There are so many excellent reasons for creating organic skincare products in your own kitchen. The purity of homemade herbal body lotion is so much better for the skin than commercial lotions that, by necessity for long shelf-life, contain chemicals and preservatives that actually dry and prematurely age skin. Homemade lotions can be less expensive than even many low-quality lotions, especially dry skin products, from the drug or department store. Making superior herbal body lotion is also fun, easy, and gratifying for both crafters and the environmentally conscious alike.
Organic body lotion also makes a wonderful gift for everyone on your gift list. With its luxurious skin softening and healing properties, once they try it, they’ll never want to go back! Excellent way to get friends, family, and referrals hooked on your organic body lotions to start a small home business.
Begin With Herbal Oil
Herbal oil is the basic ingredient for making lotion. Begin with a high quality organic oil that you can purchase from a health food store or from a reputable online source. Excellent oils to use for herbal oil bases are sweet almond oil, grapeseed oil, apricot kernel oil, jojoba, sesame and sunflower oils. Pure virgin olive oil can be used as well, but the strong fragrance makes it less desirable than others. You can also add Vitamin E oil that is wonderful for your skin and its natural preservative properties will keep the lotion fresh longer. You can get Vitamin E oil in the form of capsules at any drug store. To use, pierce the gel caps with a pin, then squeeze the oil into your herbal oil base.
Use Herbs of Choice
You don’t have to be a herbalist to make quality, skin-healing herbal lotion. Just use the following recommendations as a guide. You can purchase organic herbs at some health food stores and from a number of reputable online sources. They are quite inexpensive so you can afford to experiment.
Herbal Body Lotion To Soften and Heal
- Aloe Vera (use fresh off the plant if available)
- Jasmine
- Calendula
- Rose Petals
- Slippery Elm
- Comfrey
- Patchouli
- Marshmallow
Natural Skin Lotion For Sore Muscles (excellent massage lotion)
- Lavender
- Calendula
- Ginger
- Chamomile
- Arnica
- St. John’s Wort
- Rosemary
- Wintergreen
- Eucalyptus
It is recommended in herbal remedy lore to use herbs in combinations of odd numbers for the greatest synergy and benefit. For instance, use one, three, or five herbs in the herbal oil, rather than two, four, or six. Any of these herbs can be combined as chosen. Do experiment with different combinations to find the ideal lotion recipe for your skin needs.
Chop your chosen herbs finely and place them in a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid. Add enough oil to just cover them. Place the jar in a cool, dark place and allow it to sit for at least one week. (Note: Be sure to label the jar with the herbs you’ve includedFor your herbal oil, pour the herbs /oil mixture through a fine strainer, pressing as much oil as possible from the herbs. Discard the herbs and store your oil in a labeled glass jar or bottle with a tight-fitting lid.
Make Herbal Lotion
Herbal lotion recipe:
- ½ cup herbal oil
- 2 tablespoons shaved beeswax
- about 1/3 cup pure, distilled water
- 2 – 4 drops essential oil (optional)
Place the herbal oil and beeswax in the top of a double boiler until the beeswax is melted completely. Place the mixture in a blender, adding the distilled water a little at a time while it blends, until it reaches the lotion consistency you prefer. (To make herbal creams, add more beeswax and less water.) Add essential oil drop by drop for added fragrance if you wish, adding enough essential oil to attain the strength of fragrance desired.
Homemade herbal body lotion will keep its freshness for a month to six weeks, perhaps longer depending on the oil chosen. For example, jojoba oil has a longer shelf life than apricot kernel oil. Because herbal lotion is so easy and inexpensive to make, it’s fun to create different recipes and fragrances to fit your mood and varying skin conditions and needs.
For your own enjoyment and for giving homemade herbal lotion as gifts, place the lotion in pretty bottles or jars that you can find at dollar stores, thrift stores, and antique stores. For gifts, add a personalized label and message, tied with a ribbon bow. Create a beautiful gift basket by adding homemade bath salts and a pretty homemade soap bar with embedded flower petals.
by Pat Spence
