If you love mangoes, brace yourself—this new series will have your mouth watering and your skin feeling all kinds of mango-themed love. This creamy, dry-touch-finish body butter smells so much like mangoes (naturally!) that your mouth will start to water. The oil and butter blend comes together to create a body butter that melts easily when massaged into the skin and vanishes without even a hint of greasiness. Add in a cheery orange colour and we’re off to the races with this beautiful Mango Mango Body Butter!

Mango Mango Body Butter

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Back when I ordered mango butter for the first time I was really, really hoping it would smell like mangoes. I mean, cocoa butter smelled beautifully of cocoa, so there was at least a chance that mango butter could smell like mangoes, right? Nope. While mango butter is a stunning, super lightweight creamy butter with an enviable dry finish, the scent is pretty much non-existent. It’s a great canvas for other scents, but if you were hoping to smell like some kind of tropical cocktail scented butter, you’re out of luck.

Mango Mango Body Butter

Mango Mango Body Butter

This is where Essential Wholesale’s natural mango fragrance oil comes in. I was a bit skeptical (could it really capture all that mango-y wonderfulness I’d been missing?), but dang—this natural fragrance is stunning. It is tangy and fruity and juicy and positively mouthwatering. It smells better than any mango themed fragrance oil I’ve ever come across.

Mango Mango Body Butter

Mango Mango Body Butter

With this stunning mango scent and gorgeous mango butter in my pantry, I knew what I had to do. I had to create that body butter I’d wanted all those years ago, when I dreamed of mango butter smelling of mangoes.

Mango Mango Body Butter

Sea Buckthorn Fruit oil is seriously dark!

 

Mango Mango Body Butter

Our base is mostly mango butter, of course! Not only for the mango-y theme, but also because it’s a beautiful dry-touch finish butter. Unlike heavier butters (shea being the first one that pops to mind for many) it sinks into the skin in a flash without any heaviness or oiliness. I’ve softened the mango butter with some lightweight liquid oils—silky, super-fast-absorbing camellia seed oil and gorgeous golden jojoba oil. For that juicy orange colour I’ve included just a wee bit of sea buckthorn fruit oil. My sea buckthorn fruit oil is absurdly pigmented—it looks straight-up red in the dropper—but once diluted in the rest of the butter it contributes a beautiful orange colour that really ties the whole project together.

Save 5% on natural mango fragrance oil (and everything else!) at Essential Wholesale & Labs with coupon code HUMBLEBEE

Mango Mango Body Butter

Mango Mango Body Butter

To keep things silky smooth we’ll be bringing this butter to trace in an ice bath before letting it set up. I’ve been finding that butter blends that don’t contain anything quite firm (like cocoa butter or a BTMS) go a bit funny and mealy if they finish setting up in the fridge (while the ones with firmer ingredients do that if they don’t set up in the fridge), so after the ice bath trace and the transfer to the container, just let the butter set up on your counter. You’ll be rewarded with a sunny, Mango Mango Body Butter that leaves your skin thinking it’s already summer. Swoon!

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Mango Mango Body Butter

Heated phase
27.5g | 50% mango butter (USA / Canada)

Cool down phase
15.125g | 27.5% camellia seed oil
11g | 20% jojoba oil (USA / Canada)

0.55g | 1% sea buckthorn fruit oil
0.275g | 0.5% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.55g | 1% mango natural fragrance oil

Prepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a small saucepan.

Weigh the mango butter into a small heat-resistant bowl—the sort of thing you can comfortably stir in. If you don’t have a small bowl, a heat-resistant glass measuring cup will work. Place the bowl in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.

While the heated phase melts, prepare an ice bath. Take a bowl that is large enough to accommodate the container the heated phase is melting in, and fill it about halfway with ice cubes and cold water.

Once the mango butter has melted, remove it from the heat and stir in the camellia seed oil and jojoba oil. Then place the bowl in the ice bath and stir constantly for about one minute, until the mixture has cooled a bit but hasn’t noticeably thickened or started to opacify. Weigh in the sea buckthorn fruit oil, vitamin E, and mango fragrance oil.

Stir to combine, and then continue stirring the mixture in the ice bath until you reach “trace”—the mixture should have enough viscosity that a small amount drizzled over the surface of the mixture leaves a “trace” for an instant. The mixture should also appear a bit hazy. If you’re a soap maker you’ll be familiar with this—we’re looking for a very light trace. Refer to the video to see it in action!

When you have reached trace, transfer the mixture to a 60mL/2oz tin and leave to set up for at least six hours (though I found it will continue to set up/mature for about a day. Do not refrigerate. That’s it!

To use, massage into your skin. Enjoy!

Shelf Life & Storage

Because this balm is 100% oil based, it does not require a broad-spectrum preservative (broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!). Kept reasonably cool and dry, it should last at least a year before any of the oils go rancid. If you notice it starts to smell like old nuts or crayons, that’s a sign that the oils have begun to oxidize; chuck it out and make a fresh batch if that happens.

Substitutions

As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.

  • As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 55g, which will fill a60mL/2oz tin nicely.
  • To learn more about the ingredients used in this recipe, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there!
  • Please don’t substitute the mango butter or the natural mango fragrance oil. If youhave to use a mango fragrance oil instead of the natural mango fragrance oil that’s ok, but if you use something other than mango butter that will dramatically impact the end feel and absorption speed of the final product.
  • If you want to substitute the camellia seed oil or jojoba oil please choose other relatively fast-absorbing oils that don’t have a strong scent. Check out the encyclopedia posts for both oils for some ideas.
  • You could use a different orange oil (sea buckthorn seed and buriti are good options) or an orange mica to get the orange hue. You could also replace it with more of one of the other liquid oils in the recipe, but then the end product will (obviously) not be orange.

Mango Mango Body Butter

Mango Mango Body Butter