This silky, cocoa-scented powder leaves your skin smooth, softly fragrant, and happy. It’s perfect for a light dose of moisture (and moisture control) on a humid day, or for dusting between your legs on a summers day where you intend to wear a skirt or shorter shorts.
Lush sells something similar for dusting ones underpants with, and Jennifer also requested something similar. If you know me, you know I love cocoa butter (USA / Canada) (and clay), so this was right up my alley. Mmm, cocoa.
This powder is made from just three easy ingredients—cocoa butter, of course; clay (I used kaolin, but something else that’s fine and moderately skin-toned will also work); and arrowroot starch. After that you just need a DIY coffee grinder.
I started by blitzing the cocoa butter (USA / Canada) (choose smaller bits, rather than a large chunk) with two teaspoons of arrowroot starch. That quickly turned into a nice powder. And here’s where I made a mistake only recognizable in hindsight. I kept blending everything together in the coffee grinder, and it burnt out my coffee grinder 🙁 So, I’m advising you to stop while you’re ahead—do the initial cocoa-busting blend in the coffee grinder, and then move things to a bowl so you can just stir things together, since that actually works better and won’t destroy your coffee grinder.
RIP, coffee grinder 🙁
The final powder is fine enough to store in a powder bottle (like baby powder comes in), which is great for easy application. I just shake a bit into my hand, or straight onto the area I’m going to apply it, and glide/massage it over the skin. It vanishes in an instant, leaving your skin wonderfully smooth (and not at all white… well, for me, at least).
Cocoa Butter Body Dust
6 tsp arrowroot starch (you can also use cornstarch or wheat starch)
4 tsp white kaolin clay (USA / Canada)
10g cocoa butter (USA / Canada)Combine the cocoa butter (USA / Canada) and 2 tsp of the arrowroot powder in your DIY coffee grinder and blitz into a fine powder.
Transfer the powder to a bowl or jar, and add the rest of the starch and the clay. Stir to combine.
Decant to a powder bottle for storage.
Ooooo, since I pretty much live in dresses in the summer (I’m very anti-shorts), this will come in handy! I had no idea cocoa butter would grind into a powder. I just assumed it would have turned almost pasty. So cool!
Yay! And, as a bonus, you will smell like chocolate all summer 🙂
Love this ! I love it even more when I have all the ingredients ! Wondering if you could you put anything in it to make it shimmery?
Amber
Thanks, Amber! A wee bit of silver mica should do the trick for some shimmer 🙂
Oh LOVELY! I can’t wait to make this! I normally don’t use dusting powder because it creates a huge mess that I loathe to clean. Most are usually made with cornstarch–and corn is something I must avoid!
Thank you Marie for another terrific recipe that’s instantly easy and affordable!
Cathryn
I’m so glad I’ve caught your eye 🙂 Arrowroot starch is so lovely, silky, and smooth that I’m amazed it’s not used in more premium dusting powders—I’m sure you’ll love this!
Hi Marie,
I jumped up and made this straight away!! It’s lovely!
I substituted kaolin clay with French pink cos that’s what I had and also added a teaspoon of aloe powder, cos I had that too :). I figure it should be soothing?
Thanks for your recipe and for sharing 😉
Liss
Awesome! I love hearing that my recipes inspire people to make them straight away 🙂 Enjoy your lovely new dusting powder!
I love this! I thought it would turn into a paste… I guess not! I will *try* to make this sometime! I love cocoa butter… Mostly anything cooca!
It might turn into paste if you live somewhere quite hot, so if you’re worried about it, pop the cocoa butter in the fridge for a few minutes before blending it 🙂 Enjoy your new body dust!
What about cornstarch? This seems like it’d be a great talc alternative, not that I use it anyway…
You can really use any starch you have on hand for this recipe—arrowroot, corn, wheat, rice, whatever 🙂
Think I could use shea butter instead?
Hi Elliot! You can read more about carrier oil substitutions here, but the short answer is a definite no. This would be like using peanut butter instead of chocolate, and instead of dust, you’ll get a sort of cookie dough like paste. Yuck!
I made this for me, next thing I know I am making some for my daughter, sister, good friend and on and on, and on. I followed your recipe and did not substitute anything. The only problem I had was every time I opened the arrowroot package it would poof out and I had a fine dust everywhere! HS h ha
Think you for this post
Oooh, I love hearing that a recipe has gone “viral” 😉 And yes, I always end up coated in arrowroot as well 😛 I’ve started storing it in a jar to try and reduce the poofing, haha. Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me!
What a nice idea to make your own body powder. I will definitely try it 🙂 Do you think I could substitute the arrowroot starch with tapioka? I think tapioka is even smoother.
Hi Larimare! I don’t see why not 🙂 Let me know how it turns out!
Hi Marie!
I just tried your recipe and it worked pretty fine with the tapioka starch. I posted the tutorial on my blog linking to your original recipe of course. You can check it out here:
http://life-of-larimare.com/koerper/tutorial-diy-kakaobutter-koerperpuder/
It is in German though 😉
yours larimare
Yours,
larimare
Sweet! Thanks for the sort-of re-blog and the link back 🙂 I love seeing people do my projects!
You are welcome! Thank you for the inspiration 🙂
🙂
Hi Marie,
Thanks again.. I was looking for simple and inexpensive body dusting powder recipe. And this one is lovely. I did not have kaolin clay with me, but I was super excited so tried this recipe without kaolin clay. It turned out great.. I am loving it.. 🙂
Next time I will give try to Kaolin clay.. 🙂
Glad you’re loving it! Thanks for DIYing with me 🙂 The clay really is awesome for added moisture management 😉
Hi, I can’t wait to make this. Is the arrowroot starch the same thing as arrowroot powder? Thanks! Maria
Hi Maria! Yup, they are the the same thing 🙂
Thanks Marie!
🙂
Wondering if DE can sub for kaolin clay? Thank you!
I’ve never handled DE so I can’t really say, but I would be concerned that it would be quite scratchy from what I’ve read about it. Kaolin clay is very light and smooth, like baby powder, as well as being quite absorbent, so if DE is like that, it might be worth trying.
Thanks!
🙂
I just made this brilliant body dust! Even with cold cocoa butter, I had to add 2 extra teaspoons of arrowroot powder. But then it worked perfectly. I do live in a hot, humid area.
I can’t wait to try this! I can’t use even baby powder due to the fragrance, so this is going to be a treat. Thanks, Marie.
Yay! I’m so glad you’re enjoying it 🙂 Woo!
Hi Marie,
I live in a very hot area so I store my cocoa butter in the refrigerator. When I tried the recipe, the powder and butter became a paste. I went ahead without adding the cocoa butter powder. I’d really like to try it again, what approach do you recommend?
I’m afraid this recipe may not work for you given your environment; the cocoa butter needs to be brittle at room temperature for this to work.
Great Recipe 🙂 I left out the clay powder, put some honey powder and vanilla powder and turned it into an Adult Lick-Able Powder to liven things up a little with my mate 🙂
What a fun idea! Thanks for sharing 🙂
This formula is still getting good use. Mine came out smelling more like kaolin. Need to crank up some cocoa smells some how. Maybe with some cacao absolute or similar, I’m too pale for cocoa powder lol
If anyone wants the weights I got 11g kaolin and 19.5g arrowroot.
I recently duped vasaline intensive care and this powder will go nicely with it this summer!