This divine, lightweight, Heavenly Cocoa Lotion went straight into my purse, and that is high praise. Jasper requested a “simple yet effective facial moisturiser. Something a little bit like the LUSH Celestial Moisturiser… I worked for the company a while back as a product trainer and it is their best selling moisturiser, so I feel a formulation based on this cream would be really useful for your subscribers too!” The original ingredient list had some really lovely things in it—almond oil, cocoa butter, and lots of vanilla—and we all know I’m a total sucker for cocoa and vanilla, so how could I resist?
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Something I often read in LUSH-type recipe requests is that the requester wants something without parabens in it. They’re used in this formulation, and it’s pretty clear why—there is some majorly delicious bug food in the original in the form of almond milk, and parabens (blended by professional formulators with labs and testing equipment) are potent enough to fend off those bugs. Almond milk has a longer shelf life than dairy milk, but that’s not saying a whole lot, especially when its stored at room temperature, and blended up with delicious things like cocoa butter. So, in order to drop the parabens, the almond milk has to go, too.
I elected to include some cocoa bioferment as a sort of luxxy swap for the almond milk. They don’t do the same thing, but I’ve had some cocoa bioferment burning a whole in my cabinet for a while and this seemed like a great place to use it. Cocoa bioferment is included in concoctions to help firm up the skin, combat inflammation, and treat under-eye circles. If you don’t have it (it is rather weird), you can use a different bioferment, like sea kelp, or a hydrolyzed protein, like silk.
The original includes dove orchid extract, and you are likely thinking what I was thinking, which is “where on earth would one get that?!” The Formulator Sample Shop has two different kinds of orchid extract, but not that one, and in any event… I didn’t have orchid anything in my pantry. Apparently it is included for skin-soothing, and there’s plenty of other things we can use for skin soothing, like my brand new chrysanthemum extract. You could also use green tea extract or chamomile extract, or leave it out altogether if you want.
A blend of sweet almond oil and cocoa butter creates a stunning, creamy lotion. A bit of cetyl alcohol adds some thickness and body without the lotion getting a bit spongy (which can happen when you use lots of cocoa butter). If you don’t have cetyl alcohol you could use stearic acid or more cocoa butter instead. A hefty dose of vanilla essential oil gives a really lovely true vanilla scent that’s not quite as sweet as benzoin. You could use benzoin instead, or some vanilla fragrance oil, but this is a good place to use vanilla essential oil—since it’s water soluble I don’t use it often, and I’m loving it here.
You’ll likely notice the inspiration is prescribed as a facial lotion, but it is worth noting that cocoa butter can clog pores, so if you are acne prone you may want to proceed with caution (this is also a good read). In any event it makes a divine hand lotion!
If you like silky, creamy, cocoa and vanilla scented things, you should make this Heavenly Cocoa Lotion. As I said, it’s already in my purse, ’cause it’s the bomb. Like body frosting, or something to that effect. Swoon.
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Heavenly Cocoa Lotion
84g | 2.96oz distilled water
1g | 0.03oz chrysanthemum extract
2g | 0.07oz vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)5g | 0.18 oz complete emulsifying wax (not beeswax!)
7g | 0.25oz sweet almond oil (USA / Canada)
4g | 0.14oz cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
2g | 0.07oz cetyl alcohol (USA / Canada)0.5g | 0.017oz Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
15 drops vanilla essential oil
1g | 0.03oz cocoa bioferment (USA / Canada)
0.5g | 0.017oz Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada) (or other broad spectrum preservative of choice at recommended usage rate [why?])Prepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a wide, flat-bottomed sauté pan.
Weigh the water, chrysanthemum extract, and vegetable glycerin into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Weigh the emulsifying wax, sweet almond oil, cocoa butter, and cetyl alcohol into a second heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Place both measuring cups in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
After about 20–30 minutes the oil part should be completely melted and the water part should be thoroughly dissolved. Remove the water bath from the heat, and pour the water part into the oil part. Stir with a flexible silicone spatula to incorporate.
Grab your immersion blender and begin blending the lotion, starting with short bursts so the still-very-liquid lotion doesn’t whirl up and spray everywhere. Blend for about a minute, leave to cool for ten, blend for another minute or two, and repeat this blend-cool-blend cycle until the outside of the glass measuring cup is barely warm to the touch and the lotion is thick and creamy.
Once the lotion has cooled to room temperature, stir in the vitamin E, vanilla essential oil, cocoa bioferment, and liquid germall plus. Decant the lotion into a 100mL jar or pump-top bottle. Enjoy!
