Best Ingredients For DIY Beauty Products, Skincare & Cosmetics

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At Savvy Homemade I use natural DIY beauty product ingredients for skincare and other cosmetic recipes. These make lavish creams, lotions, and bath products.

It totally makes sense to look for the best price when you’re buying cosmetic ingredients. But I can’t stress enough the importance of also making sure you are sourcing quality products.

cosmetic waxes

I’m always looking for the best quality at a reasonable price on Amazon. When I find something good I save it in my ingredients store, so always check that out for my latest recommendations.

The following is a small selection of the most used ingredients in skincare, soapmaking and herbal recipes. You can combine these to make some lavish creams, lotions, treatments, remedies, and other concoctions.

If you can’t find the ingredient below, check my ingredients store. And remember, we have hundreds of beauty recipes and crafts for you to try, I hope you enjoy making them as much as I did!

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Cosmetic Butters

cosmetic butter

Butters are fabulous natural ingredients! Often dubbed as the ultimate moisturizers, they are really great for spoiling your skin and are a wonderful ingredient used in numerous diy face care recipes and bath or body products.

They can be used together with oils, or on their own, if you so wish as they are very good for treating chapped or cracked skin. They have the same, or not better, ability to offer deep moisturization to your skin and are an excellent addition to any good, high-quality skincare product. Not only that, but they have great properties as well.

Unlike their oil cousins, they are usually solid and can either be very hard or relatively soft depending on what source it comes from. This can make them a little too work-intensive to be applied directly onto the skin, so throw them into your next recipe for best results.

There are lots of varieties of different butters, made from a long list of different sources. Some can be easy to source, others are a bit more exotic and can be difficult to procure. Nevertheless, I’ve listed as many as I think is necessary below, along with their wonderful properties.

Qualities and BenefitsAbsorption SpeedAbsorption AbilityShelf Life
Cocoa ButterWonderfully hydrating and can soften even the roughest of skin. It offers a great protective barrier against the elements, but also works as an antioxidant and anti-wrinkle agent. Very rich source of vitamin E. Keep in mind that this butter is very hard, and has quite a high melting point. It also has a very soft scent of chocolate.SlowMedium3-5 years
Mango ButterVery moisturising, and boasts anti-wrinkle properties. Great for fighting irritation and itchy skin. Also good for restoring skin elasticity. Great source of vitamins A and E. This butter is semi-solid, and can melt easily when in contact with skin.SlowMedium2 years
Shea ButterAn all round amazing butter. Intensely hydrating, as well as soothing and protective. Rich source of vitamins A and E. It’s probably one of the best butters you can buy.MediumMedium2-3 years
Olive ButterBeautiful butter that is an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory. Great for conditioning skin, as well as firming up loose skin. Also hydrates and nourishes.SlowMedium2 years

Other great butters that I should mention include Kokum butter, Murmuru, Tacuma and Cupuacu. While they can be a bit more exotic, and therefore potentially more expensive, it’s definitely worth experimenting with some from time to time. You can compare them to some of the more traditional butters I’ve mentioned above.

Shelf life of butters

Despite their solid consistency, I highly recommend storing in lidded food storage containers, such as a tupperware. You just don’t want to expose them to too much air. It’s also worth throwing them in the fridge as well if you have the room.

While many suppliers will often send butters in polyurethane bags, I strongly recommend transferring them to a lidded container as soon as possible. While a bag may be fine on a cool day, some butters will melt into a liquid oil during summer. A lidded container should help to contain any melting should this happen.

If kept in a cool, dark place, you can expect your butters to last up to 2 years, although usually a bit longer for cocoa butter. I would also strongly recommend separating your butters from anything with a strong odour, such as essential oils.

I Recommend:

Cosmetic Clays

cosmetic clay

Detoxing and stimulating cosmetic clays are among the most widely used natural ingredients in facial applications, usually ensuring outstanding end results.

Superior clays possess considerable amounts of minerals for your typical skincare recipes. Every single clay product should be produced by natural sun-dried techniques and not modified or remanufactured in any other manner.

Amongst the most popular of clays are Bentonite clay, French Green clay, Fuller’s Earth clay, Rhassoul clay, and White Kaolin Cosmetic clay.

I Recommend: MB Herbals Cosmetic Clay

Natural Source Waxes

cosmetic wax

Natural source waxes enjoy a variety of great uses, as a solidifying substance for salves, an emulsifier for makeup and skincare products, a hardener for polish or balm and a whole lot more. It’s difficult to visualize where we’d be with our recipes at savvyhomemade if it weren’t for the substance that wax offers us.

The primary use of waxes in cosmetics is as a thickening agent, but also to help emulsify water and oils in your homemade creams and lotions. However, they are also added to help nourish skin, aid moisturizing and also protect by forming a layer between your skin and the outside world.

They are usually quite hard, with variable melting temperatures. Therefore wax is definitely too hard to apply directly to the skin and must be mixed with other ingredients.

Lots of different waxes are available, and with the exception of emulsifying wax, they pretty much all have the same function. My go-to for most recipes is beeswax (unless I specifically need emulsifying wax), because of it’s fabulously varied properties and benefits to help soften and nourish skin. For emulsifying wax, I use either NF or Olivem1000 which is an olive derived and more natural wax, yet a little harder to work with.

I definitely recommend giving others a try, be experimental and you may find one works better than these.

 Qualities and BenefitsShelf Life
BeeswaxVery nourishing, soothing and hydrating for the skin, but also antibacterial and helps to relieve irritation.5 years
NF Emulsifier
Made from various vegetable oils, particularly coconut oil. It is an essential ingredient in all creams and lotions that require water and oil to emulsify.5 years
Jojoba WaxProcessed using the carrier oil from Jojoba, so offers all the benefits of this oil; antioxidant, condition and rich in many vitamins and minerals.5 years

Storing your waxes

I strongly recommend storing your waxes in airtight, lidded containers. You want to keep them away from light as well, but also somewhere nice and cool. Waxes are pretty hardy, so they should keep just fine for up to 5 years, or even longer if you’re lucky!

I Recommend:

Cosmetic Salts

sea salt

Salts include many positive aspects for your beauty products; they’re loaded with valuable minerals that are important when making therapeutic bath recipes.

Sea Salt, Epsom Salt and Himalayan Pink are all examples of salts that can be included in many of your soaks and in your bath time treats.

At Mountain Rose, you’ll discover some fabulous cosmetic salts designed for your bath and body recipes.

I Recommend: Minera Natural Dead Sea Salt

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