Time to read 3 mins
I love to make my own body butters and ointments from my favourite carrier oils, essential oils and medicinal garden plants. Below I share my favourite recipe!
At Christmas, I also love to make up a big batch of body butter and gift to my family and friends. Last Christmas was no different and I gave one of our elderly neighbours a pot of my hand concocted body butters along with some hand knitted socks.
He happened to love this gift. He suffers from diabetes and informed me that the butter slathered onto his feet and wearing his knitted socks to bed does wonders to soften his feet and helps with the problems he encounters with his feet due to his health condition.
I was happy to know it helps and decided to make up some more for him and would like to share my recipe with you.
Method
I gather my ingredients and melt it all down in my Crockpot especially for my skincare crafts. If you don’t have a crockpot that you will not then need to use for food, you can you a bain-marie or an old saucepan.
I simmer the mix on low for about 5 hours but obviously if using the hob or hot plate, you do not need to cook for this long.
Simmering the mix on low for about 20 mins should suffice. I feel like the longer it can cook though the more everything infuses.
Fresh Ingredients
For my body butter, I always like to use some fresh ingredients from the garden or from whatever dried goodies I have in store to have something for the infusion. For this butter, I have used fresh lime leaves and chamomile. Here is how they have been prepared for infusing.
Fresh Lime leaves (I pick some leaves from my tree but you can use lime or lemon essential oil.)
I rinse them off and then cut them up into small pieces or strips which helps to release the citrus oils that produce the lovely fresh scent.
Chamomile provides a lovely soothing property to the butter. I grow my own and harvest the leaves which are then washed, dried for a couple of weeks and stored in a jar.
The fresh lime leaves and dried chamomile are then put together in the muslin cloth and tied in a parcel with twine. Using muslin enables infusion but keeps the fresh ingredients together preventing mess.
Ingredients
Sweet almond oil as the carrier oil but you can use any other carrier oil
Zinc oxide (1 teaspoon) This is a natural sunscreen
Raw Shea butter (1 tablespoon)
Raw Mango butter (1 tablespoon)
Raw Coconut oil (1 tablespoon)
Raw Cocoa butter (1 tablespoon)
Cold pressed lime essential oil for added fragrance (10 drops)
Lemon essential oil (5 drops)
Vitamin E oil (5 drops)
After the mixture has simmered in the crockpot on low for about 5 hours, I leave to cool for about an hour and then pour into amber glass pots and refrigerate overnight.
You are then left with a butter that is solid in the pot but liquifies at body temperature enough to sink into the skin without being greasy. I store at room temperature and the butter tends to keep it’s soft solid consistency even during warmer temperatures.
Enjoy!
All Homesteading 
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