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this cream contains water, you must include a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. This is non-optional. Even with a preservative this project is likely to eventually spoil as our kitchens are not sterile laboratories, so in the event you notice any change in colour, scent, or texture, chuck it out and make a fresh batch.
If you don’t have chrysanthemum extract, you can use chamomile extract instead, or another botanical extract you have that your skin likes, or leave it out entirely. As an alternative for cocoa bioferment you can use a different bioferment, like sea kelp, or a hydrolyzed protein, like silk. If you don’t have cetyl alcohol, you can use more cocoa butter instead.
Want to learn more about these ingredients, including information on substitutions and where to buy them? Check out their entries in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia!
Marie, have you been reading my mind? I made lavender-cocoa butter bath bombs the other night, and instantly added ‘find a cocoa butter lotion recipe’ to my to-do list! Scratch that off my list! Thanks!
Maybe I have lol… perhaps I am reading the minds of my readers in my dreams! 😛
I loved this recipe and do love the original cream. I find that, although I love it on my body, cocoa butter tends to clog the pores on my face. Do you have a recommendation of what to swap for cocoa butter in this recipe?
Perhaps kokum butter?
I have made this recipe now twice. Once with mango butter so that my daughter can use it on her face (and allantoin since I needed an alternative to occlusive function cocoa butter provides) and once with cocoa butter and cocoa absolue. I am smelling this divine cream on my hands now 🙂 awesome recipe!
Yay! I’m so glad 😀 Your swaps sound great, too—I love the allantoin swap for the occlusive function!
Is the Cetyl alcohol being used as a Co emulsifier or thickener? If a Co emulsifier can I possibly use liquid lecithin & if so how much. If used to thicken could I use xanthan gum. Also one last question, and this doesn’t have to do with this particular recipe but lotions in general. I don’t have a lot of ingredients to work with and I’ve read that carbomers and such gives lotion a silky feel and glides on the skin. I have nano particle zinc oxide and after seeing how it felt in a baby diaper cream, I’m wondering if I add just a smidgen, not much at all, if it may help with that silky, glidy feel? Thank you for all you do, you’re fantastic! With friendship & love, Cryatal
Hey Crystal! If you don’t have cetyl alcohol I recommend using the swap I suggest in the recipe and in the blog post 🙂 I am using it as a thickener. For your second question… I have no idea what you are asking. What does zinc have to do with carbomers? Zinc is not a great ingredient for adding slip (it’s notoriously skiddy), so I wouldn’t add it to much of anything unless I was adding enough to get the skin protective benefits, which it doesn’t sound like you want to.
OOh, vanilla and cocoa, my favorites! I will be making this over the long weekend, without the extract, as I don’t have any at this time. Gotta give the bank account a rest, ha ha! I already use and love the luxurious silk and rose cardamom lotions, and the chocolate hazelnut of course.
Crystal, where do you get the nano particle zinc oxide? I am making a diaper cream for my daughter who is due with my 4th grandson and I would like to try this type, thank you. And yes, Marie is amazing and wonderful. I love my newest hobby!
We definitely have similar tastes! And I can understand the bank account needing a rest; I just placed another order (or 2…) that I’m pretty psyched about 😛 I wouldn’t really recommend buying the cocoa bioferment in any event, I can’t say it’s better than silk or sea kelp bioferment or anything else I’d use instead. I just buy too many ingredients 😛
Hi Marie,
The water part is larger than usual in this lotion. Less oil part on account of being a face lotion? I’m going to try this lotion but increase the almond oil and cocoa butter. A hint of tucuma butter will add a nice butterscotch scent too! Happy Easter everyone!
It’s just to alter the weight of it—it’s much lighter than usual, which I like on hands and face and whatever!
Hummm… I was originally going to skip this recipe and save it for when the weather turns back to cold, but then I actually read the eclipse and holy smokes dude! I must have this. I even have some lovely new green tea extract and oat extract and found a liquid extract dealer on Taobao.
Oh! I forgot to post this somewhere. And since you talked about bioferment, it’s on topic. So I have been trying to make a foaming hand wash to use in one of those pump foam things and decided to add in what the seller said probably was sea kelp bioferment. Everything was going fine until I began to cool it down. Then it turned into some algae blob floating around. I played with it for a while trying to figure out what the heck it could be. I asked the seller about it and she said yes! This is normal. Women want this in their face masks.
Have a great day!
Agh! Kelp boogers! What an oddity I will probably pass on that in my masks LOL!
Don’t! It was a brilliant face mask! Very hydrating. If I get all my work done today, I was promised a spa evening and I’m taking the sea boogers with me!
hmm… I will likely have to take your word on that, lol.
