This silky soft Lady London Fog Body Lotion is inspired by the London Fog latte—Earl Grey tea steamed with vanilla syrup and milk. This lovely lotion has notes of tea, bergamot, and vanilla, with an added note of rose for a slightly sweeter, more delicate experience. It’s divine.
Like all lotions, this one is an emulsion of oil and water. Mostly water, with a bit of oil. The water bit is water and fragrant rose water, which is a great way to get a hint of a rosy scent without the pain of paying for rose essential oil. I grabbed my bottle of rose water from the Lebanese section of Superstore and it was just a couple dollars. Score! Added silk and honey bring a humectant boost to the lotion, helping attract moisture to your skin to keep it hydrated for longer.
The oil part is a blend of rich unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) and silky grapeseed oil to create a hydrating lotion that won’t leave your hands greasy—just silky smooth. I used polawax as my emulsifying wax, working a few blasts from my immersion blender into the emulsifying bit to help it thicken up faster (it can take days otherwise). If you don’t have polawax, e-wax NF and emulsimulse/ritamulse are great alternatives and can be swapped out one for one.
The essential oil blend caps off this lovely lotion beautifully. Palmarosa brings a wonderful, warm tea-like base note, which mingles beautifully with sweet, vanilla-like benzoin and bright bergamot. Be sure to choose bergapatene-free bergamot essential oil, which is the version of the essential oil that’s had the photosensitizing compounds removed so you wouldn’t get a sunburn from your lotion. Add the faint background sweetness of the rose to the mix and you’ve got a stunning Lady London Fog lotion!
Lady London Fog Body Lotion
6g | 0.21oz complete emulsifying wax (not beeswax!)
10g | 0.35oz unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
9g | 0.32oz grapeseed oil40g | 1.41oz distilled water
40g | 1.41oz rose hydrosol (or just use more water)
1/4 tsp silk peptides
2g | 0.07oz honey or vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)6 drops bergapatene-free bergamot essential oil
6 dops palmarosa essential oil
2 blobs benzoin essential oilBroad spectrum preservative of choice (why?)
Combine the emulsifying wax with the unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada), and grapeseed oil in a small saucepan and melt over medium heat.
While the emulsifying wax mixture is melting, combine the rose water, water, honey (or vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)), and silk in a small glass 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 (or use an immersion blender, which will help lotions made with polawax or ewax NF thicken up faster)—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 and no immersion blender).
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/4 fl oz pump-top bottle or wide-mouthed jar. Enjoy!
New to lotion making? Watch my basic lotion how to video!
Hi Marie. What a Lively recepie. I will makeup this for my mom who just had breast surgey. Can I adder som vitamin E for scar healing?
Can you also regiment a soap that is mild and could go with the lotion in a carepack?
All the Best
Clara from Denmark
Hi Clara! You can definitely add some vitamin E, it would go with the oils part. Try dropped a gram or two of the shea butter and replacing it with vitamin E. As for a soap, I am in love with this one 🙂 I hope your mom heals fast! Check out this recipe as well for a post-surgery healing post 🙂
I’m sure you have thought of this already, so perhaps you would explain your rationale for not using 40g of Earl Grey tea in place of the 40g of water in your recipe? Would the tea scent have been overwhelming if you’d used actual Earl Grey tea PLUS the palmarosa essential oil? I made my own version of a London Fog lotion (totally based on your Pumpkin Spice lotion–so thank you for that!) wherein I used emulsimulse and almond oil, plus Earl Grey tea with soya milk powder, and finished it off with vanilla EO, bergamot EO and benzoin. Not too shabby at all, but now I am inspired to try this recipe how the tweaks affect the end product for better or worse. I like the option of the rose water…
is it save to use tea in creams?
Safe, yes, but it will negatively impact shelf life, even with the inclusion of a broad spectrum preservative 🙂
I wanted the longest shelf life possible, and tea = tasty bacteria food (shop bought rose water has been pasteurized so it’s not a worry). Even with the use of a preservative the use of tea would shorten the shelf life. The soya milk powder you mentioned will do the same—think about milk stored at room temperature! Preservatives aren’t these magical things that prevent anything and everything from ever spoiling 🙂
Ah yes…bacteria. I didn’t really think through all the ramifications. Although, so far I haven’t any problems because I only make a small batch at a time and it gets used really fast (I’m a bit of a lotion addict). Still, something to keep in mind if I plan on sending it to friends for a gift. Thanks for your expertise–as always.
