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I bought a tub of unrefined shea butter recently, and I’ve been rubbing little bits into any rough patches on my legs whenever I had an opportunity. Unfortunately, it’s hard to use since it’s grainy as hell (a result of being heated and cooled in transit), so I finally decided to do something with it – I made some lovely whipped body butter! (We were originally going to do this for my friend’s hens weekend, but we ended up wine tasting instead…)
The most basic whipped body butter recipe uses 3:2 butter/oil. You can use any plant butter, depending on the feel you want – common ones are shea, cocoa, mango and olive. I used grapeseed oil, since it’s supposed to give a lighter body butter and it was easy to find, but other oils can be used, such as olive, sweet almond and avocado. A lot of recipes also include beeswax (to help the butter keep its whipped texture afterwards) and cornstarch (to make the butter feel like it’s sinking into the skin), but for my first go I stuck to the basics.
100 g shea butter (I found that the density of my batch was actually 1 mL = 1 g, which made measuring easier!)
67 mL grapeseed oil
I read somewhere that it’s possible to de-grain shea butter without melting it if you whip it hard enough… in my case, it didn’t work (maybe I didn’t whip long enough, or it was too cold) and I just had a mess of graininess.
Instead, to reduce the grainiess, I microwaved the shea butter at 20 second intervals until it was all melted, added the oil, then stood the bowl in a tub of ice, whipping every once in a while until it felt thick enough to be whippable. Then I whipped the crap out of it.
(Sciencey side note: the graininess is because of the shea butter melting, then recrystallising into grainy crystals. What you want for a smooth texture is smaller crystals (it’s similar to making ice cream). We often have to make crystals in lab, and since larger crystals are purer, we always want to make large crystals, and the best way to do that is to cool slowly, and keeping them undisturbed. So for small crystals and a smooth texture, you want to do the opposite – cool quickly, and agitate it like crazy! That’s why chefs like Heston Blumenthal use liquid nitrogen to make ice cream – it cools the cream faster than a freezer, and makes the ice cream super smooth.)
Look how smooth and edible-looking it is! It reminds me of frosting. In the middle of whipping, I added a few mLs of vitamin E oil (preservative) and jasmine and vanilla scented oils. Yum!
Then I stuck it in jars and voila! The richest, most nourishing balm I’ve ever used. I’m going to give them away to my friends this winter… anyone for soft elbows?
i have always wanted to know how to make lotions!
🙂 It’s technically not a lotion (no water), but I’m going to try to make a proper lotion next!
I love your pedantic, sci-ency nature. 😀
Also, this product looks DELICIOUS.
wow that looks great 🙂
I sometimes see it in the fridge and want to eat it :
I bought a body butter whipped concoction that looks like this, and it smelled like sweet vanilla candy… Whenever I see it, I want to eat it!
Oh yeah… I want to eat anything vanilla scented! It’s really bad around candles… and vanillin dip in lab 🙁
Have you tried lush’s vanilla jasmine soap? gawd, I can really see myself biting it.
No, I’ll have to look out for it! 🙂
That looks so good I want to eat it! Om nom nom!
Haha! I’m really not kidding when I say it looks just like frosting… 🙁
great DIY!
Thanks! 🙂
Wow what a great tutorial! I’m definitely going to try this myself! Thanks for sharing! 😉
Let me know how it goes! 🙂
Does it have to be refrigerated or can I make it in small batches and use in like a week intervals
Does it have to be refrigerated or can I make it in small batches and use in like a week intervals
Thanks for explaining the CRYSTALS! Makes so much sense.
A mild cleansing gel which contains very gentle cleansing substances. For anyone who prefers a foaming cleanser or wants to gently
remove oiliness from the skin.
I lightly melt my unrefined shea butter in short bursts in the microwave on low power setting (so it gets no warmer than 80F), then whip the crap out of it for 5 mins, then freeze it for 5 mins, whip the crap out of it again for 5 mins, freeze it again for 5 mins….etc, etc…for up to an hour or more.
The end result is so white, thick and fluffy, you feel like you just want to swim in it. It fluffs up and holds it’s peaks just like whipped cream and customers love it.
A bit fussy, I suppose, but soooooo worth the effort.
Tried this, worked great but several hours later it became more like actual butter not cream, is this normal?
Yes, I’d like to know the same thing please! 🙂