Ever since moving 30 minutes away from the city, I find the air here cooler, drier and of course wreaking havoc on my skin. A few days after settling in, my skin was so dry and scaly, I found it flaking onto my black clothes (the horror!:O). I knew I had to whip up a batch of body butter for the rescue. I have spent the past year and a half creating lotions, lip salves, mixing melt and pour soap but this is the first time I have ever had a go at whipped butter. I’ve researched lots of recipes but the main ingredients are always the same (butter and oil), it’s the percentage of each that varies. Making your own body butters is a lot of fun and actually not that complicated. You can easily add your own choice of butters and oils and be happy knowing there aren't any icky chemicals going in your formula. In this recipe I use 60% butter and 40% oils.
Ingredients
5 oz Unrefined natural shea butter
4 oz soy butter
1 oz pumpkin butter
3 oz Fractionated Coconut Oil
3 oz Jojoba Oil
2 tsp cornstarch
Mixer
Glass Bowl large enough to hold all ingredients
Large pot which the glass bowl can fit in for melting ingredients
Spoons and knives for scooping butters
Digital scale for weighing ingredients
(optional) Saran wrap (for weighing butters on scale)
STEP 1
Disinfect your containers and workspace, anything that touches your raw materials must be clean. This means bowls, spoons, the scale, saran wrap.
I clean all my equipment in the dishwasher and clean my counters with a bleach solution (1 part bleach, 10 parts water) prior to starting any recipe project.
STEP 2
Take your large pot and fill with one to one and half inches of water and set on stove to low medium heat. Measure out all the ingredients to the correct weight amount and add to glass bowl. To make life easier, I usually place a piece of cling or saran wrap over the scale before weighing butters (this helps for easy transfer from scale to bowl as well as easy clean up).
Place the glass bowl in the large pot filled with water being heated and wait for ingredients to melt (this can take up to 15-20 minutes). Take a metal spoon to mix well. Once butter and oils have melted and mixed, add 2 tsp cornstarch and stir until completely dissolved.
When this is done, turn off the heat and slowly remove the glass bowl from the pot (using kitchen pot holders). Use caution because the glass bowl is hot as well as ingredients.
STEP 3
Place the glass bowl in a cold water bath or ice bath and place in the refrigerator or freezer to cool (it took me about 45 minutes with the refrigerator, may be shorter time if you place it in freezer).
After 45 minutes, remove the glass bowl from the water bath. Use mixer to whip butter. After about 10 minutes, the butter should thicken in consistency.
(this is what the butter looks like after whipping w mixer)
If after mixing for 5 minutes, you find the butter is not thickening, place it in the cold water bath and back in refrigerator for additional cooling.
Once cooled and whipped to perfection (to your liking), you are ready to place the whipped butter in a beautiful jar! I admit the whipped butter was not as “whipped” as I would have liked but still provided the moisture my skin was craving for.
(whipped butter in storage container)
RESULTS
This recipe does make a somewhat oily butter so if you’re not looking for oily feel to the butter, you can replace oils with less greasy carrier oils such as grape seed or safflower. If you’re not a fan of the nutty aroma of shea butter, add a few drops of your fav essential oil (just use caution, too many drops can cause a skin reaction. Essential oils are concentrated and need to be diluted with a carrier oil before use).
(whipped butter in small jar for on the go use)
In my next whipped butter recipe, I will replace the Jojoba oil with a lighter oil. I might play around with another butter such as mango, increase the percentage of butter, decrease percentage of oil and add more cornstarch.
Nonetheless, this made a soft and nourishing butter that melts on my skin; perfect for this wintery weather (plus making it was so much fun, omg!@#).
Do you enjoy making your own whipped body butters? I'd luv to hear any fav ingredients you like to add to make your butters awesome.
Happy Holidays skin ravers!
L