No worries! I have made many the lotion with tea for the liquid for personal use, and they’re quite lovely 🙂
Love this recipe idea.
Doesn’t the tin rust as you are using water? I always want to use tins but have been told to use plastic due to rusting. I’ve even gone to so far to call my suppliers and ask if I can use metal tins like yours as I like the look. Or are you using it so fast that isn’t an issue.
Aluminium tins don’t rust and should be fine for most products that don’t contain acids or essential oils in high concentrations.
Thanks!
As noted below aluminum doesn’t rust, and I’ve never had a tin with lotion rust on me, but in this particular case I only photographed it in a tin before moving it to a bottle 🙂
Sounds delicious
I need benzoin & silk powder then I’ll be good to go
Thanks so much for sharing
Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
I made it yesterday, turned out nice. Smells like Earl Grey tea, already in use, and very nourishing, even the day after applying, skin is so smooth. I left out silk because i didn’t have it, and added little bit of stearic acid. I tried and will use it for body, hands, and feet. Next time and for warmer weather I will try cupuaçu or babassu to substitute shea butter or part of it.
Wonderful! I’m so glad you’re enjoying it 😀 Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
What can be used as s substitute to silk powder?
I wrote an FAQ on this 🙂
Thank you. I’ll have to look for it. Can an active ingredient like a vitamin be added?
Hey Judith! That’s not really a question I can answer broadly. Different vitamins have different stability levels, solubility, and other considerations. You could add vitamin E or vitamin B5 easily. I wouldn’t add vitamin C as it will throw off the pH and oxidize very quickly. Other than that, I haven’t worked with any other straight vitamins so I can’t say.
Hello,
Is this kind of emulsifying wax safe for lip balm? http://www.amazon.com/Emulsifying-Wax-Polysorbate-Polawax-Dr-Adorable/dp/B00GIU4GDS/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pl_foot_top?ie=UTF8 ? I have lip eczematous cheilitis/lip dermatitis that will not quit and my regular home made recipes are not working (organic beeswax/cocoa butter/coconut oil/olive oil). I have just been using plain coconut oil and then layering vaseline on top, but this is not working either. I have told my doctor about it and she had no suggestions. I am so desperate. thank you much, kateri
Hey Kateri! You can research the safety of your ingredients and make your own decisions at the Skin Deep database; people often have wildly different definitions of what they consider safe (some of my readers refuse to use emulsifying wax, while I love it). My larger concern would be that you’re including water in something, which means you need a broad spectrum preservative, and you’d be putting that near your mouth, and I wouldn’t want to do that. Have you tried this lip balm? It’s what I need when my super dry lips are driving me insane. Coconut oil + vaseline sounds so thin that it wouldn’t stick around to impart any moisture, so you need something with more wax that’ll stay on your skin long enough to make a difference.
thank you for your response. i was using a similar version of your sticky coconut balm recipe to no avail. i will just have to make an appt with a dermatologist. darn. thank you for the info about the skin deep site.
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help—best of luck!
..so, I have a question :)..I make face cream with water and oils..no emulsifying wax, but I use kangen water-which is apparently an emulsifier.so i’m wondering, do you think I could make your lotions and conditioner without the wax..no other changes that you would suggest?
Will be making this tomorrow! Cant wait thanks
Happy making! 😀
Hi Marie:
I’m interested in making this wonderful sounding lotion. Question though — I don’t have several of the ingredients and am looking for them now. Have you heard of this emulsifying wax (Milliard NON-GMO Emulsifying Wax Pastilles NF -16 OZ. Resealable Freshness Stora)? Or this brand? One of the reviews I read said it’s a bootleg company but all of the other reviews liked it. I couldn’t find anything listed in the description whether it was a ‘complete’ or ‘incomplete’. Can you offer advice? Does the product I listed above sound okay to use? And can you advise where you get all of your products? I
Hey Jeannie! So, I did a bunch of googling, and I can’t find the INCI of this wax anywhere. That is, the list of things that make up the product—the ingredients! That’s kind of suspicious to me, and without that I can’t tell if this would be a complete e-wax or not. It does seem odd that no reliable cosmetic/body product supply sellers carry this brand; it just seems to be eBay, Amazon, and some other random sites :/ From the reviews it would probably work, but I would advise you to get something that’s a sure thing rather than a “probably” thing.
I get most of my stuff from New Directions and Saffire Blue—check out my giant list of places to shop here.
