Herbal Body Cream (vegan, and hand-made)

It can be hard to find vegan body care products, and even if you do find them, the ingredients may be unpronounceable. We should care as much about what we put on our bodies as what we put in them.

It's so easy to make most products yourself, why not do it? With a little help from Mountain Rose, you can have the ingredients at your front door in a couple of days. This is a great place to find herbs, spices, teas, medicinal supplements, and other great body care products. Their products are mostly organic, fair trade, and kosher certified. I definitely trust them for quality ingredients.

Here's my favorite herbal body cream. I make it all the time. I'm submitting this recipe in the Mountain Rose Herbs Recipe Contest as well. I use this for face and body, and it works especially well for dry or sensitive skin. I've even had a friend use it as diaper rash ointment. You can change the consistency (i.e. more lotion-like or more body butter like) by decreasing or increasing (respectively) the amount of cocoa butter.



Equipment you will need:

a blender or mixer
a non-plastic bowl
a stainless steel saucepan
non-plastic measuring cups
glass jars
cotton cloth or unbleached coffee filers

Igredients:

Infused oils: in order to make these, place dried herbs in the bottom of a glass jar, add organic cold-pressed olive oil until the herb matter is covered. Place a cloth or coffee filter on top of the jar and secure with string. Let sit in a sunny window for 2 or 3 weeks. Strain herbs out of oil. You can put the herb matter in your compost. The oil you have is now infused oil.

In this recipe, I use lavender infused oil, calendula infused oil, and red clover infused oil. These are all great skin soothers. You can substitute other herbs as well.

1/4 cup calendula infused oil
1/4 cup red clover infused oil
1/8 cup lavender infused oil
1/8 cup grapeseed oil
1 tsp vitamin E oil
1 T candellila wax
2/3 - 1 cup cocoa butter (more if you want a thicker consistency)
2/3 cup rose hydrosol water
1/4 cup aloe vera gel
1/8 cup witch hazel
2 T vegetable glycerin
8-10 drops essential oil (I like combining orange and clove- it goes great with the chocolate smell of cocoa butter, but you can use others as well. Lavender is also nice.)

1 In a stainless steel saucepan, heat the oils, the wax, and the cocoa butter over medium low heat until melted.

2 In a non-plastic bowl, mix rose water, aloe vera, witch hazel, and glycerin together.

3 Add the contents of the bowl to the oils and stir.

4 Add essential oil.

5 Let mixture cool. You can place the pan in a sink of cold water, or in the fridge. Let cool until mixture thickens.

6 Pour mixture into a blender, and blend and blend and blend until you can't possibly blend anymore. This is key because it will make the mixture stay together longer (you know, oil vs. water). You will see that it starts to get thicker and looks less like it has a layer of liquid floating on top. Keep blending!!

note If you don't have a blender, you can use a mixer. Just mix the cream in a bowl for a really long time.

7 Spoon into glass jars and label.

This will stay good for several months as long as it is kept in a cool, dry place. You can refrigerate it for longer keeping.

Slather on skin, and be happy!!!