Monday 15 December 2008

Make Your Own Solid Body Butter

My most popular blog post of all was the Make Your Own Bath Bomb post way back in November of last year. I have yet to post anymore tutorials like that and decided it was certainly time to bring back a "make your own..." tutorial.

This tutorial teaches you how to make your own exfoliating, solid body butter much like another most wanted Lush product called Buffy.

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Ingredients
Fair Trade Cocoa Butter (Theobroma cacao), Shea Butter (Butyrospermum parkii), Ground Rice (Oryza sativa), Ground Almonds (Prunus dulcis), Ground Aduki Beans (Phaseolus), Perfume, Lavender Oil (Lavandula hybrida), Lemon Oil (Citrus limonum), *Citral, *Limonene, *Linalool.

Description
Scrub-a-dub-dub, get this body butter in the tub (or shower) and buff away the day's worries. Stress disappears as our lavender-scented body butter melts into your skin, making it way beyond silky. Ground rice, almonds and aduki beans exfoliate to velvety perfection as the natural butters provide maximum miniaturization. So put down your loofah, grab your Buffy, and smooth your cares away.

Buffy (Lush replica)

Makes: Two 100g bars
Difficulty: Easy

78 g refined cocoa butter (39%)
78 g refined shea butter (39%)
14 g ground rice (7%)
14 g ground almonds (7%)
12 g ground adzuki or red beans (6%)
*4 g fragrance/essential oils (2%)
mould for individual 100 g rectangular shaped bars

1. Melt the butters gently over a double boiler or in short 10-15 second bursts in the microwave.
2. Add in ground exfoliants and stir well.
3. When the mixture is warm to the touch, around 45C/115F, add in your fragrance/essential oils.
4. Allow to cool in the fridge until the mixture becomes opaque and has thickened slightly. This helps keep the exfoliants suspended in the mixture instead of sinking to the bottom when placed in the mould. Stir well.
5. Spoon the mixture into your mould and bang it down gently on the counter to get an even surface and release trapped air bubbles.
6. Put the mould back into the fridge and wait. Check back after 20 minutes and it should have hardened nicely. Pop it out of the mould and enjoy!

*the amount of each essential oil to add really depends on what you like. Lush uses lavender and lemon oil; play around with them to come up with a blend that you are happy with.

The recipe uses 80% butters (including fragrance/essential oils) and 20% exfoliants. You may adjust the percentages of butters and exfoliants to come up with a scrubbier bar or one that is less scrubby. However, I recommend not reducing the percentage of your butters to any less than 70% or it might not hold together very well. 70% butters and 30% exfoliants makes for a very scrubby bar!

This makes a very hard bar and the high content of cocoa butter will ensure your bar doesn't melt at room temperature.You should still store it in a cool, dry place when not in use especially on hot days or if you live in a tropical country. You may have difficulty rubbing it into your skin but the bar is designed to be used in a hot shower and should melt nicely.

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A picture of the solid body butters I made. I used 70% unrefined butters, 30% exfoliants and omitted the use of fragrance or essential oils. You can tell it's a bit more speckly :)

The above recipe is NOT the actual Lush recipe (I wish!) but a result of experimentation by me. If you choose to republish the recipe on your site or through any other medium, a heads-up and credit back to my original recipe would be greatly appreciated!

That being said, I hope you have enjoyed the recipe and stay tuned for more Lush "Make Your Own" recipes!

Tip: If you don't have adzuki beans you can use ground coffee beans instead. Caffeine applied topically is apparently supposed to help with cellulite.

Ingredients, description and picture of Lush's Buffy were taken from Lush USA.

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello, i'm french, i'm take my cosmetics home made too, if you want look my blog !

I take a recipe of body butter "lush type " too, with emulsifing wax : in the water the body bar turns in cream, really !!!

the recipe : http://byreo.canalblog.com/archives/2007/12/01/6715002.html or http://byreo.canalblog.com/archives/2007/07/31/5634226.html or http://byreo.canalblog.com/archives/2007/08/22/5774468.html

thanks !

