If you love a hot bath on a cool night, this bath milk powder is just the thing. Skin softening, moisturizing, and lightly cocoa-scented, it makes a lovely gift and a lovely thing to have in your bathroom for those days where you’re ready for a hot bath and bed by 4PM.
The base of this powder is a blend of fragrant cocoa butter (USA / Canada) and dried milk powder. Cow’s milk powder works great, but if you happen to have powdered coconut milk (USA / Canada) or goats milk powder, those will work brilliantly as well.
Cocoa butter is brittle at room temperature so you can blend it into a sort of powder, but melts around 34°C, meaning it melts into hot bathwater beautifully. Do watch for oil slicks afterwards, though—you’re too young to fall in the tub 😉
If you happen to have some powdered silk or allantoin (USA / Canada) on hand, you can feel free to add a dash one or both. Both will help soften and heal the skin.
To really amp up the luxury factor of this powder, add a cup or two of Epsom salts to your bath water along with the cocoa-y goodness to soothe sore muscles 🙂
Cocoa Butter Bath Milk Powder
~ 15g lump of cocoa butter (USA / Canada) (roughly thumb-sized)
1 dash silk powder (need a substitute?)
4 tbsp coconut milk powder (or other milk powder)Combine the cocoa butter (USA / Canada), silk powder, and 2 tbsp of the milk powder in your DIY coffee grinder and blitz up until the cocoa butter (USA / Canada) is pretty fine. You’ll find that the mixture is a touch pasty.
Scrape out the powdery paste into a bowl and add the rest of the milk powder, stirring to break up any clumps and get everything to a powdery state instead of a clumpy whatsit.
To use, add a spoonful or two to a hot bath and top of with some Epsom salt (USA / Canada). Enjoy!
Hi Marie,
Do you have any eczema or scar-reducing bath powders? I tried oatmeal before but it oddly made me very itchy instead of soothing my skin. I would love it if you have any existing recipes for any eczema-reducing stuff, or maybe create some new ones 🙂
I can’t say I have, but I will keep the project in mind for the future 🙂
I’ve been reading lately that rice is very soothing, and even anti-inflammatory for the skin. Maybe that would be something interesting to try? I’ve added rice flour (straight up Bob’s Red Mill type) to my bath, to see what it would be like in consistency, and there wasn’t any clumping at all, thank heavens. It makes a wonderful base for the other ingredients, and I’ve noticed my skin is like velvet now. 🙂
I really don’t know if it’ll do anything for eczema, but it could be worth looking into.
Cool, thanks!
This looks like another “must try”
Will come back and leave some feedback when I do.
Thanks, Linda! Enjoy it 🙂
oh, and if you melt the cocoa butter, mix it with the dry ingredients, and shape or pour in silicone molds, you will have the bath melts 🙂 Great inspiration, as usual, Marie!
Yup! Though if you are using enough cocoa butter to glue everything together you might want to consider adding an emulsifier to the mix to make for a safer getting-out-of-the-bath experience 😉
Which emulsifier would you recommend and how would I go about adding it into recipe? TY!
diy Coffee Grinder: I drink just a little coffee (no one else does in the house) therefore I’ve not purchased a coffee grinder BUT… if I wanted to buy a coffee grinder – one to use for diy projects like this (probably would like to be able to use it on seeds, nuts and dried herbs from my garden) what type of grinder should I look for?. There are manual ones and electric ones that have a wide range of prices. What should I be looking for when purchasing a coffee grinder for my purposes?
I do Love your blog and get your emails every week. Thank You for introducing me to Cocoa Butter….Love, Love, Love it. I find your blog very Inspiring!
Hi Deb! When it comes to a DIY coffee grinder, the #1 thing I recommend looking for is cheap/used. I always keep an eye out at op-shops and rummage sales, and will never pay more than $10 for a coffee grinder. Even so, I have a bit of a collection of back-ups (and I don’t drink coffee at all!). All mine are electric blade grinders. I wouldn’t recommend burr or manual as I doubt they’d work as well.
Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
Ohhh, this looks perfect for a freezing windy cold day like today!! I only just found your website last week and I’m infatuated!! I want to make everything — I just need to keep an eye out for packaging now!! Please never stop DIYing!!
Barbara
Thanks Barbara, and welcome! Thanks so much for reading 🙂
I cannot wait to try this, I just love your blog.
Enjoy! Thanks for reading 🙂
Marie, I just discovered your blog a short time ago and am thoroughly impressed with your creations. I’ve been making soap, cosmetics since the late nineties and recently have been going back to making simpler products for personal use. Your blog has inspired me once again to be creative. I made your pink clay facial soap and I cannot believe what a joy it is to use this. Gonna make the green one for my DIL. I also want to make that anti frizz hair balm of yours. Sounds delightful
Lynne
Hi Lynne! I’m so thrilled you’ve found my blog, and I’m so glad you’re loving the pink clay bar—it’s a favourite of mine as well 🙂 Thanks so much for reading!
