By David Fisher, About.com.
For more information about this recipe, check out David's Cocoa Butter Bars Recipe.
The basic recipe includes the following ingredients:
One part beeswax, One part butter - cocoa, shea or other nut butter and One part oil - any oil soft at room temperature,
The goal in creating the recipe is to have a bar that melts at skin temperature. The beeswax melts at about 160 degrees, the cocoa butter at about 120, and the oils are soft at room temperature...so the combination will create your bar. The butter you use will also determine any adjustments to the ratio. That is...cocoa butter has a higher melting point than shea butter - so if you make these bars with shea, you will need to decrease the amount of liquid oil.
For these bars, David used:
4 ounces of Natural Yellow Beeswax
4 ounces of Natural Cocoa Butter
4 ounces of Fractionated Coconut Oil (a very absorbable oil - great for skin applications!)
1 ounce (total) of Lavender, Eucalyptus and Patchouli essential oils - or whatever fragrance or essential oil you want.Note: You may want to try this with no fragrance - just with the natural beeswax and natural cocoa butter - the honey scent from the wax and the chocolate scent from the cocoa butter are heavenly in a subtle way.
For more information about this recipe, check out David's Cocoa Butter Bars Recipe.
The basic recipe includes the following ingredients:
One part beeswax, One part butter - cocoa, shea or other nut butter and One part oil - any oil soft at room temperature,
The goal in creating the recipe is to have a bar that melts at skin temperature. The beeswax melts at about 160 degrees, the cocoa butter at about 120, and the oils are soft at room temperature...so the combination will create your bar. The butter you use will also determine any adjustments to the ratio. That is...cocoa butter has a higher melting point than shea butter - so if you make these bars with shea, you will need to decrease the amount of liquid oil.
For these bars, David used:
4 ounces of Natural Yellow Beeswax
4 ounces of Natural Cocoa Butter
4 ounces of Fractionated Coconut Oil (a very absorbable oil - great for skin applications!)
1 ounce (total) of Lavender, Eucalyptus and Patchouli essential oils - or whatever fragrance or essential oil you want.Note: You may want to try this with no fragrance - just with the natural beeswax and natural cocoa butter - the honey scent from the wax and the chocolate scent from the cocoa butter are heavenly in a subtle way.
Measure out your oils and start melting the beeswax first.
I melt the beeswax first because it has the highest melt point. Once it's completely melted, I take it off the heat and add the cocoa butter. The cocoa butter will mostly melt with no additional heat. Put it back on the heat briefly to melt the rest of the cocoa butter.
I melt the beeswax first because it has the highest melt point. Once it's completely melted, I take it off the heat and add the cocoa butter. The cocoa butter will mostly melt with no additional heat. Put it back on the heat briefly to melt the rest of the cocoa butter.
Once the cocoa butter is completely melted, add in your liquid oils and fragrance. Stir well.
Once everything is melted and mixed together, pour the mix into your molds. As you can see, I'm using the molds I used for my Melt and Pour Valentine Hearts from Brambleberry.
Slowly pour the liquid wax & oils into the molds and set them aside to cool.As they cool, depending on your combination of wax and oils, you may get small sink holes like this one - since they're on the back of the bar, I didn't bother fixing them - but you could, if you wanted, pour a bit more melted wax/oil into the sink hole after it's cooled - just like you would a candle that had a sink hole.
Slowly pour the liquid wax & oils into the molds and set them aside to cool.As they cool, depending on your combination of wax and oils, you may get small sink holes like this one - since they're on the back of the bar, I didn't bother fixing them - but you could, if you wanted, pour a bit more melted wax/oil into the sink hole after it's cooled - just like you would a candle that had a sink hole.
Once the bars have completely cooled, gently pop them out of the molds. Since they are formulated to melt at skin temperature, be sure to keep them in a cool place like a cupboard or the refrigerator.
Use them as solid massage-oil bars...or they are also really great to use after you get out of the shower on legs and arms. You do need to wait a few minutes for the oil to soak in - they are almost pure oil, remember - but once it's soaked in, your skin will love you for it!
Use them as solid massage-oil bars...or they are also really great to use after you get out of the shower on legs and arms. You do need to wait a few minutes for the oil to soak in - they are almost pure oil, remember - but once it's soaked in, your skin will love you for it!
Instead of pouring the bars into regular soap molds, pour them into a push up lotion bar tube. Much easier and cleaner - though somewhat less romantic, I suppose. These are great if you're using the balm as a handy body butter, bug-off balm, or solid perfume.
3 comments:
These sound great! Have used one from Leanne at FeelatHome which is made of Cocoa Butter and African Shea Butter with essential oils. It looks like a small block of white chocolate! Can either break a piece off and hold against the skin to melt and massage in or put it into the bath where it melts releasing essential oils and leaving skin smooth! Thanks for sharing the recipe.
I'd just like to point out that your information, and that of about.com is wrong here. The melting point of cocoa butter is NOT 120 (if it was, then when chocolate melted in your mouth, you'd have a REALLY high fever!) It's actually about 93-100 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoa_butter)
Thanks Basil for pointing that info out. I did not write this article...so the author of this article has it wrogng. WIll go back tao the original author and let them know.
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