Last month my friend Jay dropped a hint that winter was ravaging his hands. I said I could help. Now, Jay is an electrician, a Burner (as in Burning Man attendee), and an industrial DIY genius of jaw-dropping proportions (you should see his epic chandelier and his double bike!). So, needless to say, Jay doesn’t really strike me as the kind of guy who wants to smell of roses and vanilla while he’s out building stupendous stuff with a blow torch (yes, Jay, that’s how I picture your DIY endeavours. I have a spatula; you have a blow torch, and maybe a chainsaw.).
So, I set out to create a lotion worthy of the epic-ness of Jay and his lime green chandelier. Due to his general handiness, cedarwood essential oil came to mind. He confirmed that this was a good idea as he’d become familiar when re-finishing his cedar deck (see? Epic.). And, as an added benefit, cedarwood is supposed to be great for eczema and dry skin. Excellent.
I love it when you can just dump everything into the same pot. So few dishes!
I chose grapeseed oil for the oil in the recipe to ensure it would sink in quickly (greasy lotion is never popular). And then, for added moisture and longevity, I added silk peptide and vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada). Both are natural humectants, meaning they attract and retain moisture from the air, boosting the moisturizing power of the rest of the lotion.
Melted!
I swapped out some of the water for aloe vera juice, which is pretty much the world’s favourite natural skin care ingredient, especially when it comes to sunburnt or otherwise damaged skin.
All emulsified.
Lastly, a drop of vetiver essential oil for its wonderful smokiness. Mmm. Half a drop might be a good idea, actually—vetiver is potent stuff.
Adding the silk powder.
Manly Winter Lotion
100g | 3.5oz aloe vera juice
265g | 9.3oz water
10g | 0.35oz vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1 tsp hydrolyzed silk peptide35g | 1.23oz emulsimulse/ritamulse (or other complete emulsifying wax—not beeswax!)
87g | 3oz grapeseed oil
3g | 0.1oz Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)40 drops cedarwood essential oil (I used a blend of Himalayan and Atlas)
1 toothpick swirl vetiver essential oil (dip a toothpick in your bottle of vetiver and stir it into the lotion; that’ll be more than enough!)Broad spectrum preservative of choice (why?)
Weigh the emulsifying wax, grapeseed oil, and Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada) into a small saucepan and melt over low heat.
While the emulsifying wax mixture is melting, combine the aloe vera juice, water, glycerin, and silk in a small 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—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). I love these tiny wire whisks, I use them all the time for DIY projects 🙂
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/4oz pump-top bottle or wide-mouthed jar. Enjoy!
Remove from the heat and whisk to combine. Let cool, whisking occasionally. Add the essential oils and preservative once it is relatively cool. Then decant to a four 120mL/4oz pump-top bottles and enjoy!
This makes about 500mL of lotion, which is quite a lot, so you might want to consider reducing the batch 🙂
Cool! It’s hard to come up with manly recipes. I found a recipe for guiness stout soap that I’m going to make and test out on Mark and all his friends. Then I’ll have it up in my Etsy shop in time for Father’s Day. Yeah, I decided to persist with the Etsy shop despite Annoying Health Canada. I’ll just post a bit at a time and mainly sell soaps (only one form for a whole bunch of soaps)! My dad agreed to make me a wooden soap mold, woot! I’ll have to get the specs from you eventually.
I’ve found patchouli, mint, and citrus scents all work well for men. Not that I’d really say citrus scents are manly, but I’d say they’re gender neutral. My dad has a standing order for citrus soaps, which he loves for their fresh, “wake-up!” scent 😛
Thanks for the great recipes. This one comes right on time. A couple of questions:
1) Do you use dedicated saucepans and utensils when making your concoctions?
2) Where can I get soap molds, tins, etc. or can I use something I may already have at home?
Thanks for reading, Gitana! I actually wrote an article on which pieces are ok for sharing, and which things you should have DIY-specific versions of. You can read that here.
For a soap mould, I use a wooden one my Dad made me (detailed in that entry). In the past, though, I’ve used loaf pans I’ve picked up at Value Village (those will definitely be soap only as the saponification ruins the finishes). I also like making shaving soap in 3″–4″ PVC piping end caps from the hardware store. They’re basically little dishes you can make soap in, and since the soap fuses to the bottom, it’s great for whipping up a lather with a shaving brush as the soap doesn’t squirt away from you!
Hi I was wondering if you had measurments in ounces? Thanks I love your blog. By the way are your EO’s good. They look to be. Thanks in advance
Lory—You can easily convert grams to ounces (be sure to use weight oz, not fluid oz) by using an online converter like this one. I would really recommend starting to use the metric system, though! Because 1oz=28g, you can work with smaller measurements much more easily. For instance, the 3g of vitamin E oil in this recipe works out to 0.1oz, which can be tricky to measure, though it’s easy as 3g due to the way scales work (most will measure 1g increments or 0.1oz increments, but 1g is smaller than 0.1oz).
