Homemade Soaps and Lotions

I've been obsessed with making natural, homemade soaps for a long time. I've talked about it and talked about making soaps as part of learning homesteading skills and I finally got around to learning this year.  And now I'm totally hooked!

I have a small collection of soaps now to give to friends and enough bars for personal use for the next 2 or 3 years.  You'd think I'd stop but I can't!! It's like my obsession with gardening and growing my food, now I'm constantly thinking about soaps and lotions.  It's completely changed my life!  It's helped with my skin so much lately.  I've been having horrible issues with dry skin as I've gotten older and gardening like a mad woman and commercial soaps haven't helped.  Now I can customize my soaps for my skin!! It was easy especially since there are so many beginner kits you can purchase online.  I bought this one to start: Beginner's Cold Process Soap Kit. 

This morning I took the next step and made a body butter.  There are tons of great recipes online now so I picked one and modified it for my personal taste.  The hard fats I used were coco butter, coconut oil and bees wax.  The soft oils I used were rice bran oil and jojoba.

Like all body butter recipes, I melted the solid fats using a double boiler system, added the soft oils once the solids melted and then chilled the mixture.  I basically stuck the bowl into the fridge and checked occasionally to see if my oils were solidifying. I believe it took a good hour or so for the oils to partially solidify. Once the oils reached the right solid state, not too hard and just soft in the middle, I just whipped using a stick blender with a whisk attachment! That's it!!

It gets all creamy and fluffy!!  A pint size canning jar was a perfect container and I just scooped it all into the jar. Since some of the oils did start to loosen from blending, I just placed the jar in the fridge to re-solidify.

This stuff is amazing!!  Most body lotions/creams never keep my skin moisturized long enough.  Not only does the moisture last, it smells like chocolate thanks to the coco butter!!  There are no preservatives and so far the emulsion seems to be stable. It melts as soon as it hits my skin and gets oily at first, but then just sinks in and leaves a light coating of oil that's dry.  LOVE THIS STUFF!!

With the combo of homemade soaps and lotions, I think I'll finally be able to survive the winter without painful dry skin!  I can also now check off homemade soaps and lotions off my homesteading skills list. FINALLY!!