There’s been a line that reads “fir and cypress body lotion with sweet undertones (vanilla, floral?)” in my long list of project ideas for quite some time. It’s been there for long enough that I’m not entirely certain where the idea came from. Perhaps I tried a hand soap at a restaurant that bragged about fir and cypress on the label. Maybe I just love fir trees and vanilla. Perhaps Siri sneakily added it to the list (she is surprisingly insightful at times). Anyhow, with chilly winter days and Christmastime upon us, a light, hydrating lotion that smells of fir and vanilla sounded like just the thing, and so off the list and into the kitchen that idea went.
The day I made this lotion was an odd, ice-foggy day. The air was full of frozen mist, and the skyscrapers of downtown Calgary quickly faded into nothingness, enveloped in a shifting veil of winter chill. When I woke up in the morning the tree branches were coated in the finest sheaths of diamonds, and the mist was so thick it was as if the sky had come down from the atmosphere to join us. It was a great day to stay in, drink tea, and make lotion.
Like all lotions, this one is an emulsion; a stable blend of oil and water. It’s more water than oil, giving us a body lotion that absorbs into the skin quickly, leaving behind soft, hydrated skin but no greasy paw prints. The oil bit is a blend of antioxidant rich mango butter (USA / Canada) and high-in-vitamins A, C, D, and E sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ).
The water part is quite simple; plain ol’ water is blended with moisturizing vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada) and healing, protective silk to deliver a fast dose of topical moisture that will stick around. The oil and water parts are brought together with a complete emulsifying wax to create a stable, creamy emulsion.
My favourite part of this lotion is the essential oil blend. A base of sweet, vanilla-like benzoin is accented with fresh fir balsam, spicy Australian cypress, and bright michelia alba. The final scent is hard to pin down. When you first apply the lotion you’ll notice the sweetness of the benzoin and the bright floral note of the michelia alba, but in a few minutes that will fade and you’ll catch a note of fir as the dry spice of the cypress starts to emerge. The lingering scent is warm and a bit sweet, with a complex dry, woody note that’s utterly fantastic (I may or may not have spent twenty minutes smelling my hands whilst lounging on the sofa to write this bit).
The final body lotion is utterly lovely. Light and smooth, it absorbs into the skin quickly, leaving your hands and other bits wonderfully soft and completely ignorant of the dry winter air. The scent blend is mellow, yet lovely, and will have you snatching happy whiffs of your skin for hours. Give it a go, I think you’ll love it.
Fir, Cypress, and Silk Body Lotion
7g | 0.24oz emulsimulse/ritamulse (or other complete emulsifying wax—not beeswax!)
9g | 0.31oz mango butter (USA / Canada)
11g | 0.38oz sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ)72g | 2.43 fl oz water
4g | 0.14oz vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1/8 tsp silk peptides (I use these tiny measuring spoons to measure out such small amounts)6 drops fir essential oil
3 blobs benzoin essential oil
1 drop Australian blue cypress essential oil
1 drop michelia alba essential oilBroad spectrum preservative of choice (why?)
Weigh the emulsifying wax, mango butter (USA / Canada), and sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ) into a small saucepan and melt over low heat.
While the emulsifying wax mixture is melting, combine the water, glycerin, and silk in a small measuring cup and gently warm.
Once the emulsifying wax mixture has melted, add the water mixture. Heat through to ensure everything is melted before removing the pan from the heat.
Whisk the mixture as it cools—it will thicken into a nice white cream (the thickening may take a few days if you are using a different emulsifying wax than emulsimulse/ritamulse). I love these tiny wire whisks, I use them all the time for DIY projects 🙂
Whisk in the essential oils. Add your preservative (though do check the instructions for your specific preservative—some have special instructions for adding to concoctions) and decant the mixture to a 120mL/4oz pump-top bottle or wide-mouthed jar. Enjoy!
If you don’t have sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ) you can use safflower oil, grapeseed oil, or apricot kernel oil instead. If you don’t have mango butter (USA / Canada), unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) and capuacu butter are both great alternatives. For more information on substitutions, read this.
The black screw-lid pot you see the lotion in is from YellowBee.
New to lotion making? Watch my basic lotion how to video!
See? This is why I love you.
Fir and Cypress with benzoin and michelia?? I’m all the time brainstorming ideas to use the awesome forest tree oils into something that works (and failing) and you throw in flowers and vanilla.
Thank you for this recipe cause I’m going to make it..or something very similar..today. I don’t have e-wax yet so it’ll be a butter.
