Ok, so you know how some people get “hangry”? They get all kinds of cranky and irritable when they’re hungry, sometimes leading their loved ones to carry around granola bars to avoid their low blood sugar induced wrath. I think there is a dry skin version of “hangry”. Something like “fritchy” (frustrated + itchy) or “drad” (dry + mad). Ok, so my name ideas need work. But I think the theory is sound. Anyhow, that is where this Winter Wonderland body lotion idea came from. Those infuriatingly dry winter days where you almost wish you could shed your skin like a lizard and just start fresh. Well, thankfully we cannot (erk), but we can whip up awesome lotions, which lizards cannot do. In the end, I think I prefer our way.
I’m continuing my winter wonderland kick with this winter wonderland body lotion. A blend of fast-absorbing mango butter and safflower oil make up the oil part (along with our emulsifying wax, of course). The water part is rounded out with glycerin and silk, both of which help attract and hold moisture to the skin, combatting that infuriating itchy feeling.
A bit of silver mica and some blue indigo root bring that wintery aesthetic; a hint of snowdrift-like shimmer and a cool blue tint. The tint is much too subtle to turn your skin blue, but it does look rather lovely in the jar.
A blend of soft spearmint, warm benzoin, and fresh cajeput round out the lotion, giving it a subtly minty, fresh scent with a nice warm base note. The finished winter wonderland body lotion is non-greasy but wonderfully hydrating, and is guaranteed to kill the fritchies in no time. No moulting needed!
Winter Wonderland Body Lotion
6g | 0.21oz complete emulsifying wax (not beeswax!)
5g | 0.17oz mango butter (USA / Canada)
14g | 0.49oz safflower oil72g | 2.54oz water
3g | 0.1oz vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1/4 tsp silk peptides (wondering about substitutions?)10 drops spearmint essential oil
3 “blobs“ benzoin essential oil
6 drops cajeput essential oil1/8 tsp silver mica (I use these tiny measuring spoons for tiny measurements like this)
1/64 tsp indigo root or blue ultramarine (optional—gives the lotion a slight blue tint)0.5g | 0.017oz Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada) (or other broad spectrum preservative of choice at recommended usage rate [why?])
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 emulsifying wax, mango butter, and safflower oil into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Weigh the water, glycerin, and silk into another measuring cup, and cover that one with foil.
Place both measuring cups into your prepared water bath to melt/heat and hold; leave them in the water bath for thirty minutes.
After thirty minutes has passed, pour the water part into the oil part. Leave that measuring cup in the water bath for another three minutes to ensure everything is melted before removing the measuring cup from the heat.
Using an immersion blender, blend the lotion together. You’ll want to start with short bursts, working up to a constant blend. Blend for about three minutes, and then leave it for ten minutes before coming back to stir it with a flexible silicone spatula and blending it some more. You will notice some thickening at this point, but it’ll still be pretty thin.
Leave the lotion for another ten minutes, and then stir and blend it again—at this point, it should’ve thickened into a nice white cream and should be relatively cool to the touch.
Blend in your essential oils, mica, indigo (if using) and 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/4 fl oz pump-top bottle or wide-mouthed jar. Enjoy your Winter Wonderland body lotion!
This cute little milk glass jar is from an antique shop, so I’m afraid I can’t direct you to where you might get your own.
Your lotion sounds like it will be wonderful for my dry hands. Thank you for sharing it. May I ask if you used cajeput just for scent or did you use it for one of its benefits? I don’t have any so I’d like to substitute it if it’s only used in this formula for scenting purposes. 🙂 If it was used for another reason, I can sub for whatever it was used for. Thanks again for sharing and I can’t wait to make it!
Hey Cynthia! In this recipe it is for its lovely fresh scent; camphor would be a good alternative, as would fir, spruce, and pine—all different, but all bright and fresh! Happy making 🙂
Thank you dear! I’m going to get right on it! I have those eos. 🙂
Enjoy! 😀
Thank you for this website, I’m new here and already learnt new things:) Was wondering ig we can omit the preservative sonce we use Glycerine and not water. Just when I read this I thought “Wow, amazomg sustitute for water in order to get rid of the preservative” but I see you add it anyway. Why?
