My rather ridiculous desire to try new ingredients from New Directions Aromatics has left me with a lot of very interesting ingredients, some of which I haven’t gotten around to trying yet. Ucuuba Butter and Tucuma Butter are two new butters have been sitting in my cupboard for a few months. All I’ve ever done is smell them. Tucuma doesn’t smell like much of anything, but the ucuuba is deep and earthy, and it looks a little bit like dirt.
So, I was inspired to make a hippy-inspired body butter. Something nothing like the whipped, pink, fluffy stuff the Body Shop sells. Something earthy and reminiscent of the wood shed at my family cottage in Manitoba. Also, conveniently moisturizing and good for my skin.
The final result is a slightly lumpy, brownish body butter that I absolutely love. It sinks into the skin wonderfully; it’s not sticky or greasy at all. The cedarwood scent sticks around for a while, leaving my hands smelling of the woodshed at my favourite place in the world. Mmm.
Hippy Body Butter
10g | 0.35oz ucuuba butter
10g | 0.35oz tucuma butter
10g | 0.35oz cupuacu butter (USA / Canada)
1g | 0.03oz Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)2 drops dark patchouli essential oil
7 drops cedarwood essential oil
1 drop vetiver essential oilMelt the three butters and the Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada) together in a saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in the essential oils. Pour into a tin and let it set up. Once that’s done, apply and revel in the delicious, woodsy scent and your wonderful, soft skin!
This looks amazing! And as you can see, I am haunting your archives 😛 There is so much fantastic information!
thank you Marie 😀
Thanks, Kristen! 😀
Hey, i just love your recipes. and i just noticed where you shop. i love Saffire Blue and I’ve just recently stumbled upon New Directions. I’m a DIY newbie and I’m having some difficulties with body butters. i was wondering if you could help. I am also a big fan of shea butter. and I’m doing whipped body butters and I’m finding them to be too greasy. what can i do to improve them.
Hi Acacia! Shea butter was the first butter I fell in love with, too 🙂 It is always going to be greasy, though, since it’s a super greasy butter. Not all butters are, but shea butter definitely is (and is probably the stickiest/greasiest I’ve come across).
Your two options are to either blend the shea butter with less greasy/faster absorbing oils (see my guide to carrier oil subs for more info), or to work at applying less of the butter, spreading it over more skin, and rubbing it in (doing a solid body butter hardened with beeswax also helps as you can’t scoop up as much).
Something else you may see recommended online is adding cornstarch to your body butters, but I’m not a big fan of that idea. Cornstarch isn’t something that really offers any benefit to your skin at all, and it just seems wrong to blend cornstarch into your beautiful butters.
I’ve got a big jar of whipped cocoa/shea body butter I made up ages ago, and I just embrace the greasiness with it. I’ll slather it on before bed, put on my PJs, and wake up to super soft skin. Then I’ll use lotion during the day, which absorbs much faster 🙂 Hope that helps & enjoy all your DIYing!
Hi! I’m so excited to try this body butter- but question, what size tin do you use for the ingredients you list? 4 oz? Thanks!!!
Crystal
This was just a 2oz/60mL tin 🙂 Remember that you can always estimate this for yourself by adding up the weight of all the ingredients going into a recipe—this one is ~31g, which will be more than 30mL (because oil is lighter than water), so this recipe would not fit in a 1oz/30mL tin. You can see how much of the 2oz tin it fills 🙂
Hi! Thank you for your awesome recipes! I am interested in making my own body butter with tucuma butter and I was wondering if you buy it raw, and when melted does it become smooth? Can you recommend the best place to buy it?
Thank you for helping a newbie!
Your site is great!
I’ve never been able to find it raw, only in white, refined chunks, so I’m afraid I don’t have an answer for either question for you. I do like the refined stuff as an alternative to cocoa butter, though!
HI As you can see I have been scoping out some of your older entries. I just wanted to let you know that I made this recipe and LOVE the smell. It reminds me of my grandparents cottage when I was a kid (aptly named “the Cedars”). From the ingredients I was anticipating it to be quite hard so I put it in a push up tube to make it easier to use…it worked GREAT! I also wanted to mention that the essential oils in this recipe are the same as I use for a bug spray that really works, so I am anticipating that I can use my new Wood shed/Hippy Butter when I go for walks in the woods. The push up tube will make application on necks and hairlines really easy. Thanks so much!
I am SO thrilled to hear it! I can’t wait to hear how it does as an insect repellent as well 😀 Thanks so much for DIYing with me and sharing your results!
I just made this today – and I love it! It is very unique, and smells like nothing else, I think either you love it or hate it. I love it though. The texture of the body butter is fantastic. Thank you for all the great inspiration.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