I love my EO’s! I get them all from New Directions Aromatics.
If you use water, is there a worry about mold or a use by date??
There is, Debbie, but water is what makes something a lotion, so there is no way around this! You can add a preservative like grapefruit seed extract, but I prefer to make it in small batches, keep unused portions in the fridge, and only have ~100mL out at any given time. Treat it like food and you’ll be fine! I think it’s kind of awesome that my products can spoil—if bacteria will touch it, then it must actually be good for me. McDonald’s fries and store bought lotion don’t mould…. eeek.
Hi, where do you buy your ingredients? and what´s diferes betwen bee´s wax and emulsifying wax, thank´s
I get the vast majority of my ingredients from New Directions Aromatics.
The differences between beeswax and emulsifying wax are pretty big. Beeswax is a natural wax made by bees. It’s harvested from beehives, and in its natural state it smells of honey and has a beautiful amber colour.
Emulsifying wax, on the other hand, is a waxy substance made of a combination of compounds (the origin of which depends on the type you use) that cause emulsification. Assuming you get the proportions right, it’s pretty much impossible not to get an emulsion when you mix water and oils together with emulsifying wax.
Oh my hunny is going to love this!
Awesome! If you’ve never worked with vetiver, be careful! This was my first out-of-soap foray into using it and holy WOW! One drop and the entire batch smells like a camp fire 😛 Whoops, lol.
This recipe worked really well. Even though its a ‘manly’ cream I thought I would try it as the longer than normal winter over here played havoc with the skin on my hands. It worked amazingly!
I have even given some to my Dad who has rather dry skin on his knees and he was very impressed : D
Glad to hear it! I use this lotion at work all the time and it’s done a great job of keeping my skin soft in our super dry climate.
i was wondering what was the amount of silk peptides added? i have silk aminos (smaller particle size) that i think should work fine, but just wondering on the amount. (maybe i missed it in the recipe?) last time i used it in a whipped body butter it resulted in a gritty finish (lol….not something anyone would want in a body butter).
It’s about 1 tsp, and I’m sure you could substitute in the silk aminos without any noticeable changes 🙂 The reason they didn’t work in your body butter is because silk is water soluble, not oil soluble, so it all just sat there in the oil, separate, rather than dissolving in. It’ll dissolve in the water in the lotion, and your lotion will be perfectly smooth.
awesome! thanks for the explanation. it might have mentioned it on NDA site from where i got it, but my reading comprehension kinda sucks, especially if im excitedly purchasing things 😀
They generally squirrel away solubility in the MSDS sheets, so it’s not right there on the product page. I’d definitely get in the habit of checking the solubility of your ingredients, though—that little bit of chemistry can really help improve your final results 🙂
You mentioned silk peptide in the description but it isn’t in the recipe. How much do you use and when/how do you add it? I’d love to try this out for my hubby, dad, grandpa… for Christmas presents.
(BTW – I have created an AMAZING vapor rub recipe. I’d love to share it with you if you’re interested.)
Oops – I see you answered that question already. >_<
No problem—I hadn’t realized I flat out left it out of the recipe lol.
Gah! Thanks so much for pointing out that I totally left it out of the recipe, lol. I fixed it 🙂 And I’d love to see your recipe—what makes it so awesome?
hey! Thanks for your recipes… I love them 🙂
I’m from Chile and I don’t know any place where I can find emulsifying wax (I research for the ingredients and I think they are very artificial to make it for myself)
is there any chance to replace it for something more natural, like shea butter or something like that?
(sorry about my bad english :/… )
Sadly, swapping out emulsifying wax for anything other than an emulsifier is like using a paint chip instead of an egg because they’re both yellow. You can pair beeswax with borax to make an emulsion, but then you can only do a 1:1 ratio of oils to water, which makes for a very greasy lotion.
Emulsifying wax isn’t just one ingredient, though—there are a lot of different types, made from different ingredients. All of these ingredients are usually derived from plants—mostly coconut & palm because they’re very cheap. My favourite e-wax is Emulsimulse, and it is “a natural source self-emulsifier for oil in water emulsions. It is ECOCERT approved for use in Certified Organic products.”
Hope that helps!
Thanks!
Sadly, in my country there isn’t emulsifying wax
🙁
thanks anyway!
Bummer 🙁 The blog “Point of Interest!” has some great articles on devising your own emulsifiers, here and here. Hopefully you’ll be able to come up with something that works!
cool! thanks, Marie, I will take a look 😀
🙂
Is there 1 web site I can get all the ingredients for this lotion?
If you scroll up to the great big grey & green box above the comments I’ve linked to all my fave suppliers 🙂 Either should be able to set you up easily & for a good price.
