Today we are continuing my quest to MANGO ALL THE THINGS with this juicy Mango Mango Body Lotion. It’s a pretty simple lotion, designed to showcase mango love without too many fancy ingredients. It’s lightweight and moisturizing, bright orange, and smells like beaches and happiness. I think you’re going to like it.

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Our water phase features some good moisturizing ingredients like glycerin, sodium lactate, and hydrolyzed silk, plus some anti-inflammatory goodies like aloe vera juice and panthenol (aka vitamin B5). I’ve tried to keep things pretty simple, and there are suggestions for further simplifying things at the end of the recipe.

I’ve kept the oil phase fairly small so this lotion is both fast-absorbing and pump-friendly. Apricot kernel oil and mango butter form the bulk of the oil phase, with a touch of sea buckthorn fruit oil so the end product is a beautiful, juicy orange. Don’t worry—it’s not orange enough to make you orange! It is orange enough, however, that I recommend being extra careful to not spray lotion everywhere when you first fire up your immersion blender (ask me how I know this…).

The mouth-watering scent comes entirely from some stunning natural mango fragrance oil from Essential Wholesale. Swoon. If you don’t have that particular product you can use a mango fragrance oil instead; I’ve definitely seen a few mango and mango + other things (like passionfruit) fragrances around.

The finished lotion is just… nice. It pumps out beautifully and massages into the skin easily. It absorbs in a flash, leaving your skin feeling hydrated without a hint of greasiness, and leaving you smelling like mangoes. What more could you want?

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Mango Mango Body Lotion

Heated water phase
52.17g | 52.17% distilled water
20g | 20% aloe vera juice
2g | 2% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
4g | 4% sodium lactate (USA / Canada)
2g | 2% panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)
1g | 1% hydrolyzed silk (USA / Canada)

Heated oil phase
4.33g | 4.33% Polawax (USA / Canada)
2g | 2% sea buckthorn fruit oil
5g | 5% mango butter (USA / Canada)
6g | 6% apricot kernel oil (USA / Canada)

Cool down phase
1g | 1% natural mango fragrance oil
0.5g | 0.50% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)

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 heated water phase into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Weigh the entire lot (measuring cup + ingredients) and note that weight for use later. Weigh the heated oil phase 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 weigh it. Add enough hot distilled water to bring the weight back up to what it was before heating, and then 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.

When the lotion is cool it’s time to incorporate our cool down ingredients. Because cool down ingredients are typically present at very low amounts you’ll need to use an accurate scale—preferably one accurate to 0.01g. As these more accurate scales tend to have fairly low (100–200g) maximum weights you won’t be able to put the entire batch of lotion on that scale without blowing it out. So—grab a smaller dish. Add a scoop or two of lotion, and then weigh the cool down ingredients into that, using the more accurate scale. Stir to thoroughly incorporate, and then stir all of that back into the master batch of lotion. Doing it this way minimizes the amount of cool down ingredients lost to the secondary container.

Once your cool down ingredients have been incorporated you can transfer your lotion to its container. I recommend a 120mL/4oz plastic pump-top bottle for this lotion; it’s quite thin so an open jar or tub would likely be quite messy. To use, smooth over any skin that needs a bit of mango-y TLC. Enjoy!

Shelf Life & Storage

Because this lotion 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.

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 100g.
• 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!
• You could use a different humectant instead of the glycerine and/or sodium lactate, like propanediol.
• Review the encyclopedia page for panthenol for substitution suggestions
• You could try a different hydrolyzed protein (oat, rice, quinoa, etc.) in place of silk
• You could also use additional water or aloe vera juice in place of the panthenol and/or silk
• A different complete emulsifying wax will work in place of Polawax.
• You can use a different orange oil (like buriti or sea buckthorn seed oil) instead of the sea buckthorn fruit oil, or you can replace it with more apricot kernel oil (this will eliminate the orange colour).
• If you replace the sea buckthorn fruit oil with a non-orange oil you can try using 0.75% non-orange oil and 0.25% orange mica to keep the colour.
• A different soft butter, like shea butter, will work instead of mango butter
• You can use a different lightweight oil like sweet almond, grapeseed, or sunflower seed in place of the apricot kernel oil.
• You can use a different fragrance if you prefer.
• If you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this page.