Thanks Marie! I don’t have Shea Butter on hand either (I have just a few of the ingredients), what do you recommend for that on the NDA site? Refined or unrefined? Other suggestions?
I have a few more questions for you (not related to this recipe but to others I’ve found) and I think you’re a great resource! I have looked at the New Directions site (I’d rather use the Sapphire Blue but I’m in the US and don’t want to worry about shipping etc).
1 – If purchasing jojoba oil (for a spray moisturizer) which oil should I get? Is it ok to get the golden jojoba or should I get the clear ‘deodorized’ oil? I’d rather have organic GMA cert but am worried about the coloring. The deodorized has been filtered to remove color and odor.
2 – I’ve seen vitamin E sold as a clear substance and at other times a dark brown/amber color. What’s the best kind to get? This is again for the spray moisturizer and it’s being used as a natural preservative in this recipe.
Any help you can offer is greatly appreciated!
Hey Jeannie! I’ve got an article on different shea butters that should help you decide—it’s totally up to you, no shea butter will cause the recipe to succeed or fail.
You can get whichever jojoba oil appeals to you; I’ve only ever used the golden stuff and it works beautifully for everything I’ve tried. The colour doesn’t carry through to final products in any noticeable way unless you’re turning it into straight-up massage oil or something that’s mostly jojoba oil.
I use Vitamin E MT-50 Full Spectrum. It’s a dark, sticky liquid 🙂
Happy making!
Thank you! Great, I was looking at golden jojoba and the vitamin E I found is dark. I appreciate your follow up!
🙂
Can aloe juice be substituted for the water? Will that negate the need for preservative?
You can make that substitution, but as long as there is water in a recipe you will still need a broad spectrum preservative. This lotion is about ~75% water (or mostly watery things—aloe juice is like tea in the sense that it’s 99.9% water), so don’t just eliminate the water either; that would be like dropping all the flour from a bread recipe to make it gluten free You won’t get anything close to what you were hoping for!
Hi Marie,
I have used this recipe a couple of times, using shea butter and apricot kernel oil instead. I bought Polawax to make it, 100grams. However I ran out, so I bought e-wax from a different website. It’s made with Cetearyl Alcohol/Peg-20 Stearate. When I tried to make this recipe again, it wouldn’t thicken! I whisked it, used a beater, waited a few days. And in the end, all I had was odd frothy liquid, where half of it thickened, but when shaken, it went back to frothy liquid. According to the website, it is a complete e-wax. I don’t want to throw it out!
Hey Becca! I’ve never worked with that particular e-wax before. It’s not any of the four common emulsifying waxes (Polawax, E-Wax NF, BTMS-50, or ritamulse/emulsimulse) that I own, and I just did some google-fu and it seems to only be available on Amazon and eBay; I didn’t find it sold by any of the suppliers I use (I checked a handful of other ones out of the US, too). I did see some good reviews, and some bad ones, but really, there’s not a lot of great information out there about this e-wax. My chemistry knowledge isn’t great, but it sounds like if it’s emulsifying, you may need to pair it with a thickener, like stearic acid, whenever you use it, to get your lotions to thicken up. Hope that helps!
Thanks!
I ended up selling it and am now planning on buying Polawax again, as I can’t get a hold of emulsimulse in my country. I found out that it’s scientific name is Medmuls B200, which I googled, and it came up with very little. So I think I’ll be better off with an e-wax I know will work! I can’t stand using two ingredients to emulsify, prefer if the e-wax does both.
Thanks anyway.
No worries! Happy making 🙂
I didn’t end up selling it after all! As a last resort, I added a little xanthan gum to my water part, and it thickened instantly into a lovely cream! I’m so pleased with the result. Thank you for telling me about thickeners. Cheers! 🙂
Oh neat! Glad you got that sorted 😀
Hi Marie, first off I want to say how much I enjoy your blog I have made this lotion twice now. I used Milliard NON-GMO Emulsifying Wax Pastilles NF ( bought it from Amazon) it seems like my lotion is getting thicker as it sets. The last of it is too thick to pump out of the pump bottle. Am I doing something wrong or is it supposed to be that thick?
Thank you!
Hey Suzanne! That does seem rather thick. Is there any chance your pump bottle isn’t sealing, so it’s losing water? That could be the culprit. How long is it taking to get that thick? Is it a week or two months?
Hi, thank you for replying, I didn’t think my message sent. It thickens up and seems to get thicker within a day. I was hoping for a creamier lotion rather than super thick. Wonder if my scale isn’t accurate? I find that it is hard for it to weigh the little amounts.