Anonymous said...

oh sorry for the links you you must add .html at the end of the adress

Maria said...

I just discovered your site through a search for bath bomb recipes and found your body butter recipe! I love love love Buffy from Lush and was ecstatic to find your recipe. Can't wait to try it out!

kellistarr said...

Michelle,

I tried this body butter recipe and was ecstatic at how easy and great the bar works. Love it. Made some for a few friends. Saved myself loads of money. Thanks, again. BTW, your bars look great!

Neelam said...

I was searching for some nice homemade cosmetic recipes and came across your blog. I was really excited to see recipe for my beloved Buffy! But I am a newbie in this area and I tried something in this area with my hands for the first time. I started with your buffy recipe and it came out pretty well for a first timer I would say. I did some goof ups though! Tried to use Geranium instead of Lavender and found it a bit overpowering! But I have learned my lessons now :)
I have question about the mold though! I used something I could get my hands on and I had bit of a difficulty removing my solidified buffy and ended up with some scratches :( Do you have any recommendations for molds?

Thanks a ton for this wonderfully simple recipe for one of my favorite products :-)

Cheers,
Neelam

Elizabeth Ann said...

How do you grind the Almonds, Rice and beans? Or do you buy them pre-ground?

Janie Braswell said...

I dont see an answer. I also would
like to know if you grind your own almonds and beans or where to buy
already ground? Also do you use a coffee grinder? I love your blog.
Thanks
Janie in Texas

Edigo said...

To answer your questions, from reading the hole blog this morning : almond is blanched than grounded in the blender. As for adzuki she puts it as is in a blender. I guess the same goes for the rice, or maybe you can use rice flour?i will try the recipe today using a mimi chopper tp grpund things. A coffee gribder probably works to...

Ali said...

Hi! I just found your blog and can't tank you enough for this recipe. I have just started dabbling in making my own body products and can't wait to try a lot of you recipes. Thank you!!

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Anonymous said...

My bar melts in my hands, what did I do wrong? Its in a solid form,but i can easily squeeze in my hand and it will lose its shape :(

Michelle said...

Hello Nicole,

The only thing I can think of is that the bar may have been unmoulded too early and was still warm and therefore soft to the touch.

As cocoa butter and shea butter are originally solid in form, they should harden up properly.

Do you live in a warm country? As that could also be a factor as to why the butters are not solidifying as they should.

Were you following the recipe above? Please let me know what steps you took to make the bars exactly and I may be able to provide more insight.

Good luck!

Sonya. said...

Hi,

Would someone mind telling me what is the difference between using soy or bees wax in body bars? How does it alter the product? As some recipes state waxes, and others don't. Also, notice Lush don't appear to use waxes? One formula i did hear 1/3 oil, 1/3 butters and 1/3 wax. Just wondering what the ratio of oils and butters would be without any wax. Any help warmly appreciated.

Kindest thanks.
Sonya.

Michelle said...

Hello Sonya,

Waxes are often used in solid lotion bars to increase its hardness. Soy wax is much softer than beeswax and has a lower melting point.

It really depends what sort of lotion bar you want to end up with. Just remember that beeswax has a melting point of around 62 C and if you use too much, the bar will not melt properly on contact with the skin. You can experiment with around 15 - 25% beeswax if you like a harder bar. Also bear in mind, that if you use a harder wax like candelilla wax you will have to use less of it.

Again, the ratio of oils and butters in a lotion bar are also dependent on what you are trying to achieve. They are also dependent on how hard the butters are (cocoa butter is harder than shea butter). To make a solid massage bar you can try 2 parts hard oils (use a hard butter like cocoa butter) to 1 part soft oil.

Let me know how it goes!

trish g said...

Thanks for the recipe but mine was a big fail...
I melted equal parts
.5 oz. Cocoa Butter &
.5 oz. Ultra-Refined Shea Butter
in the microwave.
I poured them into 3 very shallow molds and hardened in the freezer for 15 mins.