I just made this and it is very running. How long does it take to become the consistency of lotion????
It’ll depend on the kind of ewax you used, but if you used Polawax it’s generally 2–3 days for some strange reason. I’ve since switched to emulsimulse because it turns into thick, creamy lotion immediately.
It is polysorbate60/polawax. I thought that is what you recommended. So should I just add the EO and put in bottles. Where should I store them .
Polawax is a perfectly awesome ewax, and it makes really beautiful lotions—it just takes a day or two to set up 🙂 I still use it and really like it! Just add your EOs and decant into pump-top or squeeze bottles and check it in a day or two and you’ll have lovely lotion.
What if I added more wax
I’d really recommend letting the lotion set up on its own so you know what it’ll be like, and then make adjustments in future batches. Some waxes (candelila and carnauba come to mind) take three full days to come to their full hardness, so this really isn’t all that odd. Just wait, it’ll turn out 🙂 If you add more wax now you run the risk of it being too thick when it does set up.
Fantastic! Thank you soon much!
Merry Christmas
🙂
Hi Marie,
I am getting ready to make this for my husband. Do you think , fir, spruce and lime would be good in this cream instead of the cedar and vetiver?
Thanks
That sounds great—just do be careful of the lime, as it is photo sensitizing like most citrus oils, and you don’t want your husband to get a sunburn 🙂 You may want to substitute it with bergapatene-free bergamot EO, which is still citrussy, but has had the photo sensitizing compounds removed.
How bad would it be if I was to use gel instead of juice? My only guess is that it may not emulsify properly.. Or perhaps I haven’t quite grasped emulsifiers yet and there’s a completely different answer :P.
Is there any way for me to get away with substituting the juice for the gel? Google is of no assistance here!
Thanks, Marie 🙂
Using aloe gel instead of the juice is sort of like using chocolate pudding instead of chocolate in a recipe—there’s quite a few added ingredients and preservatives, and the texture is completely different. They generally adjust the pH, which breaks the emulsion (another reader tried something similar last week with an aloe drink), and then there’s all the dodgy colourants and fragrances as well—ick! I’m not sure which gel you have, so you can try it, but your emulsion may break, and if that happens, you’ll have to bin it. Good luck!
I had seen a dispenser on Pinterest made from a mason jar and a pump top, which I think would be wonderful for your lotions. I am definitely going to have a go at making some lotions for Christmas gifts and decorating the mason jars appropriately then putting the pump top in. I’ll send some pics once I get it finished! Love your blog.
This sounds downright adorable, and just perfect for gifts 🙂 Just be sure to let your lucky recipients know that your beautiful handmade lotions will spoil, unlike most of the ones from the store, so they should be used quickly 😉
Hi Marie! Love your blog! Just wanted to quickly confirm for the aloe vera juice if it matters if we buy inner fillet or whole leaf? When I buy aloe vera juice I usually buy inner fillet because I use it in smoothies and the whole leaf works as a laxative (which I am not looking for). Is it ok to use the inner fillet juice in this recipe?
Thanks so much! I am on a DIY binge this weekend… making your low tide soap today and a few other fun recipes with a friend who has been making stuff from off your blog for a while. I am still just getting started but I am loving learning! One thing I have learned over the past 6 months or so of using natural and homemade lotions and potions (as my roommate calls it) is that pumpkin seed oil works amazing for oily acne-prone skin… my skin has had a total turn around since using it as a moisturizer and even cleanser because it is very high in linoleic acid but not as drying as rosehip oil. Anyways, just thought I would add. Cheers!
Hi Krystyna! This is basically the juice I use. I’d avoid using food stuff unless you’re ok with your lotion spoiling very promptly—the more processed cosmetic juice has a mucho longer shelf life at room temperature.
Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me! I’m so glad you’re having fun and getting your hands dirty 🙂
Can you leave out the silk in this recipe all together? We try to keep animal products (except for beeswax) out of our products and I would love to make this! Thanks! I am already addicted to your page!
Hi Rachel! You can, but it does make a big difference in terms of how long the lotion keeps the skin moisturized 🙂
Thanks for the great recipe. After I have made this for the first time I was wondering if you had recommendations for an alternate complete emulsifier. I’m admittedly picky about odors and I find the smell of Ecomulse (looks to be the same INCI as emulsimulse) a little off putting. Everything else in the base lotion is unscented so I’d really like to tweak that one ingredient. Without being too specific it would also be nice if the subsitutue emulsifier didn’t thicken the lotion too much. I can see lots of emulsifier options but most sites are light on details about odors. Thanks for the help.
If you’re particular about odors I’d probably stay away from BTMS-50, which leaves Polawax and Emulsifying Wax NF as two easily accessible options. I’ve never noticed an irksome scent with either.
Thanks for the suggestions. Do you have one in mind that would leave a really light, easily absorbed lotion?
This one is amazing!