Body Butter Recipes

Got parched skin? Homemade body butter is just the thing! Learn how to make body butter using great natural oils, butters, and waxes with this great selection of body butter recipes.

Making Substitutions

Don’t have the oil or butter called for in the recipe? Here’s a guide on how to choose a good alternative from what you do have.

What's with the waxes?

Beeswax, carnauba wax, candelila wax, bayberry wax—how are they different? Can you use one instead of another?

Help, I made a mess!

My best tips for cleaning up your DIY messes 🙂
The key to smooth body butters

The key to smooth body butters

Grainy, mealy, uneven body butters are the bane of any formulator’s existence. You’re dreaming of something silky smooth and divine, but instead your body butter feels like its full of sand... or perhaps you were promised a solid bar, but got oily slop instead. Bleh!...

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Easy Emulsified Body Butter

Easy Emulsified Body Butter

If you've been frustrated by heavy, melt-prone body butters, this is the formulation for you. In this post I'll be teaching you how to make an easy 7-ingredient body butter that is lighter than traditional DIY body butters, won't melt in hot weather, won't seize up if...

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Lighter Whipped Shea Butter

Lighter Whipped Shea Butter

In this post I'm sharing two lighter whipped shea butter formulations—Lavender Calendula and Coffee—and I'm sharing the easiest formulation strategy for creating lighter, less greasy body butters. Let's go! Want to watch this project instead of read it? Watch Now The...

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Green Tea Conditioning Hair & Body Butter

Green Tea Conditioning Hair & Body Butter

Today's formulation is a soft, creamy butter that works beautifully for haircare and skincare. Depending on how you use it, it can be a super-concentrated leave-in hair conditioner, a hair serum, a regular-strength leave-in hair conditioner, or a body butter. It's...

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Perfectly Pillowy Whipped Shea Butter

Perfectly Pillowy Whipped Shea Butter

I'm pretty excited about this simple yet perfectly pillowy whipped shea butter! This two-ingredient formulation came about as part of my work on last spring's Why is my body butter not whipping? video. I needed lots of b-roll of different body butters being...

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Hot Chocolate Body Butter Bars

Hot Chocolate Body Butter Bars

Body butter bars—also called lotion bars—are a great beginner-friendly DIY. Today I’m going to share a chocolate-y body butter bar formulation that employs two of my top strategies for making expensive-feeling body butter bars that will impress your friends and make...

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Hot Chocolate Natural Body Butter

Hot Chocolate Natural Body Butter

Today we're kicking off our holiday 2022 making with a silky, decadent Hot Chocolate Natural Body Butter 🍫 This formulation is part of our first theme—Hot Chocolate! This is a bit of a "Bee Better" of a theme I very briefly touched on back in 2013. It was just...

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4 tips to make your body butters feel expensive

4 tips to make your body butters feel expensive

If you're looking to make your body butters stand out—make them feel more expensive, lighter, and lovelier—here are four of my top tips to do just that! These tips can be used for all kinds of body butter formulations—whipped body butters, body balms, body butter...

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Raspberry Mint No-Melt Summer Body Butter

Raspberry Mint No-Melt Summer Body Butter

This silky, indulgent Raspberry Mint No-Melt Summer Body Butter has all the luxurious loveliness you want in a body butter, but it's much lighter—making it perfect for summer skincare! It is an emulsified body butter, so it's not only faster absorbing than anhydrous...

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Whipped Cupuaçu Passionfruit Body Butter

Whipped Cupuaçu Passionfruit Body Butter

It's been positively ages since I made a whipped body butter—since late 2020! This one was inspired by some gifted ingredients from Lavida Oils; their cupuaçu butter is utterly lovely and has re-ignited my long-standing love for this uniquely lovely butter. Cupuaçu...

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Green & Gold Body Butter Bars

Green & Gold Body Butter Bars

These charming Green & Gold Body Butter Bars star two anti-inflammatory plant oils and one of my favourite soft butters for a beautiful skin-nourishing treat with a silky, non-greasy skin feel. You can make these bars as stand-alone things or package them in...

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Chocolate Hazelnut Emulsified Body Butter

Chocolate Hazelnut Emulsified Body Butter

I'm sharing this decadent Chocolate Hazelnut Emulsified Body Butter formulation to celebrate World Nutella Day, which falls on February 5. It's definitely the sort of holiday I can get behind 🤤 This formulation is a Bee Better update to a 2014's Chocolate...

