Making body butter

Making body butter is pretty straightforward to do. The hard work really is in the preparation and getting the ingredients just right. Here I'll share with you how I make my body butters.

Getting things ready

This part is the boring bit but the most vital.

I don't have children nor pets so I don't have to worry about being disturbed unexpectedly.

Put on the appropriate protective clothing and hair covering, now it's time to get started.

Clear and clean all work areas that I'll be using.

Get out my body butter formula, check-off the ingredients and check their dates.

Wash hands well and once dried with paper towel. Then I rub in some unscented lab-grade hand sanitiser before putting on my latex gloves. Then I rub them in lab-grade sanitiser as well. The latex gloves I use are made from renewable natural latex as they provide enhanced touch sensitivity and grip. The gloves I use can be recycled.

Then I spray my ingredient containers with Isopropyl alcohol (99.9% proof alcohol, so it strong stuff) , wait a little and then dry-off with a clean paper towel. They may look clean and stored away well, but I need my containers to be clean before I get working.

Then every utensil, container must be cleaned well. All surfaces cleaned. I've already prepare my work area and cleared away anything I do not need.

Then I clean my equipment and surfaces again with Isopropyl alcohol using a spray bottle. Wait awhile before wiping them all down with clean paper towels. Any containers I do not use straight away get turned upside-down and I lay all my equipment on clean kitchen towels. This helps keeps my equipment off the worksurface (even though it has been cleaned).

Weight out my ingredients to my recipe and then I am good to go.

Having a meltdown

Now its time to melt the butters and the bees wax in a double boiler at moderate heat, stirring occasionally.

Once everything is melted, remove from the double boiler and with a paper towel dry off the water from the base of the glass container. Once placed on the work area on a paper towel I stir the mixture and inspect it.

The cool-down ingredients

I check the melted ingredients temperate with a heat gun. When I am happy I then add in the powders and liquid oils. Everything needs to be mixed in well. I keep stirring and checking the temperature and once it's cooled to right temperature only then I add the scent blend and preservative. I've a mini mixing blender and use it at this point to whip all those ingredients together well.

Adding to the jar

Once the body butter mixture is completed you have to move fast as it starts to set-up as it cools. Get the cleaned jar ready and pour in the mixture. I use a long thin spatula and this works for me to get most of the butter out of the beaker and into the jar. Add the clean lid straight away and set the jar aside to cool down.

Once cooled I like to add my tamper seal and labels. All done.

You can buy my butters from the Handmade by Steven shop.