Coconut Body Butter Bars

A while back I experimented with a formula for body butter bars, and LOVED the results!  However those looked kind of plain, and I wanted to spice things up, while making a body butter bar that was light enough to use during the summer.  I came up with these great coconut body butter bars that look and smell great!

To make these, you will need:  

1 part beeswax (I used roughly 1/2 a cup)

3 parts coconut oil (I used roughly 1 1/2 cups)

1 part olive oil (I used roughly 1/2 a cup)

Essential oil (optional, I did not use any for this particular recipe)

Vitamin E oil (optional, will improve shelf life)

Silicon cupcake/muffin mold (mine hold about 1/3 cup of body butter each)

A pot

Heat safe container

Stove

Refrigerator

Airtight container

Wax paper

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour

Yields: 6 body butter bars (1/3 cup each)

Let's get into it!

To start, I combined all my ingredients in my heat safe measuring cup and set in a pot of boiling water.  Don't worry about exact measurements, as long as you have roughly 1:3:1 of beeswax, coconut oil, and olive oil, you'll be fine.  I made the mistake of trying to melt my beeswax ahead of time and then adding in the oils ...

Sorry for the blurry photo ...

... And this was the result (photo below).   The beeswax cooled and floated around in the cold oil.  Save yourself the trouble and pop it all in there at once and let everything heat up together.  Stir occasionally to prevent burning and keep an eye on the stove!!  You have a lot of highly flammable ingredients in there and the last thing you need is a grease fire.

 Keep stirring until it's all melted and then pour into the molds and put into the refrigerator or freezer to set.  I stuck mine in the freezer because I'm impatient.  You can also let these cool at room temperature, but that will take longer and you run the risk of knocking them over or having things fall into the bars.

If anyone's curious, the molds are from Fortinos (a grocery store), and I paid $3.00 + tax for the three of them.  Try looking for similar ones at Winners/Marshalls, or Amazon.

I got a little carried away and forgot to take pictures, but I'm sure you could figure out how to pour the mixture into the molds and put the in the freezer.  Put them on a plate or a tray for easy moving, as you don't want to accidentally squeeze one and ruin the bar.

I had leftover body butter formula after pouring the bars, since my measurements weren't exact.  So, using a fork, I beat the mixture (like you would beat an egg) until it formed this light, fluffy, whipped lotion like consistency.  Introducing air into the mixture prevents it from forming into a hard body butter, and instead allows it to be light and fluffy, perfect for decorating the tops of your bars with!

These are my three favourite bars after cooling enough for me to remove from the freezer.  The one on the right has swirled whipped body butter on top, which I applied using a fork and then swirled using a spoon.  The one in the middle was a fluke, but I just dropped a spoonful of whipped body butter on the top, and messed around with it until it looked like a leaf.  The last one to the left is the exact same as the one on the right, but I sprinkled the top with cinnamon since they all looked kind of plain.

After leaving the bars out at room temperature, I popped them out of the silicon molds.

To store them, I placed them in a airtight container, using some wrapping paper as a separator.  I would have used wax paper, but I'm out.  I don't recommend using regular paper, as it's probably drying the bottom of the bars out by soaking up the oils.

 That's it!  Hope you enjoyed this simple DIY!

- xoxo, Jayy