Why don’t I have e-wax yet, you ask? Because if I buy that then I must buy preservative and if I buy these items then that eo I want or that lusted over special oil I want must get pushed to my Wish List. It’s a constant arm wrestle and the practical products always lose.
But I’m getting creative today and it’s your fault 🙂
Aww, thank you Cristie 😀 I do think you should grab some e-wax, though… the possibilities it opens up are far greater than that of another EO! I remember barely being able to sleep after realizing I could make hair serums that wouldn’t be so greasy and true lotions that I could use while working with tracing paper (important when you’re a designer!). Conditioners! Creams! Lotions! Oh my! Seriously, though, grab some 😉 It’s such a fun toy! Have fun with your creative day 😀
I can’t find silk peptides in México, can i use other ingredient ?
Hey Teresa! I have an FAQ on this 🙂
Thank you for the introduction to Michelia Alba, Magnolia Leaf, I would like to try the blossom also. Just when I think I have enough essential oils one comes up that is not in my ever growing arsenal 🙂
I really like the interesting black jar from YellowBee and look forward to trying some of their packaging.
Since I do not have Michelia Alba I am considering a substitution of Ylang Ylang or Neroli to be used for the floral note, what do you think?
This blend would be nice in bath salts or maybe even a massage oil…have a sweetly scented day!
Hi Brenda. Thought I’d give you my take on michelia alba until Marie checks in 🙂
I’ve got the michelia, ylang ylang and neroli in front of me right now. Can’t say the michelia smells like either one, but if I had to choose, I would say ylang ylang. But with a kick of citrus. Orange maybe. A good kick, since that’s the first thing I notice about michelia.
But that’s just my nose, someone else may have a different opinion.
Soapgoods.com has michelia alba and you can buy the .06 size of it for $1.57. That amounts to approx. 70 drops. A deal!
Hope I helped a little.
Cj
Thank you so much Cristie I really appreciate you taking the ‘nose’ time to give me your opinion 🙂 and for the lead on Soapgoods.com, was hoping they were Canadian. So hard with the Cdn $ being so low to purchase across the border these days.
Seems I do not have Balsam Fir either. But with Copaiba Balsam the benzoin, cypress, ylang ylang and sweet orange (other than their wonderful synergy) is an olfactory delight! 🙂
Sounds delightful! I’ll have to give that blend a go 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much, Cristie!
Ok! I have finally got my act together and gone to get my bottle of Michelia Alba so I can give you a bit of a description of what it smells like. I find it has a nice balance of sweet and tangy… it’s not sour, though, just tangy in the sense that a nice nectarine can be. Mildy floral, perhaps, but more herbaceous than floral. It’s a weird one. Personally, I find ylang ylang to be cloyingly sweet, and wouldn’t choose it for much of anything, but I definitely think it’s too sweet to stand in for michelia alba. Neroli would be the better choice, as I find it to be dry and sweet, with a hint of tang. That’s just my (very tardy) two cents, though!
I like your two cents! Much better adjectives you used
And regarding ylang ylang…out of the bottle I’m purely in heaven with the scent. But mixed with anything or even alone in a recipe and it takes on an awful cheap stench that makes me sick to my stomach. A darn shame
It’s really unfair that something so pricey plays so poorly with others 🙁
Teresa are you in mexico city? You find silk peptides at perfumeria tacuba …tacuba #13 centro.
Thanks, Gabriela!
I appreciate your adding imperial amounts but I think you should stick to your guns with metric. Especially in amounts this small, people who want to diy should learn to use it for accuracy.
Thanks for another terrific recipe. As someone noted above, your blends are showstoppers.
Remember, the Empire is the dark side! Lol. Sorry, just popped into my head.
Dark side? Dark ages! 😛 Hahaha ;P
i already have, it is so much easier. I totally agree stick with your guns i almost got confused with the dual measurements (although it doesn’t take much).
It’s funny to have more people to tell me to stick with metric than not when I include imperial! I’ve had a crazy amount of complaints about using metric over the years, and my book needs to be in both, so I’m sort of getting into the habit. I definitely still develop in metric, though!
I’m certainly not planning on abandoning my beloved metric! My book does need to be in both, though, so I’m sort of getting into the habit. My hope is that the die-hard imperial lovers see “11g/0.38oz” and think “Hmm… 11 is a much nicer number than 0.38….” and then hop the fence that way 😛
Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
I measure everything in metric, but I appreciate having the ounces on there as it makes quick work to mentally estimate what size container I need here in the U.S. Metric sizes aren’t printed on many containers or on all packaging yet.