Great place 🙂
I did not hear of coconut milk powder.
This is not the same as coconut flour?
No, it’s different—I got mine from Saffire Blue (link above the comments in a big box).
Thx 🙂
🙂
Hi, Marie!
Totally unrelated question: I would love to make a lip balm (and maybe a body butter) with vanilla scent. I’m unable to purchase vanilla essential oil (and I cannot buy from the suppliers that you recommend).
At home I have two sorts of homemade vanilla extract: one alcohol based (made with rum) and another made with food grade glycerin (to be used in desserts that are not cooked, so that I don’t taste the alcohol). I have also some vanilla powder. Do you think any of these would work? If yes, how much should I use?
I was planning to make 3-4 tubes, using 15 g of ingredients (5 g oil, 5 g solid fat, 5 g beeswax).
Thank you for your attention.
Hi Mrs G! I generally find designed-for-food vanilla isn’t that great of an option for scenting DIY projects—the scent simply doesn’t last/come through. That said, my recommendation would be to try infusing the liquid oils with vanilla and make the lip balm from that.
Can you get your hands on some benzoin essential oil? I use that for pretty much all my vanilla-y needs 🙂
Thank you so much for your reply.
I looked around and it seems that I can only find benzoin absolute (which won’t dissolve in oil, so it’s basically the same problem ). Anyway I have to wait for a while before I will need to order online (to save on shipping costs) and who knows, in the meantime they will maybe carry vanilla essential oil! For the time being, I guess that I will choose another oil.
Thank you so much for your attention.
Hmm, darn! And I definitely understand spacing out orders to save on shipping—I’m trying to keep it to two or three a year these days :/ Sigh. You might also want to keep an eye our for Peru Balsam—it’s rather vanilla-y 🙂
Hi Marie,
I absolutely love this bath soak, very luxurious even though it does require a bath rinse. I used coconut milk and added oats to mine and after everything was blended added epsom salts and put them into canning jars. Great for gifts. Thanks for the inspiration Marie. Keep those great recipes coming.
I’m so thrilled, Ana! I’m always happy to contribute to a bit of luxurious relaxation 🙂
I just tried this today. I love it! It’s easy to make, and feels wonderful in the bath. Perfect for the blustery weather we are having here in Alabama.
Wonderful! I’m so thrilled you love it 🙂
This is the best stuff! I love it. I quadruple the recipe and add about half of the amount in epsom salts for the most amazing and wonderful indulgent soak. Thank you.
I’m so thrilled you love it! Thanks so much for DIYing with me 🙂
Hey!
I’m going CrAzY trying to find silk powder (that doesn’t break my small little grad student bank). Would allantoin powder work okay as a replacement for this, or should I just grit my teeth and buy the silk?
Hey Sarah! There’s really nothing like silk, but in most cases you can leave it out 🙂 That said, the 100g of silk peptides I bought back in 2012 are barely just halfway gone! 100g is a LOT of silk, so it’s great bang-for-buck 😉
Can i use goats milk vs coconut?
Yup, as noted in the recipe 🙂
hi Marie, Could i mix the epson salt with the powder or does need to stay separate? Love all your videos they are inspiring!
I left it out for four reasons: it allows me to customize the amount of Epsom salts I want to use per use, I don’t have to worry about the Epsom salts attracting moisture and clumping within the mixture, I didn’t have to worry about the bath milk powder settling out of the larger salt crystals, and I tend to use a ton of Epsom salts so I didn’t need to find an utterly massive container to store this project 😛
Hello,
is it possible to add the epsom salts to the mixture then bottle?
Thankyou
Please read the reply to the comment directly above yours 🙂
Can i use poloysorbate 20 instead of sci or slsa?
No, never. You can learn more about polysorbate 20 here and here. You can learn more about SCI here.
Hi
How much sci would i need to use?
It’s not in the recipe
Thanks
Yeah, I’m really not sure why you are asking about it? It’s not in the recipe—none of the original three ingredients you asked about are…? Are you commenting on the correct post?
I want to make this for Xmas gifts, is there anything I can add to the powder to emulsify it when it touches the bath?
You could try some Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa), but I’m not sure how well that would work. Let me know how it goes if you try it!
What is the shelf life of this recipe?
Hey! You’ll find the answer to your question in my FAQ—there’s several entries on shelf life and what not. Happy making!
Hello,
This looks right up my alley and a perfect way to relax. Could you add poly80 to the mix so there’s no need to rinse the bath out afterwards?
Thanks!!
Hi Shari! You could, but since it’s wet and this is a dry (yet fairly high in oil) product I’m not sure you could get enough in there to work. Have you considered including some Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate (SLSa)? It would do a similar job and would make a foaming cocoa butter bath milk 🙂 Hmmm… this might be a good “#BeeBetter” candidate!
What’s the best way to mix this? When I start, the cocoa butter starts to melt before it granulated??
It sounds like you need to introduce some cold to your process; freezing the cocoa butter and working in a cooler room will probably help. I made this in the midst of a Canadian winter 🙂