This beer inspired lotion will leave your skin soft and won’t leave you smelling like beer—I promise. Its base of moisturizing, soothing oat milk and anti-inflammatory hops is great for skin that’s already missing summer.
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To be truly oat stout inspired, a great pairing oil would be oat oil, but unfortunately I don’t have it on hand. Since oat oil is wonderfully rich I used unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) instead, but if you happen to have oat oil on hand, it would be brilliant.
Hops flowers are used in beer as a a flavouring agent and stabilizer/preservative. Depending on the type of beer you can have hops coming out your ears (*cough* IPAs *cough*) or… not. They impart a bitter, tangy flavour that is essential to beer. They also have a history of use in herbal medicine, and that’s what we’re including them for here (I don’t recommend tasting this lotion). They’re said to be anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidizing, and they might even help treat leprosy (though I’d definitely still see a doctor if you suspect you have leprosy…).
As with all lotions, this one’s an emulsion of an oil part and a water part. The water part is infused with moisturizing oats, hops, and skin-softening honey.
The oils part is mostly rich unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) (or oat oil, if you have it) and safflower oil, blended with some emulsifying wax to ensure a fool-proof, stable emulsion. Don’t use beeswax instead of emulsifying wax, they don’t do even close to the same thing and the recipe will not work.
Once you’ve got both parts all that’s left is melting, warming, and whisking. Voila! Now you have a lovely lotion 🙂
Oktoberfest Oat Stout Lotion
100g | 3.3 fl oz water
1 tsp oatmeal
1 tsp hops flowers72g | 2.54oz oat/hops water
3g | 0.1oz raw honey7g | 0.25oz emulsimulse/ritamulse (or other complete emulsifying wax)
10g | 0.35oz unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) or oat oil
8g | 0.28oz safflower oilBroad spectrum preservative of choice (why?)
To make the infused water, pour the boiling water over the oats and hops and let them steep for 20 minutes before straining out the oats and hops. If you happen to have a muslin bag, a tea filter, a sieve, or an empty tea bag on hand, I’d definitely recommend putting the oats and hops in one of them for easy removal afterwards.
Once the water has steeped, strain out the oats and hops and discard, squeezing the leftovers to get out as much oat/hops milk as possible. Weigh out 72g (2.54oz) of the infused water and set aside.
Weigh out the emulsifying wax, unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)/oat oil, and safflower oil into a small saucepan and melt over medium heat.
While the oils are melting, combine the reserved infused water with the honey in a small glass measuring cup and gently warm through.
Once the oils have melted, add the infused 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).
Once the lotion has cooled to room temperature, add your broad spectrum preservative. Decant the finished lotion into a 120mL/4oz pump-top bottle and voila—Oktoberfest oat stout lotion!
This looks like a lovely lotion. I love oats’ effect on my skin and I know hops is a broad-spectrum pain reliever, so I wonder if this would be nice for sore muscles as the cool weather gets me outside hiking more often. Is is possible to use a combination of Polysorbate-20 and cetearyl alcohol as an emulsifying wax? I have those on hand and a friend of mine grows hops, so it would be a nice excuse to drop by for a visit if I could put this together without buying anything new.
Hi Elizabeth! I’m afraid I’ve never experimented with a blend of polysorbate 20 and cetearyl alcohol as an alternative for emulsifying wax, but I don’t think it will work—at least not off-hand without very specific ratios. I’ve never seen the two paired as a complete emulsifying wax. I’d stick to the real thing to be sure your lotion will work 🙂
Hi Marie, I always love oat, but I hv heard that it’s hard to preserve even if we add in the broad spectrum preservative. So do u hv any problem preserving this lotion ? How long do u think it can last if I use 0.5% liquid Germall plus, and store it in cool dark place ?
Thanks
Hey Renee! You are absolutely right about delicious things like oat milk being hard to preserve, which is why this recipe makes a pretty small amount. I haven’t seen any noticeable signs of spoilage within two months using 0.5% LGP, and 100g of lotion should be easy to use up in that time frame!
What I am confused about is, you can use the hops infused water as a preservative itself??? Reason I am asking is, I want to make beer beard oil with a natural preservative for a wholesale client, and wondering if I can use this same principal to use in beard oil as well? It would be nice to use their own hops they have grown! Can you help
You won’t be able to use the hops infused water as a preservative in cosmetics. Try soaking some hops in water and leaving that on your counter for a week or two to see what I mean :/ You can infuse perfectly dry hops in oil, though 🙂 Happy making!