I have botanical extracts, but they are not powdered. Will this affect the consistency? By the way Marie, you are rocking that lipstick you are wearing in the video! I’m sure you made it too!
Given the low usage rate, I’m not concerned about the consistency being effected 🙂 And yes, I did make the lipstick! It’s a modification of my Highlighting Moon Drops—I added 1/32 tsp FD&C Red #7 to one of the bronze ones… don’t remember which, but I sure like it!
Thanks Marie !!!! Made this today and it smells AWESOME !!!! I think I can easily say it is in the top three creams/lotions I have ever made. THANK YOU !!!!!!!!!
Yay! I’m so darn glad you love it so much 😀 YAY!!!
I just made this yummy concoction and I’m not sure whether to slather it onto my skin or spoon it over ice cream! Made some easy substitutions of silk protein (didn’t have any of that cocoa bioferment stuff) and used benzoin in place of vanilla essential oil. Turned out fabulous!
Mmmmm! I will attempt to dissuade you from the ice cream application… but do report back if the temptation proves too great!
Lisa D. Did you lower the amount of Benzoin in the recipe or swap it out evenly? Benzoin can be a skin irritant when used in high dosages. Since it’s been almost a Year, just wondering what your results were !! thanks !!
Do you have an recommendation for a substitute for Cocoa Bioferment. Its the only item I don’t have. Cosmetic budget was “busted” so long ago it isn’t even funny, and I still have “mature” skin….LOL
As an alternative for cocoa bioferment you can use a different bioferment, like sea kelp, or a hydrolyzed protein, like silk 🙂
So if I don’t have the alternatives you mentioned for the bioferment can it be left out or replaced with water or oil?
Yup! Just replace it with an equal amount of water; obviously that’s not a substitution at that point, it’s just keeping the recipe in balance 🙂
Duh…I see the answer, if only I would read more thoroughly…I have silk peptide, I assume that could work?
Yup!
I made this yesterday first with Polawax. It did not emulsify so I threw that batch out 🙁 Then I made it with BTMS-50 and it worked perfectly- very little use of my immersion blender at the end it came together so well. Smells amazing! Can’t wait to use it as I’ve had this recipe on my list for awhile.
That’s odd—are you sure you have true Polawax? This recipe is just about bang on for recommended Polawax useage as a percentage of the oil part (27% to the 25% recommendation). I’m glad it worked in the end, though!
It is a fairly new bag of Polawax from New Directions but I also had the same thing happen when I made the Oat Milk Dream Cream so maybe I just have a bad bag of Polawax.
That’s really odd—I would get in touch with them, perhaps they sent you the wrong thing?
Hi Marie,
I made this lotion twice and I was not happy with how it wasn’t as thick and luscious as yours seems to be. The first one I used water and a third of the water I used Lavender hydrosol, because I wanted a “sleepy time” lotion. I also used a gram of hydrolyzed silk in the water phase. Its still beautiful lotion, but it looks like it can be poured rather than scooped like yours in the video.
The second one I stuck with your recipe and added the 1 gram of silk again to the water phase and it still came out runny. I would also like to mention both batches I used Lavender mica from NDA to make my lotion purple. Could that hinder the thickening?
Thanks!
It doesn’t sound like you did anything wrong—this recipe really isn’t that thick (I describe it as lightweight in the opening sentence). You’ll also notice the water phase is quite large—another indicator it’ll be a thinner lotion. This one is pump/squeeze-bottle friendly (as seen in the video), which a lot of readers really like 🙂 If you want something thicker, check out this recipe 🙂
Hi Marie. Can I use Vanilla 10 fold Oleoresin Essential Oil instead of vanilla essential oil? I guess I could since you used it in other lotion, the Vanilla Coco Body Lotion, but what’s the difference between them? The essential oil is water soluble and the oleoresin is “soluble in ethanol only. It is immiscible in water and oil”, as they state in the product description. Is this their main difference? And how does it affect the final product? Thanks a lot for all your receipts, I really enjoy reading and watching you.
Hmm; the solubility of the Oleoresin you’ve quoted has be concerned. If it is “immiscible in water and oil” then it won’t blend with anything in the lotion, which obviously isn’t what we want! You could try a drop and see what you think? I read through the reviews for the same product on NDA and it sounds like a lot of reviewers have tried it and remarked on little dots but otherwise a fine end product. Let me know how it goes!
