I’ve made quite a few body butters in my time, and I’m often asked if there’s any way to make it feel less heavy, without using any special or expensive ingredients. The answer is a resounding yes, you just have to whip body butter first! And that’s what I’m covering today with this whipped shea butter recipe.
While there are lots of different ingredients that can help make your body butters sink in faster. If you’re more interested in the feel and texture of a product, then whipping could be your ticket to body butter heaven.
Introduction
Traditionally, body butter is an anhydrous product (no water) formulated with heavy cosmetic butters for deep and intense moisturizing power. They can help keep those elbows and knees free of dry skin, and generally improve the appearance of the skin on the body.
But they can be a little heavy. If you suffer from severe dry skin, this won’t be a problem for you. Anyone else might find them a little too heavy, though. Which is where the whipping comes in!
We’re also adding a few things to help balance out that greasiness, but nothing you probably haven’t heard of before or couldn’t get easily or cheaply. It’s also a quick and easy recipe to follow – you’ll have no trouble with this one.
What’s In My Whipped Shea Butter Recipe
We’ve selected shea butter for this recipe. We just love this ingredient. It’s one of the best butters you can get, and also the most popular – so you’ll know your suppliers will already have it waiting for your order.
It’s also very soft, so perfect for our whipping needs. But is it any good for the skin? Of course! It’s internally hydrating and deeply skin softening – a little of this on the skin goes a long way.
It’s great for healing skin, and also fantastic at conditioning too. You’ll also find it’s wonderful at restoring elasticity to the skin, minimizing skin sagging.
But it’s worth mentioning that unrefined shea butter has a bit of a smell to it. It’s very sour, a little like spoiled milk. However, this can easily be masked with essential oils and does provide the best skin benefit.
If the idea of this puts you off, however, you could opt for the refined and deodorized version. It’ll still soften and hydrate skin, but just not as well as the natural stuff.
Lovely Carrier Oils
Grapeseed Oil
We’re using two different carrier oils in this recipe. First up is grapeseed oil, which is fantastic for anyone with mature and sensitive skin.
It provides wonderful moisturizing and skin lubrication properties, as well as being lightweight and fast absorbing – which is key for a carrier oil intended for a whipped body butter formula.
Furthermore, it’s packed full of minerals and vitamins that will nourish our skin. The highest concentrations include vitamins c and e. I’ve also found that this ingredient is also very skin-firming, synergizing with our shea butter to help tone up, restore elasticity and prevent skin from sagging.
If you don’t want to or can’t use this, then consider swapping it out for camellia seed or watermelon seed oils. I tried these in my non greasy body butter and they worked great!
Peach Kernel Oil
While very similar to apricot kernel oil, peach kernel is another lightweight oil with good absorbency speed.
Furthermore, it’s excellent and toning and firming the skin, much like our other carrier oil. But it goes one step further, with properties that can help brighten the skin and restore a youthful glow.
It’s fantastic for anyone with sensitive skin, which is why you’ll often see it in formulas intended for young children and babies. But if you can’t use this, consider swapping it for apricot kernel, as it is very similar. Sweet almond oil would also be a good substitute.
Amazing Aromaceuticals
We’re only using one essential oil for this whipped shea butter recipe because I wanted to keep it easy to follow and easy to find the ingredients. And if you’re ever going to use just the one, Lavender is an excellent choice.
It’s cheap, available worldwide, and a fantastic all-rounder that’s suitable for just about any skin type. It’s packed full of antioxidants, giving it some potentially amazing anti-aging properties. It’s also wonderful for soothing and calming irritated skin, as well as promoting wound healing.
Its gorgeous aroma is also very soothing and calming for the mind. Don’t underestimate the power of aromatherapy, and its ability to completely shift your state of mind!
Last Ingredient Note
Before we get on to the recipe card, I also wanted to say that we’re using a little arrowroot powder to help make this shea body butter a little less greasy.
Arrowroot is generally easy to find through your regular cosmetics ingredient supplier, and you can get it on amazon. But if you can’t find it in your area, a little cornstarch or tapioca starch also work fine.
OK Let’s Make Whipped Shea Butter
How to Make Whipped Shea Butter
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Ingredients
- 140 g Shea Butter
- 30 g Grapeseed Oil
- 16 g Peach Kernal Oil
- 10 g Arrowroot Powder
- 2 g Vitamin E Oil
- 2 g Lavender Essential Oil
- 1 Cosmetic Jar 8oz
Video
Instructions
- This is a quick process so it's a good idea to pre-weigh all your ingredients. All the liquid oils can be weighed and combined beforehand.Place the shea butter into a good size mixing bowl.140 g Shea Butter
- Using an electric hand blender, set the speed to a low setting, then start to whisk the shea butter. This will be difficult at first but it should begin to fluff up after a few minutes.
- Add the grapeseed oil, apricot kernel, vitamin e, and lavender essential oil to the butter. These can be combined together when weighing out beforehand, to make it easier to add to the bowl.30 g Grapeseed Oil, 16 g Peach Kernal Oil, 2 g Vitamin E Oil, 2 g Lavender Essential Oil
- Whisk the ingredients together until fully combined to make it thick creamy and fluffy. If you need to you can turn the setting up on the whisk, but keep in mind that if you create too much heat, the butter may start melting and the body butter will become liquidy.
- Once you are happy with the consistency, sprinkle in the arrowroot powder. I prefer to use a spatula to incorporate this into the body butter as I don't want to overwhip it.10 g Arrowroot Powder
- Finally transfer to a suitable container, ready for use.1 Cosmetic Jar 8oz
Notes
Final Thoughts
That’s all we have for you today, but we hope you’ll just love this creamy whipped shea butter recipe. It’s gorgeous on the skin and makes it feel so soft and supple. It’s the product your body craves, so why not treat yourself?
Like all of our recipes, we encourage you to make this your own and substitute things as you see fit. Don’t forget to scroll up and read our recommended substitutes for different ingredients. That’s a great starting point.
But this recipe will be gorgeous if you can find everything for it. That was kind of the goal of this formula, to make a whipped body butter recipe that pretty much anyone could find the ingredients for and then follow. I get fed up with recipes that are too complicated.
Let me know how you get on below. If you do have any problems, we can troubleshoot them together. I also love to hear what you guys get up to, so let me know what you actually think of this formula!