Hey Tsahallah! I must admit I am very confused as to why you think there is no water in this lotion—it is over 70% water! If you want to know why nobody uses glycerin as an alternative to water you are certainly welcome to try it, but I can guarantee it will be horrendously sticky. I’ve made things that were 50% glycerin that went directly into the bin as I could’ve used them to glue my pants to my skin! So, in conclusion: this recipe has a ton of water in it, and that is why the preservative is there.
Sorry, my bad, wasn’t concentrating. I sometime use Rose water instead of water without preserving it. There may be some preservative in the rose water though.
Sorry to be a gigantic bummer… but that is actually worse. Rose water will have a shorter shelf life and will shorten the shelf life of your products when compared to water as rose water contains delicious botanical matter for bacteria to eat that water does not. Please read this for more information. You NEED a true preservative!
Mmmmm…. Winter Wonderland. Love this theme! I’m going to try to make it today! I finally bought the more expensive benzoin oil and love the scent! To me it reminds me of Captain Morgan’s Black Rum in scent! It’s so yummy smelling!
Thanks! There is one more winter wonderland recipe in store, plus a video 😉 I’ve got to milk these holiday themes for all they’re worth! 😛
yum! guess I know what I’m doing Saturday… sorry for the dumb question, how much did the recipe yield?
Happy making! You can figure out the yield of any recipe by using this method 🙂 (it’s also listed at the bottom of the recipe in regards to the bottle size it fills).
Lovely product recipes. Parched lips and dry skin can be cured from within by drinking more water.
Hey Debbee! I definitely find water helps, but in the climate I live in, I have never found a level of hydration that completely counteracts the need for lotions and lip balms 🙁 Between frigid, dry winter winds, frequent hand washing to ward off the flu, and extremely dry air, I still need help—and I drink upwards of 2L of water a day! I do find I need them less (or even not at all) if I’m in milder climates with higher humidity (I spent a month in Europe earlier this year and hardly needed anything!), but sadly… that is not my daily life! I envy you if it is yours 🙂
Not too crazy about drad, but I definitely like fritchies. Yes indeed, I now dub my legs the Queens of Fritchies.
Ha! Yes, Drad sounds like the same of some forgettable foreign land in a fantasy novel LOL.
Hi Marie! I am brand spanking new to DIY, and looking for a lotion to try. I live in Minnesota, so I know exactly what you are talking about with being fritchy. I’m looking for the MOST moisturizing lotion to make for these nordic winters…is this one you would recommend for that?
Honestly, that’s a hard call to make. “Moisturizing” isn’t an easily quantified term with at home DIYing. I would recommend making a lotion you like the looks of, seeing how you like it, and reading up on/experimenting with how different oils feel on the skin. You might also look for a recipe that has lots of humectants, like this one. The silk and honey will help draw moisture to your skin and keep it there, and the allantoin is a skin protectant that I love in the winter. Experiment, see what you like, and have fun! Most of my lotion recipes only make 100–200g, so you don’t have to worry about being stuck with a ton of anything 🙂 Happy making!
I just started DIYing a few months ago using your site and am having a fabulous time creating with your recipes. This was my first attempt at lotion and it is nothing short of astonishing! So much so that I want to make batches of it for Christmas gifts. Is it possible to just triple or quadruple the recipe to get several jars out of a single effort? It would save quite a bit of time if this were possible. Thank you!
Hey Lisa! Thank you so much for reading and DIYing with me 🙂 One of the major bonuses of working in weight is that you can just multiply up all the ingredients and the recipe will still work! That doesn’t work all the time if you’re working in volume, so keep that in mind if you ever see a recipe that is all in tablespoons and cups. It’s usually fine for things like bath bombs (that are mostly powdery, granulated ingredients), but recipes you might see for lotions and body butters (on other blogs, that’s definitely not happening here!) that use tablespoons of beeswax and the like generally don’t scale well at all as the margin of error can grow to the point of breaking the recipe. So yes, long story short, you can multiply the weights of everything up and make a bunch at once 🙂
Hi Marie – as always, very helpful information. I multiplied the weights in the recipe by six and made two batches that turned out beautifully. It made ten jars of the most silky, fragrant lotion and I am delighted to give them to nearly every woman on my Christmas list! The only difference was I had to whip-stir-rest the mixture three times instead of two because it took longer for the larger batch to cool.