Happy to hear the double units are helping everybody (and always happy to hear about Americans that use metric, haha!) 🙂
Thank you Marie for this wonderful recipe. And I really appreciate that you give it also in ounces this time.
Thanks, Margarette! Enjoy 🙂
Nice recipe, I love the black plastic pot you used thanks for sharing the supplier (it looks sort of like the ones from Lush).
Anna
I love that pot, too! It feels really nice in the hands as well 🙂
I’m very new to making lotion and have a possibly dumb question. Is there any difference between a face lotion and a body lotion in the diy context? I’ve been using your Egyptian magic balm as my night cream with great result. Thank you!
If it works for your face, not really! If you have acne prone skin you would probably want to avoid more comedogenic ingredients (like cocoa butter), and if you notice a particular formula isn’t working for your skin, then perhaps stay away from that, but honestly—if it works, go for it! There’s no marketing here trying to tell you that you need a different creme or balm for every limb of your body 😛
Hey there!
Do you use a whisk, a stick blender or a hand mixer in most of your lotions?
Thanks,
Kathryn
Hey Kathryn! Generally I’ll use a whisk or a stick blender; I’m tending more towards a stick blender these days, but sometimes I’m working with such a small batch that a whisk is the only option 🙂
Ok, I don’t have a stick blender on hand so I am going to use a whisk.
Thanks for your reply!
I used to use a little whisk but haven’t been able to find it recently, and a regular old fork is working just fine.
I am going to try a whisk, thanks for your feedback, Diana!
I just made a batch this morning, and I’m liking it so far. The scent seems a little mild, but I also have been smelling a lot of things today so my nose might be a little overwhelmed.
It’s think enough to come nicely out of a pump bottle, and spreads nicely over my hands. I used safflower oil and shea butter, since that’s what I had on hand, and it feels light and soft.
Awesome! Enjoy your lotion 🙂
Thank you! I’ve been meaning to update you: the scent is perfect — it smells good, and is strong enough for me to smell on my hands when I try, but not too strong to overwhelm everything else.
Fantastic! That’s about what I thought, too 🙂 Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
Hi Marie, I have a question about cetyl alchohol and stearic acid. I was reading a recipe from another blogger (who you quote often) and notice that she recommends any basic lotion should have one or the other of these. Aren’t they co-emulsifiers? If I’m using a complete emulsifying wax, why would I need them? She did explain but my head did a little spin and I was lost. You tend to “splain” things in such a way that my poor head doesn’t lose track right in the middle. So HELP please?
Hey! So, honestly, from everything I’ve done and read (even on POI), you don’t need them. I made lotions for YEARS without owning either, and never missed them or had a lotion fail. Susan has a list of reasons why you’d use stearic acid in lotion here. So, I suppose it’s partially preference, and it may also be one of the differences between home making and big-batch making. As a home maker I’m hardly concerned about the cost of a few extra grams of shea butter, but if I was really counting pennies and dealing with massive quantities, it might be a consideration. Hope that helps!
THanks Marie! I made it with argan oil and without Magnolia which I don’t have. Now,argan oil dominates all other fragrances and is sooo good I want to eat it. But it does stands on the hands for a bit longer compared to Winter Wonderland made with safflower oil. Lots of love and gratitude from the Northern Germany!
Beautiful! Your argan must be very fragrant as mine is quite soft—enough to notice in a serum, but not in a lotion. It is a lovely smell, though, and it sounds divine in this lotion 🙂 Enjoy!
Hi Marie,
Will this lotion be thin enough for a pump bottle? Love your book. But I only wish the lip stick base did not make so many. I can not use eleven up in a year. Thanks for all that you share. You are a fantastic lady and a pure joy to watch.
Lucy
Hmm…. maybe? It’s been a while since I made it so I can’t remember exactly how thick it was. It definitely wasn’t suuuuuper thick, so I think it would probably be ok.
Nobody can use eleven lipsticks in a year! That’s not the point—the point is to have fun creating different colours, and giving you lots of base to play with so you can tweak and experiment and create your favourites 🙂 I think the ingredients that go into the base might cost $3 so it isn’t that wasteful, and the chances of it lasting more than a year are pretty good! You can scale it back if you want (by weight), but I didn’t want to force everybody to purchase a scale accurate to 0.01g.
Where may I purchase the silk?
Click the link in the recipe.