Ok, if it’s within a day then that’ll just be how the e-wax works rather than a storage thing, which means it’s an easy fix! Try using 5g of your e-wax next time and 10g of grapeseed oil—that should help 🙂 If that’s still way too thick you could try dropping it down to 4g/11g, but that starts to make me nervous as most e-waxes bottom out around 5% usage.
I finally think I know why my lotion did not end up with the consistency I was hoping for….I was using my frother the whole time as it cooled, so I was incorporating all that air…hence whipped lotion instead of creamy lotion. All good now. Thanks again!
That would do it! I’ve definitely done that before to some degree or another and ended up with a sort of latte top to it 😛
Hi, Collee: if I used Geogard for the preservative, would that work? or is Liquid Germall better?
Hey! I’ve been reading conflicting things about Geogard in the last couple days, in that it may not be as effective on its own as the manufacturers say it is. I’ve been using liquid germall plus and I’m happy with that, so right now I would recommend it over Geogard. The research is never ending!
Hi Marie, first off I want to say how much I enjoy your blog. 🙂 It is now my stress reliever activity. Like Suzanne,I have made this lotion twice now and I used Milliard NON-GMO Emulsifying Wax Pastilles NF ( bought it from Amazon) it seems like the lotion is getting thicker as it sets. 🙁
Hey Lawanda! Thanks for reading and DIYing with me 🙂 If you are not using an immersion blender to combine your lotion when you first make it, you will find that lotions emulsified with Polawax and E-Wax NF will continue to thicken for up to a week after making—this is 100% normal, and the consistency they reach is the one I was aiming for when I developed the recipe 🙂
I made this recipe as a birthday present for my friend, and I know she’ll just love it! I was pretty happy that not all of it quite fit in the airless pump bottle I used, because I got to try some out myself. Score! ;P
I made it with aloe juice (no rosewater), glycerin instead of honey, and a lovely blend of essential oils (pine needle, rosemary, + a hint of lavender, peppermint, and clove bud) to get a delicious, fresh forest, vaguely Christmasy kind of scent. I love it so much that I was tempted to keep it for myself!
Side note to TKB Trading customers: I use their emulsifying wax, and it takes a few days to fully thicken up. Seriously, for the first day a lotion like this is the consistency of heavy cream. It really freaked me out the fist couple times that I used it! It would probably go faster with an immersion blender.
Ooh, this sounds lovely! I think you’ll find that the lotion thickens up much faster if you use an immersion blender; several e-waxes take days to thicken if you don’t use a proper high-shear mixing method 🙂
I first started following your blog and getting into DYI around the time you posted this recipe. I’ve been spending a lot of time recently going back and looking at a lot of the old recipes and noticing how things have evolved for us. I’m feeling pretty proud of the collection I have built, but still discovered somethings to add that seem to be basics in your collection. I needed to make a lotion and was feeling sentimental towards this recipe so I pulled it up on my tablet and mixed it up today. I had almost every ingredient, just missing one of the essential oils. So obviously the end product wasn’t the same but it still smells heavenly.
Whenever I go back I can’t believe how much I’ve learned—sometimes it’s a bit embarrassing but I do try to remember that’s what happens when one documents their learnings in public 😛 It’s also always interesting to hear about the recipes that stick with people; I make so much that it’s impossible for every recipe to stick with me (in terms of making its way into my daily life), so I am often reminded of recipes I’d totally forgotten when comments like this come through 🙂 Thank you so much for reading and DIYing with me, and enjoy your lotion!
Ok, weird question coming up…I recently made my first lotion ever….(whoo-hoo), meaning I actually used emulsifying wax (Ritamulse) for the first time, and the results were pretty snazzy, so to speak. Did not leave my skin feeling as oily as a traditional DIY body butter does, and, yep, pretty great! (I’ve been converted:) The only problem is: it’s not as…how do I say this…emollient as the body butters usually are? Like, it was harder to rub it in to my skin, and I had to just keep rubbing for…a long time. So, first question: why? Second question: This lotion is easily rub-in-able, right? thanks so much, Marie!
I’m wondering if you might be experiencing the soaping effect? I find the easiest way to get less soaping is to use less product per application, so that might be a simple place to start.
Emollient means skin softening—is that what you meant here? That doesn’t make much sense in the context of the rest of the questions.
Marie, you are the person that got me interested in home made cosmetics. It’s so much fun. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and keep them coming.❤️
Thanks so much, Roxie! ❤️