Mint and foot cream = a fabulous match. Mint and chocolate = also fabulous. Mint + chocolate + foot cream = amazingness! Decadent, refreshing, tingly, tootsie-treating goodness, all bundled up in a rich and silky White Chocolate Peppermint Foot Cream. This one has a double hit of peppermint, fragrant cocoa butter, soothing aloe vera, and a hefty dose of humectants to treat the feet of all your lucky giftees!
Want to watch this project instead of reading it?
The water phase of this cream features refreshing peppermint hydrosol and soothing aloe vera juice—those two ingredients make up 50% of our formulation. Up next; a hefty dose of humectants. I went with a blend of vegetable glycerin and sodium lactate. Both are highly effective and inexpensive moisturizers. I’ve been experimenting with higher doses of glycerin in lotions and I love it!
Our oil phase is mostly ultra fragrant, mouth-wateringly delicious cocoa butter (of course!). I’ve also included some silky cetyl alcohol to further thicken the cream and add some slip. Some dimethicone 350 adds even more slip and also reduces any tackiness that hefty dose of glycerin can add (I say “can” because I find perceptions of tackiness are highly personal—the dimethicone definitely reduces tackiness in everything and anything, but you might not find the formulation tacky enough to need it).
I’ve kept the cool down phase simple; tingly, fresh peppermint essential oil and our preservative. That’s it. Easy peasy. If you’ve made a few batches of lotion before you’ll find this stuff comes together nice and fast, and I think you’ll really like it. Happy making!
Want to watch this project instead of reading it?
White Chocolate Peppermint Foot Cream
Heated water phase
13.5g | 13.5% distilled water
30g | 30% peppermint hydrosol
20g | 20% aloe vera juice
10g | 10% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
5g | 5% sodium lactate (USA / Canada)Heated oil phase
4g | 4% Polawax (USA / Canada)
10g | 10% cocoa butter (USA / Canada)
4g | 4% dimethicone 350 (USA / Canada)
2g | 2% cetyl alcohol (USA / Canada)Cool down phase
1g | 1% peppermint (Mentha Piperita) essential oil
0.5g | 0.5% 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 cream, starting with short bursts so the still-very-liquid cream 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 cream is thick and creamy.
When the cream 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 cream on that scale without blowing it out. So—grab a smaller dish. Add a scoop or two of cream, 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 cream. Doing it this way minimizes the amount of cool down ingredients lost to the secondary container.
Once you’ve incorporated your cool down phase and the cream is fully at room temperature you’re ready to package it up! I used a 100mL (3.3fl oz) white plastic screw-top jar from YellowBee. To use, massage as much cream as you like into your feet as needed—I like to apply it right after a bath before bed, and put on a pair of socks before climbing between the sheets.
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this cream contains water, you must include a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. This is non-optional. Even with a preservative this project may 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! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
- You can replace the peppermint hydrosol with more distilled water and increase the peppermint essential oil to 1.5%, removing 0.5% water to make room for it.
- You can replace the aloe vera juice with more distilled water. You could also try witch hazel in its place for some astringency.
- Propanediol 1,3 would make a good alternative for the sodium lactate and/or glycerin.
- You could use emulsifying wax NF instead of Polawax.
- Please don’t replace the cocoa butter!
- If you want an alternative for the dimethicone 350:
- You can try cetearyl alcohol or stearic acid instead of cetyl alcohol; this will impact the end skin feel, making the final product less slippy.
- Please don’t swap out the peppermint essential oil. According to Tisserand the maximum usage rate for peppermint essential oil is 5.4%, so if you want to use more than 1% you can (I probably wouldn’t go past 2%), just be sure to adjust the amount of distilled water to make room for it.
- If you really want to ramp up the chocolate scent try adding 0.5% cocoa absolute to the cool down phase, removing 0.5% from the water to make room for it.
- If you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this page.
Gifting Disclosure
The 100mL (3.3fl oz) white plastic screw-top jar was gifted by YellowBee.
Hey Marie! I have powdered sodium lactate but I noticed when I click on the sodium lactate link in this formula it goes to the liquid 60% product – should I adjust for the concentration? Is there any advantage to buying the liquid, other than easier mixing?
Yes! You’d want to use 60% of the called-for amount and then use additional distilled water for the remaining 40%. In addition to easier incorporation, you also don’t have to worry about the liquid version seizing up from ambient humidity exposure (similar to how brown sugar turns into a brick) 🙂 Happy making!
This sounds sooo good Marie, thank you for yet more gift ideas. 🙂
You’re so welcome! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂
Would I be able to substitute Dimethicone with Vegetable Silicone, Non-Volatile, or Natural Silicone ? I don’t seem to readily source Dimethicone in New Zealand, but would absolutely love to try your recipe.
Hey Karen! Have you read the substitution suggestions list? 🙂
Sure have. I ended up googling it and discovered that jojoba oil might be a great alternative. Do you agree?
I’d probably choose the natural silicone product you mentioned first, but jojoba will work in a pinch. It’s nowhere as slippy as dimethicone, though, so you will notice a less slippy end product with it 🙂
Urea for Sodium Lactate? I’ve got oodles of urea. May I use it instead of the sodium lactate; percentage, water vs. cool down? Thanks, Marie – love your work & recipes for self-care gifts.
That should work, just watch the pH 🙂
Hi! I’ve just made this cream, but subbed the dimethicone for 3% virgin coconut oil and 1% C13-15 alkane (to keep it a bit lighter), I’ve also added .5% benzoin (instead of mint) to amp up the mellow cocoa-coco fragrances and 3% Pentavitin, which seems like a cool ingredient for our poor disinfected skin. I’m waiting for it to fully cool and set, but it already seems beautiful, rich but not greasy and smelling just divine! But still – I had a really hard time deciding which lotion shall I make from all the beautiful collection, shame on you, Marie, for making it this hard for us to choose. 😛
Hooray! I’m so glad you’re liking it already, and I love the sounds if the changes you’ve made! ❤️
This is a dream cream! Scent is amazing. I used caprylic capric triclycerides as carrier oil and 4 % MSM + 1 % willow bark extract leaving sodium lactate out. MSM feels great when my feet are tired. Oh, I used sucrose stearate + cetyl alcohol + cetearyl alcohol blend to emulsify and thicken it. Texture is fluffy and thick but it should thicken even more. I wasn’t sure about emulsifier first but yay, it works great, like any heavier complete emulsifying wax and doesn’t cost much. Thank you. xx
Just made this today and it is so fresh, slippy and lovely. My son said I smelled like an Andy’s mint. Can’t wait to try it on my tired feet before bed.
Thanks Marie for another great recipe!
Hooray! I hope your feet love it 😀
I’ve had tons of fun with this formulation since my earlier comment and all batches have kept my feet soft & happy. I wouldn’t waste willow bark extract & MSM again in project like this esspecially at low rate. I swapped sodium lactate to urea last time (4th batch) and it worked well. I also tried sweet orange & grapefruit & cardamom EOs last time instead of your scent blend and enjoyed scent a lot! Yummy. It doesn’t feel equally refreshing than the ones with peppermint, though! You’ve done amazing job Marie – thank you! ❤️