Another diy project I’ve been slowly working on is replacing some of our store-bought body care products with homemade ones. Over a year ago I started making my own hard lotion bars and body butter. You can find my body butter recipe in this post.
Last month I finally conquered making deodorant and lip balm. It was also time to make another batch of body butter. Everything was a success. I keep my stash of homemade body care products in a bin in my cool, dark pantry. I don’t have preservatives in these items. I am using my affiliate links in this post.
The body butter feels so good and is great in the winter to keep my skin protected from the cold. It even seems to give me some tint or a bit of color to my skin. That might be from the shea butter. I buy a raw, natural shea butter that I believe comes from Africa. I’ve bought from a couple different companies I’ve found on Amazon.
Some of my body care products have natural beeswax to help give it more solidity: my deodorant, lip balm and hard lotion bars (not pictured). I also consulted more than one recipe before making my deodorant. You can make homemade deodorant different ways. Some turn out more greasy, you can make a more dry kind and use your fingers to apply; I wanted to make something similar to what I buy at the store.
Homemade Deodorant
I consulted this post and this video when making mine. I’ll link to where I bought some of my products. I used bentonite clay which is known for detoxing (it reportedly works as a magnet pulling metal toxins from the body), Celtic Sea Salt, Natural Beeswax (I’ve found the best price at Pat Catan’s craft store in my area), Arrowroot Powder, baking soda, and coconut oil. It may sound like a lot of stuff – but I will be using most of these in other products or for cooking, etc..
Here’s the basic recipe:
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
- 1/4 cup shea butter
- 1/4 cup of beeswax
- 2 tablespoons of bentonite clay <– I trust this source & there is a video, info at this link.
- 2 tablespoons of baking powder
- 2 tablespoons of arrowroot powder
- I used a little Celtic Sea Salt also (see Shoshanna’s video below to know why I did)
- I used my Young Living Lemongrass oil and this type of Melaleuca <—psst! IF you were to order something from there or to sign up, would you use my sponsor/enroller number 1590280 so I get credit? I would appreciate that so much. Thank you!
- empty deodorant containers of your choice – ( I bought these )
I think I used about 10 drops of one and maybe six of the other. You don’t have to use those specific oils. My deodorant has a nice subtle scent with these and I’m not sure the scent is even noticeable once on me.
Watch this VERY helpful video on how Shoshanna makes her deodorant. I lover her videos, she’s shares so much good info!
Homemade Lip balm
I’m going to apologize in advance on this one. I can’t remember “exactly” what all I did. I was making all of this on the same day and I do tweak recipes to compensate for convenience.
For the lip balm, I think, I just used beeswax, shea butter, coconut oil, maybe some olive oil, and Young Living’s Peppermint essential oil. This is made similar to my hard lotion bars. The basic recipe for both is…equal parts coconut oil, olive oil (can use a different oil), beeswax melted (I use a double boiler system out of two pans). I probably had shea butter in my lip balm too. (Add your essential oils to the mix at the end before pouring.
After these are melted, pour into your lip balm containers and allow them time to set. I bought mine on Amazon here.
