeves me right off. I never know what is going to make my skin itchy and red, so I decided I'd just start making my own products.

I could go into how I don't trust all of the chemicals that are in today's cosmetics and beauty products, but I feel like there are enough blogs and articles about that right now. Just watch this documentary and you will know where I stand.

Anyway, whenever I shave my legs, I need moisturizer immediately after I dry my skin. Without it, my skin turns into an angry desert with oodles of bumpy follicles. This concoction has been my new friend. And it's a little sassy with a slight shimmer. Yay sassy shimmer!

Products I used:
-organic coconut oil
-shea butter
-mica powder

Optional ingredients:
-essential oils

You can use any color mica powder that complements your skin tone. This recipe could probably be tweaked to make a self tanner type body butter. (I will get back to you on that one if I ever try it.)

Supplies
-container (I used 4 oz mason jar, but you could also order jars from this site.)
-pan
-spoon
-glass or metal bowl to mix ingredients
-measuring cups and spoons if you are feeling precise. I wasn't feeling precise.

General recipe guidelines:
For a soft body butter, I used a 1:1 ratio of butter and oil. This makes the product easy to scoop into your hand, but solid enough that it won't run all over.

Coconut oil melts around 76 degrees, so right when it touches your skin it begins to melt. Shea butter has a higher melting point, and this keeps your skin from feeling too greasy. It softens on the skin, but doesn't melt completely.

Since I was using a four ounce jar, I used about two ounces of coconut oil, and two ounces of shea butter. Two ounces equals 1/4 cup, if you feel like measuring exact amounts. If you are making this in the summer, the 1:1 ratio should keep the product creamy, but if you are making this in the winter and your house is freezing all the time like mine is, then you may want to add a little bit of liquid oil (like grapeseed oil) to the recipe. My Natural Face Cream recipe works great for winter applications.

Alright, let's get down to business. Fill your pot with about an inch of water. Put your metal or glass container in the water with the shea butter and coconut oil. I put it on medium heat. You don't need the water to boil, but mine did because I was impatient. Stir the oil and butter together until everything is melted.

Use an oven mitt to pull the mixture out of the pot. I like to keep a paper towel close by to set my spoon onto so that I don't need to scrub anything off my counters. (This comes in handy when dealing with recipes that include beeswax. That doesn't scrub off as easily as oils and butters).

Now pour the mixture into your container. Measure out your mica powder. I used a 1/4 teaspoon of powder. You can do more or less depending on how much shimmer you want. A 1/4 tsp gives a light shimmer. You won't look like a pixie or anything. It just adds a little glow to your skin. I used an old chopstick to mix the mica powder into the melted oil and butter, but a spoon works too.

Now let your mixture cool. You can shake it up every now and then to make sure the shimmer powder doesn't settle at the bottom as it cools.

If you didn't want a shimmer. You can easily omit the mica powder for just a plain moisturizer. You could also add fragrance or essential oils to the mixture for a yummy scent. I have used fragrance oil from this site. The unrefined organic coconut oil I used smells like yummy coconut so that's enough scent for me, but feel free to add more smells!

I know that some people (like me) worry about artificial fragrances causing endocrine disruptions or skin irritations (which a lot of them do), but sometimes I just want to smell like something other than essential oils. So, use artificial fragrances at your own risk. When I scent my products, I use 1% fragrance and 99% butter, oil, wax, etc.

For this recipe, to figure out the amount of essential oil or fragrance to use, I convert the measurements into milliliters. It's much easier to use metric measurements when dealing with such small amounts. Let's say you use a 4 oz container, which is 118.3 milliliters. You would use 99% or 117 ml of oil and butter and 1.83 milliliters of fragrance oil or essential oil. A 1/4 tsp is roughly 1. 25 ml. Sorry if that's overly complicated. If it is, just put like 10 to 20 drops of essential oil in your recipe, and see if that's smelly enough for you. For artificial fragrance oil, try to follow the 1% measurements. If you put more in, it is more likely to cause skin irritation.

When the shimmer butter cools, it's a nice solid white color. If the butter is too cold to scoop up easily, it probably means it's too cold in your house. Just hold your fingers in the jar until it starts to melt. Now slather it all over and smell the coconutty goodness.

Warning: If you have cats, they might lick your skin to try to eat the oil. My cat is a freak and tries to lick my legs when I'm not looking. Anywho, let me know if you have questions, comments, concerns, etc.!