Hi Marie! I saw a similar question, but I just wanted to ask, if I don’t have cetyl alcohol, and use extra cocoa butter instead, would the results be…..oily? Also, is cetyl alcohol a worthy investment? (Because I’ve been snapping up lots of lotion ingredients lately, i.e. ritamulse, silk peptides, isopropyl myristate, cocoa butter…..and I don’t know, adding cetyl alcohol to the mix seems a little iffy!) Thanks!
I’d definitely say cetyl alcohol is a worthwhile investment. It’s inexpensive, and you can get away with buying 100g or less given you rarely use more than a few grams at a time. Using cocoa butter instead here won’t make the end product oily, but it will make it looser.
Heyo! I’ve been impatiently waiting for all my supplies to arrive and finally decided after a long debate to give this lotion a try as my first DIY attempt(so many recipe options!). I subbed a few things as per your recommendations and I am SO EXCITED! It’s beautiful! Thank you so much for all your info, lovely blogs/youtube content… I can’t wait to try more! Cheers!
WHEE! I’m so glad 🙂 Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me, and enjoy your lotion!
I seriously love this recipe! I subbed the extra cocoa butter as stated and worked fantastically. I left out the vanilla as I didn’t have any and put in some peppermint essential oil. Smells wonderful!! One question – in Australia I have not been able to find any bio-ferment of any kind, even from New directions Australia. Any tips on where I could find some or what would work as substitutes? Thanks for your amazing site and the book as well. Already waiting for number 2!
Yay! I bet it smells utterly stunning, swoon. If you don’t have any bioferments you can use other skin treat type goodies; panthenol and hydrolyzed proteins would always be good choices! Happy making 😀
I can’t get the cocoa bioferment Could I use silk peptides?
Yup! It won’t be a direct swap but both are lovely for the skin and will be lovely in the recipe 🙂
Can you recommend recipes by specific need? categorize them by need vs by hair/face/makeup etc? For example, if I’m looking for a recipe for firming the skin on my face, addressing dark circles under my eyes, but don’t know or necessarily care if it’s a lotion vs a serum vs a cleansing balm vs mask, I don’t have a way to pick out those recipes (or target the ingredients I may want to use) from the extensive list. Also for dry and damaged hair, etc. Is that going to be a shampoo product? a conditioner? a leave-in product or spray? I can’t read through every article and post, but want to find the product and recipe that will be the most effective for said need.
Thanks much!
Hi Jo!
Unfortunately, there are I think almost 1,000 DIY posts on HumbleBee & Me and each one targets something! I can help you narrow your search a little so hopefully this will help! I like this serum and use it directly after toning my face. I apply a little more than needed a couple times a week and spend a good four to five minutes massaging it into my face paying close attention to my eye area to help increase the circulation. Another good serum is this one you can add a drop to your face lotion and massage it in the same way. Hopefully this helps!
hello
which scale do you use?
even though I have an electronic kitchen scale that untill now looked pretty accurate to me, I just realised it doesn’t show weights in decimals (for g). Either I dont know how to make it show decimals or it simply doesnt hv that option.
kindly let me know which scale do you use.
tx
I picked up my current scales from Lotion Crafter—they have tons of great options! One is a MyWeigh and one is a Jennings. I’d also recommend reading this FAQ 🙂
Hello Marie, what do you think about adding a bit of Cocoa Powder at cool down for a ‘deeper cocoa aroma’ and slight tint?
You can try it? I would section off a small amount of lotion and try a wee bit there first to make sure you like it. Happy making!
Hello!! Marie I don´t have BTMS 50, nor Polawax nor emulsifying wax. My suplir only has Carbopol CG-G-940. What recommendation can you give to me? I really will like to make this recipe.
I could also wait till february when the suplier imports the BTMS
If you want to make this lotion you will need an emulsifying wax of some kind, not a carbomer like Carbopol CG-G-940. I would probably wait for the BTMS. I’d also see if you can get a non-ionic emulsifying wax and they’re a lot more versatile 🙂 Happy making!
Hi Marie
I made this tonight, and it was super easy, smelled wonderful, and felt great. However, when I tested the pH, it was neutral, at 7. I added a chamomile/calendula hydrosol, but the ph of that was neutral as well. I used an oil soluble aloe extract, vs the chrysanthemum extract you have. I left out the bioferment completely, and added more distilled water. Is it possible that’s the culprit? I read on your encyclopedia the pH is closer to 5 for that particular ingredient? All my other ingredients were the same, and all purchased per your suggestions for the USA. This was my first time making a lotion lol, maybe I was being too ambitious, but it emulsified beautifully, had a glorious consistency, and smells amazing lol! Thank you for all that you do for skin care DIYers, you’re the reason I started formulating, after purchasing your love book 🙂