If you’re looking for touchable, smooth, soft skin, this Sea Buckthorn Mattifying Moisturizer is right up your alley. It’s a creamy, orange-hued moisturizer features a few scoops of silky smooth arrowroot starch to give your hydrated skin a beautiful dry touch. It was inspired by a similar product sold by Lush for an unsurprising $40, with a few changes. The reviews on the original varied; some said it was amazing for their skin, others said it was a bit drying, so I thought we could bring some DIY magic to this to make it exactly what you need.

How to make Sea Buckthorn Mattifying Moisturizer

The oil part of this balm is loaded with goodness. Sea buckthorn seed oil is rich in linoleic and alpha linolenic fatty acids, as well as vitamin E and carotenoids, and rosehip oil is known for its high vitamin C content. Moringa oil is rich in antioxidants, and creamy mango butter is an excellent emollient, rich in vitamins A & E.

How to make Sea Buckthorn Mattifying Moisturizer

Rosehip oil and mango butter also help contribute to the dry finish of this moisturizer, thanks to their naturally fast absorption speeds and non-greasy finishes. “Drying” oils are few and far between, and drying butters are even rarer, so while you could use hazelnut oil instead of rosehip oil, I wouldn’t swap out the mango butter if the dry finish is important to you. If not, shea butter or cupuacu butter would be good alternatives.

How to make Sea Buckthorn Mattifying MoisturizerHow to make Sea Buckthorn Mattifying Moisturizer

I chose arrowroot starch for that extra powdery drying boost, but you could use cornstarch or wheat starch if that’s what you’ve got. It gives the hydrating blend of oils an almost unbelievable dry finish—give it a minute, and that smooth, oily glide will transform into silky smooth dry (hydrated) skin. Aww, yeah. This stuff is brilliant pre-makeup for helping it wear better, too (score).

How to make Sea Buckthorn Mattifying Moisturizer

And if all that wasn’t enough to convince you to whip up a batch, it’s ridiculously easy to make to boot. You should definitely make yourself some sea buckthorn mattifying moisturizer. You’ll love it.

ALSO! My awesome contest with Swanson closes tomorrow night, so make sure you enter it—you could win some sea buckthorn oil, moringa oil, marula oil, and a $100 gift certificate to Swanson’s online store. Score!

Sea Buckthorn Mattifying Moisturizer

5g |0.17oz sea buckthorn seed oil
7g | 0.25oz mango butter (USA / Canada)
4g | 0.14oz moringa oil
4g | 0.14oz rosehip oil

18g | 0.63oz arrowroot starch (can substitute cornstarch or wheat starch)

2 blobs benzoin essential oil

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

Weigh the sea buckthorn seed oil, mango butter, moringa oil, and rosehip oil in a small heat resistant glass measuring cup. Place that measuring cup in your water bath to melt everything through—that’ll take ten minutes or less.

Once the oils and butters have melted through, remove them from the heat and stir in the arrowroot starch and benzoin with a flexible silicone spatula, taking care to break up any clumps, until you have a smooth, uniform mixture.

Place a 30mL/1 ounce tin on a small plate. Pour the oil/starch mixture into the tin and carefully transfer the plate with the tin to the fridge (the plate is only there to make it easier to move the tin).

Leave the tin in the fridge to set for one hour. Voila! To use, just take a wee bit of the moisturizer into your hand to soften it a wee bit, and spread it across your skin.

If you have sea buckthorn fruit oil instead of the seed oil, you can still use it, with the following adjustments: use 2g of sea buckthorn fruit oil, and 7g moringa oil. This adjustment makes your moisturizer less likely to give you that coveted oompa-loompa look 😉

If you have very oily skin I’d recommend making the recipe as written first, and if you’d like an even stronger mattifying effect after trying it, stir in another 4g (0.214oz) of arrowroot starch. Be careful, though—too much starch will result in eraser-shaving like pilling whenever you run your hands across your face!

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