I brought 1 in the shower and it sat approx. 10 mins. until I was ready to moisturize. I went to pick it up and it was mush.
Could the exfoliants that I omitted actually keep it solid?
Thanks!

Michelle said...

Dear Trish,

The bar is designed to melt in the shower and turn into oils which you can massage in to your skin. I believe the reason for it turning to mush so quickly was the size of the bar.

Did 1 oz of butters poured in to the moulds make thin bars? I would suggest upping the amount of butters used and pouring it into a larger mould to make it last longer.

As cocoa butter and shea butter will both melt at body temperatures, they do go quite quickly in a hot shower and will not stay solid for long. Sort of like melting the butters in a bain marie.

The exfoliants do help in holding the bar together but you should still be able to enjoy it without them.

Good luck!

trish g said...

Thank you so much Michie! My bars are only about 1/4" thick.

When I reread your response to Nicole, "As cocoa butter and shea butter are originally solid in form, they should harden up properly." It hit me that my shea is almost the consistency of soft Crisco, and perhaps yours is more solid than mine. Plus as my bars unfroze they were so soft I couldn't get them out of the mold.

I looked up pictures of shea butter on google images & most appear to be much more solid than mine (almost like my raw cocoa butter is).

Anyway, what worked for me was equal parts...
-Beeswax
-Shea butter
-coconut oil
(perhaps Nicole might want to try this too;)

Thanks again!

Michelle said...

Hi Trish,

That's a good point! I have worked with shea butter that has been very soft and other times they have been quite solid in form and I have had to break them off in chunks.

Thank you for your recipe, that sounds like it would make a very lovely bar :)

Kim said...

Hi Michie -- I love that you are still commenting on this post as recently as this past year!

Thank you for the recipe. I'm going to try to do these in bulk for quite a few gifts this year... here's to hoping it works! Fingers crossed. :)

Benefits of Coffee said...

dude seen your site first time. I must say there is something special or you can say a spark in your work. Thanks for the recipe. I'll be back later for some great stuff...
Skin Repair

Body Contouring said...

You can make your own solid body butter. Learn all about it

Anonymous said...

Hi:) I was wondering where you bought your ingredients and how you measured everything out? Thanks- Nessa:)

Anonymous said...

Mine's been in the fridge for hours now and nothings changed :/ it's not hardened or anything I followed the recipe too :/

Zikhona Tefu said...

I was just wondering, how fine must the rice, almonds Ndlovu beans be ground? Must it be a fine powder? Or should it be rough, with rough edges? Also, can any other bean be used instead o the Aduki ? Lastly, can the almonds be replaced by something else?

Zikhona Tefu said...

Can a coffee version of this e made, or do you think the coffee grounds would spoil?

Anonymous said...

I was so excited to find this on pinterest. I tried it but the ground pieces stayed at the bottom of my mould. I'm also to blame since I used a silicone cupcake liner as my mould. Im not sure if I should've grind them more to help them from sinking to the bottom.
Thank you
~Jolie

Michelle said...

Hello Nessa, it's from Aussie Soap Supplies and I use an electronic weighing scale :)

Hi Zikhona, yes I ground them to a powder. I have not experimented with anything else but I believe coffee grounds would work well.

Hi Jolie, you might have poured it when it was still quite hot and the oils were clear. If you make them again, try waiting until the liquid becomes opaque and thicker then give it a good stir and pour. And yes, the ground pieces need to be quite fine :) Also, your silicone mould should've worked well, did it stick to your mould?

Anonymous said...

Hello my is Jenny and want to say that I visit your blog. It all in French is they anyway I that see in English

Anonymous said...

Hi! I tried your recipe but the bars are WAY too soft, even after 24 hours. It's not hot or humid here and I learned about tempering the butters. How do you melt them exactly???
Because I melted mine wrong and they were ruined :(

Marxh1234 said...

Thabk you so much for sharing this, I'm super excited to try,Can you please convert to ounces?

Jme said...

Hello - do you use Shea Butter soap base or just straight Shea Butter?