Okay girls (and boys), so you want to know the basics of body butter formulation? I got you.
One important thing I learned in my best school days is that everything is a solid foundation. Once you have the basics, you can build your own castle.
How does this apply to skin care formulation? I’ll tell you, just pay attention and don’t get distracted by the next scroll, tiktok or blog.
Formulating a skin care product is a lot like cooking any meal. There are just a few basics, master them and you’ll see the light – meaning you’ll see through every label and every beautiful marketing ad created by the best communicators.
First a list of truths:
- Most (about 95%) skin care products, whether for your face or body, have water as their main ingredient. The average % of water in a face lotion or cream, high quality or CVS care level, is 70-80% water. WATER, what you drink.
- If there is water in a lotion, you must also have a preservative to prevent mold and yeast growth, and an emulsifier to keep the water from separating from the other ingredients. Preservatives are used at 1-2%, and emulsifiers can vary a bit more, but are usually 5-10%.
- This means that in your average skincare or facial product, you have 10-20% to play with to add what we know as skin moisturizing or strengthening ingredients. These can be as basic as shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil, vitamin C, etc.
Can you do me a favor and read all of this one more time?
If you read it again and let it sink in, you’ll have the basics of how to make a lotion, cream, or serum:
Water
Emulsifier
Preservative
Butters/Oils/Skin Benefits (I just made up a new word!)
Can you create a skin care product that is better than average?
Yes and no, it depends on your goal and it depends on how old your skin is, because let’s face it, gravity and time are real and affect how our skin develops from birth to death.
From adolescence to late 30s
All you need to do is:
- Protect yourself from the sun, because if you don’t you will develop brown or age spots.
- Keep your skin hydrated all the time, otherwise it will lack water and oils and age faster
From the late 1930s onwards
- Continue to protect yourself from the sun with a good SPF lotion. The sun’s UVB and UVA rays still get through and will age your skin EVEN WHEN IT’S CLOUDY.
- Decide on a skin routine that works for you. Using only natural products will make you feel better, but wrinkles and collagen loss will occur resulting in loss of mass and increased loss of tone. Gravity is real.
Enough of that, how do I make a great body butter?
Glad you asked, let’s get down to business.
Homemade body butters are 100% butters, oils and enhancers (colors, essential oils and other cool ingredients). That means NO water. This means you have 100% of the formula to play with using all the healthy ingredients we care about.
So the first ingredient you look at is the base butter. The most common and popular are:
1. Shea butter
2. Mango butter
3. Cocoa butter
Use shea butter if your skin is dry, if you want to load up on delicious antioxidants, and if you want to support women’s cooperatives in Africa whose lives depend on how much shea butter is consumed worldwide. Shea butter has a natural nutty/smoky flavor unless it’s refined, which I never use and don’t recommend because refined shea is stripped of many of its native nutrients. The nutty smell affects the final scent of your body butter whether or not you add essential oils.
Use Mango Butter if you like shea butter but don’t like its inherent smoky scent, or if you think shea butter is a little too heavy and rich for your skin type. Also, mango butter production involves more than women and mangoes are mainly grown in India, so if you want to support that part of the world, Mango Butter is the butter to choose. Mango Butter is unscented, allowing any fragrances you add to have an unadulterated final scent.
Use cocoa butter if you are concerned about loss of skin elasticity, stretch marks, or if you have scars that you want to fade. Cocoa butter is more international than Shea and Mango, mostly coming from Africa or Mexico. Cocoa butter smells like chocolate and its aroma will affect your final product.
Basic formulas using the top three butterssmall
After years of formulating, here are the basic formulas in percentages that will give you an easy-to-spread body butter.
If you stick to these basic percentages in your formula, you’ll have a body butter that’s semi-soft, easy to whip up, and easy to apply to your skin. Here’s a video to show you what they look like.
I hope this helps lay the foundation for your skincare journey. Check out all our DIY videos for inspiration and leave a comment or question if you need help.
Happy DIY!
