Following
my outburst of creativity, which resulted in pretty decent bath bombs (eventually,
and after a lot of crying) I decided to embark upon making my own lip balms and
body butters. I mean, how hard can it be?
My home made bath bombs, success at last
Body
butter. The words invoke images of soft yummy spreadable goodness, smelling of something
delicious (rather than actual butter)
This
time, I didn’t make the mistake of thinking I could make these products without
some actual instruction. Having identified a great website, with lots of
recipes, I once again, I began compiling my “List of Essential Items”
I baulked
slightly. Well, quite a lot actually.
Gosh
really? I need all that stuff to make one pot of body butter? Well, okay then, here
goes.
And so to
Amazon, ahh faithful Amazon, guaranteed to deliver to me here in France with minimum
fuss and bother.
Coconut
Oil – which is actually a misnomer as it’s a solid
Shea
Butter
Beeswax
Coco
Butter
Almond
Oil
Jojoba
Oil
Essential Oils
Avocado
Oil
Vitamin E
Oil
Peach
Kernel Oil – okay now you’re being silly
My A-Z of essential oils. Of course they are organised alphabetically
Right!
Ingredients ordered and I am laughingly ready to “save money” by making my own
body butter.
Oils, butters, beeswax and mush more! No, that's not a tub of paint, far right, it's Epsom salts!
First of
all, you need a double boiler; ahh I remember it well from my domestic science
days. Of course I don’t have a double boiler, no one has actually owned one of
these since 1967. I used a glass bowl over a pan of hot water – same difference.
I went to
my recipe and read through the ingredients.
Mango
Butter? What? Mango butter? Why did no one tell me about Mango Butter? No I don’t
have any flipping Mango Butter and on principal I am NOT going to order any.
Surely to goodness I can still make this without Mango Butter? After all, I
seem to have a LOT of other stuff with the word butter in the title.
The
answer was thankfully yes.
Moving
on.
First
lesson I learned was that beeswax melts VERY slowly, so it needs to be grated.
Otherwise, you end up with everything else melted and blobs of beeswax
annoyingly floating about refusing to comply with the process. Ahh but beeswax
is the very devil to get off your cheese grater, and you don’t really want your
husband picking bits out of his cheese and onion pie and saying suspiciously, “What
the hell is THIS?” In order to avoid this, I had to search for a “special”
grater, which would only be lovingly used for beeswax, nothing else. I spotted
one in the supermarket and added it to my ever growing collection of,
“Oh I
didn’t know I needed one of those too” things.
These
included; set of small measuring spoons (Thankyou to my friend ML for these) a small
spatula, a teeny funnel and of course, there were the digital weighing scales. The scales became “essential” after trying to
make a certain blend one day. The recipe called for 8g of beeswax, 6g of
coconut oil etc. 8g? Have you tried weighing 8g on a regular household scale?
It doesn’t
even register. AMAZON ………………… HELP
And so the
scales were added to the never ending collection of teeny utensils and accoutrements,
which were so necessary to production.
I began
to feel like I was a member of the Borrowers Family with all the teensy things J
The teeny tiny collection
Right,
can I start making this yet?
With my
new digital scales all ready to go, I carefully measured all my ingredients –
how gratifying to have such pleasingly exact measures. Oh no beeswax, you don’t
fool me twice, I’m ready for you. Out came my special beeswax grater, which
proved to be absolutely USELESS. The wax was way too thick to grate on such a
ridiculously small grater. All it did was clog up the holes rendering it
impossible to use – or clean!
Back to
the cheese grater and beeswax flavoured cheese and onion pie then.
Finally with
all my ingredients nicely melted, including the stubborn beeswax, I add my
essential oils and put it into pots. Now on the subject of pots. I had ordered
some from eBay, as when it came to small pots, Amazon erred on the side of
ridiculously expensive. Needless to say, my affordable eBay ones hailed from China,
and so I am still waiting for them six weeks after ordering! I will no doubt get
them in time for Easter.
You've heard of a man drawer? Well, this is my woman drawer
Not to be
deterred, I began scouring the cupboards for likely looking glass jars, which
could find a more useful life as pots for body butter.
Thanks to kind friends, I have extra pots
Eyeing
the guacamole one day, I contemplated how long it had been there, decided I was
unlikely to ever eat it now, but in order to appease my conscience, I emptied it
into a Tupperware tub rather than the bin, stuck it in the fridge, and will no
doubt throw it away in February. One more pot though J
I then discovered
the delights of whipping – the body butter that is! If you allow it to almost
solidify and then whip it, it becomes even dreamier and looks good enough to
eat.
I have to
admit to licking my fingers as I was making it, on more than one occasion –
yuk! Does NOT taste good.
After the
body butter was safe in its pot, it was time to wash up. Herein lies a problem.
All the ingredients are oil based and boy do they take some washing up! Don’t
even think about the dishwasher as the dishes come out in the same state they
were in when you put them in there. I found that using a lot of boiling water
and detergent is the way forwards. Apart from the special grater that is, THAT
was a law unto itself to wash!
It's all very well, but you have to wash up afterwards
And so,
here I was with an enviable collection of body butters, lip balms and hand
creams. I have to say that they really are SO much better than anything I have
ever bought in the shops. As there is no water in them, you only need a tiny
tiny amount. Most were meant as gifts, but the trouble was, they were all so
nice, I became quite possessive about them, and selfishly began hoarding them
to myself.
My dressing table is groaning under the weight of body products!
I can’t
go into production in any serious way as the guidelines and legalities of doing
so are utterly prohibitive. I imagine hacking into the NASA database would be a
more attainable goal.
I know it’s
time to start sharing though, as Steve commented the other day that if my skin
got any softer I’d slip right out of his hands J
It works
then
Oh okay
then, I’ll share.
---------------------------------------
Freya Barrington is an author living in Brittany, France, where she and her husband Steve are renovating a 100 year old property (renovations are of course 99% Steve)
For more information on Freya's work, please visit
www.freyabarrington.com
Freya
xx
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