Bee's Wax Lotion Bars

One of the booths we stopped by at the Lawn and Garden Show this weekend belonged to a local bee farm, Koelzer Bee Farm, and they were selling fresh honey and bees wax products.  They were guaranteeing that their lotion bars will "cure" psoriasis and eczema or they will give your money back and, since I constantly fight psoriasis on my knuckles and dry cuticles, I decided to try it out.  They had some samples to try, and it seemed heavenly!  Not at all greasy and it made my hands feel so soft.  So I bought the celtic heart you see above.  I just love the design.
 
However, the price of $8.00 for a small bar and $15.00 for a small bar seemed really high, and I was curious if this was something I could make myself.  So I went looking for a simple recipe that only contains those ingredients and I ran across this one:

Ingredients

3 oz beeswax
3 oz shea butter or cocoa butter (I'm going to split this into 1/2 cocoa and 1/2 shea)
3 oz coconut oil
1 to 2 teaspoons fragrant oil (if desired)

Directions

1. Chop the beeswax finely (will allow it to melt faster).
2. Melt the beeswax, shea butter and cocoa butter together in top of double boiler (or a few minutes in the microwave).  Blend together.
3. Slowly blend in fragrance oil, if desired, while rapidly stirring.
4. Let the mix cool slightly, then pour into soap or candy molds and let harden.
5. Pop out of molds and place in little zip lock bags.
6. To apply, just roll around in your hands and the bar will melt as it gets warmer.  Then you can apply to your hands, cracked feet, elbows, lips...anywhere!  Shelf life on this is somewhere between 6 months to 1 year.  Do not refrigerate!

I'm definitely going to try making this myself as soon as I can get my hands on the ingredients, and it will be fun finding some neat candy molds for this project. 

If you want to play with the amounts for the ingredients in the recipe (like me), just know the following:

Shea butter:  gives the lotion a creamy consistency. Melts at 76 degrees.

Cocoa Butter:  adds moisturizers and hardness. If your lotion seems too "melty", increase the amount of cocoa butter slightly.  Melts at 120 degrees.

Beeswax:  affects solidity and hardness and protects the "lotion" from washing off when you wash your hands.  More beeswax will equal a harder bar.  Melts at 160 degrees.

Have you ever tried making your own soap or lotion bar?  If so, I'd love to hear any tips or recipes that you'd be willing to share. 

Hope everyone has a great Monday!

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