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Frosted Cranberry Butter Balm

Frosted Cranberry Butter Balm

If you find you often like the idea of body butter more than the reality of it, I think you might just love this formulation. It's creamy and silky with a gorgeous dry-touch finish that's surprisingly powdery (in a good way!). You (and your giftees!) will be delighted...

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Almond Oat Emulsified Body Butter

Almond Oat Emulsified Body Butter

We're continuing our Almond Oat theme today with this perfect-for-autumn Almond Oat Emulsified Body Butter ❤️ Silky almond oil and rich shea butter star in the oil phase, with moisturizing and soothing oaty goodness from colloidal oatmeal and hydrolyzed...

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Kombo Shea Butter Balm

Kombo Shea Butter Balm

Today's creation is an ultra-crunchy, five-ingredient Kombo Shea Butter Balm. I decided to call it a "butter balm" because it's got the skin feel of a body butter, but an in-the-tin feel that's much closer to that of a balm. It's a rich brown colour thanks to...

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Oat Cardamom Chai Emulsified Body Butter

Oat Cardamom Chai Emulsified Body Butter

Today's Oat Cardamom Chai Emulsified Body Butter smells just like a warm, sweet chai latte and is a beautiful treat for your skin. Its thick, glossy loveliness is reminiscent of whipped body butter, but you'll find it's far lighter—a moisturizing mid-point between...

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Macadamia Vanilla Emulsified Body Butter

Macadamia Vanilla Emulsified Body Butter

This decadent Macadamia Vanilla Emulsified Body Butter is lovely; it is rich and indulgent without being heavy or greasy. It smells softly nutty with a warm vanilla base note, and it's scoopy and soft like a decadent custard. If you're anything like me, you'll...

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Simple Creamy Almond Body Butter

Simple Creamy Almond Body Butter

This formulation is incredibly simple, with just three (or four) ingredients and an almond-y theme. 99.5% of this formulation is almond-derived ingredients; you don't have to keep to the almond theme if it doesn't appeal to you, but you might want to re-name your...

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Shealoe Emulsified Body Butter

Shealoe Emulsified Body Butter

Today I'm sharing my first Bee Better 3.0 project; a soft and creamy Shealoe Emulsified Body Butter that's an evolution on a shea butter and aloe vera heavy formulation I first shared in 2014, and then revised in 2019. This updated 2021 version uses a new emulsifier...

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Cocoa Coconut Vegan Body Butter Bars

Cocoa Coconut Vegan Body Butter Bars

Today's DIY is part of our ongoing Cocoa Coconut theme—we're melting up some stunning Cocoa Coconut Vegan Body Butter Bars that put silky cocoa butter and mouthwatering coconut oil on a pedestal so they can shine. You'll only need six or seven ingredients to make...

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Autumn Spice Whipped Body Butter

Autumn Spice Whipped Body Butter

This decadent Autumn Spice Whipped Body Butter is a Bee Better of a Whipped Pumpkin Spice Body Butter I shared back in 2016. This updated version features fully percentage-ified measurements, a safer scent blend, and a new whipping method. Starring lightweight mango...

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Cocoa Coconut Emulsified Body Butter

Cocoa Coconut Emulsified Body Butter

If you love The Body Shop's body butters, you are going to love this Cocoa Coconut Emulsified Body Butter! Fragrant coconut oil and cocoa butter star, making up a full 40% of this formulation. This Cocoa Coconut Emulsified Body Butter has much of the richness of a...

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Super Simple Whipped Shea Butter

Super Simple Whipped Shea Butter

Today's project is another back-to-basics post—we're making an all-natural Super Simple Whipped Shea Butter! You'll need just four basic ingredients to create this decadent body butter. It's not greasy, you don't need to heat anything up, and half of the ingredients...

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Passionfruit Coconut Vegan Body Butter

Passionfruit Coconut Vegan Body Butter

If you've been dreaming of enveloping yourself in tropical scented wonderfulness, this beautiful all-natural Passionfruit Coconut Vegan Body Butter is for you. A base of beachy coconut oil and passionfruit oil is thickened with a combination of stearic acid and...

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