I would love to send you a picture of my gift boxes that also include a Winter Wonderland sugar scrub, a tube of naked lip balm (with a smidgen of peppermint for a little tingle), a homemade frankincense and myrrh candle and chocolate truffles (the edible kind ) sprinkled over the top. I LOVE DIYing with you!
Merry merry Christmas Marie!
Oooh, how lovely! What lucky recipients you have 🙂 You can email me photos or share them on Facebook! Thank you 😀 I’m so thrilled that you’re thrilled—it truly makes my day!
I was wondering if I can substitute the mango butter for other butters I already have, like shea or cocoa? And if you had a good explanation for the pros and cons to using each. Thanks 🙂
Shea would probably be the best choice—read this for more info 🙂 And this!
I made this lotion last night and I really don’t like it! I don’t know if it’s the cajeput or the silk peptides, but it smells terrible. The silk peptides I got from Saffire Blue smell really bad. Is that normal? I used them in the recipe with the rose wax and cardamom lotion and didn’t notice it, but this time something is really off. Also I have discovered that I cannot use an immersion blender in a small measuring cup! It made a bit of a mess. So maybe that screwed up the lotion. It still looks and feels like a lotion but I’m going to have to dump it. I’m so glad you publish small recipes. I don’t mind wasting materials when the recipe is so small. I think I’ll go back to the rose and cardamom body lotion. I also notice that it only has 1/8 tsp of silk peptides, and this recipe has double the amount so maybe that’s why the smell of the silk is more noticeable.
Aw, I’m sorry to hear that. I do find silk peptides have a smell (mine smell sort of artificial sweetener kind of sweet), but I’ve never noticed it in a final product (mine are from NDA)—even at usage rates much higher than this. Perhaps cajeput just isn’t your jam? But yes, this is why I do small recipes—I always cringe when somebody tells me they made 10x as much for their first attempt and didn’t love the end product!
I have to tell you, you have me hooked on the lotion commotion!! I’m loving it and it’s so much fun to do. It’s becoming a little expensive since I keep adding different essential oils and additives to my shopping basket, but its cheaper than bad addictions. Also challenging trying to formulate my own recipe, never knowing what’s going to happen, there seem to be so many variables.Thank you for your inspiration and information!!
*Evil laugh* 😛 You will have the loveliest, softest, most hydrated skin this coming fall and winter! I just keep telling myself “it’s cost effective” when I order new ingredients, though if we’re being honest I think I rocketed past that ever being truly feasible a while back lol. It’s cost effective on the per-lip-balm scale at least 😛 Happy making!
Hi Marie,
I’m absolutely in love with this recipe. I’ve swapped the safflower oil with coconut oil as I wanted it to be a bit richer for winter (a newbie here so just thought that by judging the density of the oil and absorption rate it could provide just that). I also customised the scent a bit by adding Rosemary, basil and juniper berry… But I have a very important question: didn’t this recipe originally have about 3 grams of honey, where has it gone? Or am I confusing it with another recipe?
Yay! I am so glad you are loving it, and it sounds like you’ve really made it your own with your changes 🙂 This recipe never had honey in it, so you must be thinking of a different one—I can see I haven’t edited this post since it came out.
Hi Marie, is it an issue if some of the water evaporates while in the water bath for 30 minutes? Should I be covering it? Do I need to re-weigh it after and add more water?
Sorry if you’ve already answered this somewhere else!
I add another 10% to my water measurements to compensate for loss 🙂 If you want to re-weigh and adjust you’ll need to remove that extra 10% from the water and work with that number or you’ll end up with a thinner final product 🙂
I made this, this afternoon ! It is truly lovely !! Going back to make some more now !! lol
Woohoo! I’m so glad 😀 I can’t wait to play with this emulsifier some more!