Stop Body Butters from Melting & feeling Greasy
- taralee
- Sep 29, 2023
- 4 min read
You can easily make a homemade body butter by combining a butter of choice with an oil of your choice. Melt them down, let them cool, whip them up & you have this beautiful butter. But why do our homemade body butters melt and why are they so much greasier compared to store bought body butters?
If you take a look at the ingredients of any body butter from Amazon, Ulta, or any place that sells big brand products, you will always see Water as the first ingredient in every body butter. Except for that colorful Truly body butter you see everywhere.
This is because the body butters they sell, are basically just lotions with butters added in them. They are called emulsified body butters. This means there is a high amount of water with a smaller about of oil soluble ingredients (oils and butters) mixed in by using an emulsifier.
Usually these body butters will include a gelling agent to give the butter a bit of a jiggle….and I could get more into the details on these emulsified body butters, and if you want to see an in-depth video on how to make an emulsified body butter for beginners, let me know and I’d be happy to do that.
But as you can see, these “store bought” body butters are just so different from our homemade ones. They contain a high amount of water which keeps the butter feeling far less greasy and heavy on the skin and the high amount of water plus emulsion keeps them from melting.
So I wanted to share with you guys my favorite emulsified body butter. I actually wanted to release this product in my shop, but I never got around to doing it. I never had this product stability tested or preservative tested. It was just a formula I accidentally came up with while trying to dupe the tree hut body butter and I fell in love with it. So I hope you like it too. Like I said, if you want an in depth video on formulating emulsified body butters for beginners, let me know in the comments.
I also want to mention that there is nothing wrong with the traditional homemade body butters. These would actually be called anhydrous body butters, since anhydrous means, only contains oil soluble ingredients. But, it’s okay if these body butters melt, that’s just what they do. It’s impossible to make one that doesn’t melt in high temperatures. It’s also okay if they are greasier than a lotion, some people like that and need that for their skin. I just know when I first started trying to make body butters, I was always super confused why they were so different from store bought ones and I hope I was able to clear that up with a lot of you guys.
My favorite Emulsified Body Butter Formula - 800 Gram Batch
Phase A
5% Glycerin - 40 grams
69% Distilled Water - 552 grams
Phase B
4% Lotionpro 165 - 32 grams
4% Cetyl Alcohol - 32 grams
10% Shea Butter - 80 grams
0.3% Sodium Carbomer - 2.4 grams
5% Caprylic Capric Triglyceride - 40 grams
1% DM350 Dimethicone - 8 grams
Phase C
0.5% Liquid Germall Plus - 4 grams
0.2% Vitamin E - 1.6 grams
1% Fragrance Oil - 8 grams
Directions;
Combine all ingredients in phase A in a heat safe container.
Tare scale and write down how much phase A weighs.
Combine all ingredients in phase B in a separate heat safe container.
Fill a pan with about an inch of water and place it over your stove top on medium heat. (this is called a water bath)
Cover both phase A and phase B with foil and place in the water bath.
Heat until phase B has melted.
Once phase B has melted, remove phase A from heat and place on scale and replace any water that evaporated. Normally it's about 1 gram.
Remove phase B from heat and then pour phase A into phase B
Mix with immersion blender.
Once phase A/B hase cooled to under 104°F / 40°C then you can add in each of the ingredients in phase C and mix after adding in each one
Check and adjust pH. The pH of this product will be a bit higher since it contains sodium carbomer. In my experience it needs to stay in a pH around 6 - 7.5 or else it will thin out. So keep the pH between there. The natural pH of mine was around 6.6, so I lowered it a little bit, but it isn't necessary.
Benefits/Purpose of each ingredient
Glycerin - humectant that hydrates the skin.
Lotionpro 165 - emulsifier that doesn't thickener (blends oil and water together)
Caprylic Capric Triglyceride - emollient ester. A light weigh oil like substance that moisturizes the skin but feels far less greasy than natural oils
Cetyl Alcohol - thickener and emollient that moisturizes the skin.
Shea Butter - an emollient that moisturizes skin
Sodium Carbomer - is a pre-neutralized synthetic polymer that can be used to thicken, suspend and stabilize formulations. Most carbomers you need to raise the pH in order to get it to thicken, but with this one you do not. I talk about polymers in this post here
DM350 Dimethicone - Other dimethicone or cyclomethicone or other silicone alternative like Natrasil
Vitamin E - antioxidant.
Liquid Germall Plus - preservative
Substitutions;
substituting ingredients will change the final feel, viscosity, and overall effect of final product. percentages and formulating procedure may need to change with substitutions. these substitution suggestions are just suggestions and have not been tested to work.
Lotionpro 165 - you can try any other emulsifier of choice but it will probably make this much thicker.
Caprylic Capric Triglyceride - any other emollient ester like coco caprylate, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, squalane or any other oil you would like
Shea Butter - any butter of choice, but using a different butter will change the hardness of body butter
Vitamin E - no sub can leave out. replace with oil or water.
Liquid Germall Plus - any water soluble preservative; e.g. Euxyl PE 9010, Geogard ECT, Euxyl K 903, Tristate Eco, Geogard 221 Optiphen Plus (I hate using optiphen plus in emulsions though because it can break emulsions easily) Euxyl K 903 can sometimes make the pH to low for me, so keep that in mind if you use that. Tristate Eco and Geogard ECT have a strong almond scent
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