Free recipe time! I’m sharing my recipe for my all-time favorite lotion bars with my most popular essential oil combinations. Choose from a simple lavender scent or sweet, floral fragrance… or go with our savvy traveler’s secret weapon: a lotion bar perfect for the airplane and airport with its antimicrobial, antiviral, antifungal, and antifunk essential oils.
These lotion bars are incredibly easy to make and simple to use. Make a larger batch to set in larger bars and give as full-on gifts or make many smaller bars for stocking stuffers. They are easy to use: simply rub the bar against your skin to spread some of the yum, and then rub it in with your hands to spread and melt the lotion bar across your skin’s surface. They’re perfect for keeping in a small container in your car, purse, locker, gym bag, desk drawer, you name it….
One of the fun thing about lotion bars is how surprisingly moisturizing they are without being, well, wet…. Putting traditional lotion on cold hands or feet can be downright chilling in winter; a lotion bar makes it possible to thoroughly coat and warm your skin without the chill in application. Lotion bars are also wonderful in winter months because of how beautifully and thoroughly the core ingredients coat and nourish the skin. They are also handy for travelers who want to avoid bringing liquids in their carry-on luggage!
I use silicone molds from Wilton.com to be able to make lots of smaller lotion bars in travel- and purse-friendly sizes, but you don’t have to get crazy fancy: regular muffin or mini-muffin pans with appropriately sized cupcake liners work perfectly as molds and allow for some fun paper designs. Plastic gift or snack bags are an easy way to wrap individual bars for gift-giving, too. You might also decide to pour your lotion bars into an empty compact or even jars.
Whichever way you decide to go, you’ll want to have a plan for how to wrap and protect the bars from melting in your recipients hands, purse, or bag.
Luscious Natural Lotion Bars
Scrumptious lotion bars are perfect for travel, stocking stuffers, and more
Ingredients
- 3 ounces of organic unrefined beeswax
- 3 ounces of organic unrefined shea butter
- 3 ounces of organic unrefined coconut oil
- a double boiler, heatproof measuring cup in a pan of water, or other means of safely melting your ingredients together
- silicone spatula for scraping the pan or cup
- appropriate mold(s), pans, cupcake liners, wrappers, parchment for packaging, jars (if you prefer the lotion in a container as opposed to a bar), etc.
Directions
- Step 1 To make your base blend, simply place the beeswax and coconut oil in a heatproof container, double boiler, or similar set-up and allow them to melt completely.
- Step 2 When they are thoroughly melted, remove them from the heat and add the shea butter, stirring until completely melted and combined. You might need to put the mixture back on the heat briefly to facilitate complete melting of the shea.
- Step 3 When the shea butter is thoroughly melted, combined with the wax and coconut oil, and removed from the heat, add your chosen essential oil blend to the base recipe. Stir gently to combine.
- Step 4 Pour immediately into your molds, lined muffin or mini-muffin cups, jars, etc. and allow to cool completely before removing them from the mold.
- Step 5 When set (at least 12 hours later), pop the bars out of the molds or cups and place in gift bags or other packaging for gifting. Store in a cool, dark place.
- Step 6 As always, keep aromatherapy products out of the reach of children–they look fun and smell interesting and you don’t want your gifts to be confused with candy!
Pure, Simple, Powerful Ingredients
Simple though they may be, our base ingredients have powerful properties in and of themselves: Beeswax softens and nourishes skin with vitamin A; it also happens to have antioxidant and antibacterial properties. Delicious shea butter is naturally antifungal; it relieves severely dry, chapped skin and itching. Shea butter should be sourced in an unrefined, organic form — the different between organic, unrefined and processed or refined shea butter is one you can see, feel, and smell. Natural shea has a delicious, rich, slightly nutty/vanilla-y aroma; processed shea has little to no aroma.
Like shea butter, coconut oil is naturally anti fungal and incredibly nourishing for the skin. You’ll want virgin, organic, unrefined coconut oil (as opposed to fractionated, which remains liquid at room temperature) so as to have something that provides the bar with some structure.
If you are familiar with shea butter and coconut oil, you already know that they have relatively low melting points — that’s what makes it possible for them to go from “bar” to yummy “shmear” on your skin so quickly! That also means they melt rapidly — even as you handle them — so watch out!
I can recommend three different essential oil blends for use with the base lotion recipe; you can, of course, also create your own blend.
If you’re making your own blend, I recommend no more than 5 drops of essential oil per ounce of base blend. If you are making the base blend above (equal to nine ounces of carriers), that would mean no more than 45 drops of ALL essential oils combined. In the case of “stronger” essential oils, I recommend using even less…. As always, your essential oils should be of the highest quality from a reputable distributor. At Untamed Alchemy, we recommend organic and wild-crafted essential oils from Aromatics International, Stillpoint Aromatics, or Pompeii Organics.
Lovely Lavender Lotion Bars
- Luscious Lotion Bar Base Recipe (as above)
- 30 drops of Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) essential oil
Lavender offers a simple, fresh, and herbaceous fragrance to our Luscious Lotion Bars. It is known for its gentle skin-healing, stress-relieving, and antidepressant properties as well as its calming energetic effect.
Fancy Floral Lotion Bars
- Luscious Lotion Bar Base Recipe (as above)
- 5 drops Ylang Ylang (Cananga odorata) essential oil
- 15 drops Jasmine (Jasminum grandiflorum) absolute
Because both Jasmine absolute and Ylang Ylang essential oil are quite intense in their fragrance, we need less of each to impart a balanced yet effective aroma in our lotion bars. (Good thing, too, since both jasmine and ylang ylang are precious and expensive oils!) In combination, jasmine and ylang ylang offer a sweet, exotic, and sensual floral fragrance is distinctly feminine.
Traveler’s Secret Lotion Bars
Once upon a time, I traveled all the dang time for work. I avoided bringing large quantities of my own lotions because, as liquids, they were tough to carry on the plane. As a result, my skin — and my hands in particular — would get incredibly dry from overly aggressive antibacterial soaps in airport bathrooms and low quality soaps and lotions in the various hotels where I stayed. I solved the problem by packing lotion bars with this simple yet effective essential oil blend that helped to not only nourish my skin, but also protect me from the “ick” out there.
The traveler’s “secret” is to have a lotion bar that uses essential oils with powerful therapeutic properties to reduce the risk of exposure in heavily trafficked or traveled places. To wit, this recipe uses a combination of antimicrobial, antifungal, antibacterial, antiviral, and immune stimulating essential oils. It also happens to smell absolutely fantastic!
- Luscious Lotion Bar Base Recipe (as above)
- 15 drops Sweet Orange (Citrus sinensis) essential oil
- 5 drops Ravintsara (Cinnamomum camphor ct 1,8 cineole) essential oil
- 5 drops Peppermint (Mentha piperita) essential oil
- 5 drops Tea Tree (Melaleuca alternifolia) essential oil
- 5 drops Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) essential oil
Back when I was traveling a lot, I kept a couple of these smaller bars in my purse in a plastic travel case designed for soap so I would have it handy on the plane and in airports; I kept a larger bar for use once I was in my hotel room. The aroma is bright, fresh, and uplifting — and incidentally excellent for reducing stress, too! Note that based on the essential oils used, I don’t recommend the Traveler’s Secret lotion bars for use with kids under 10.
