DIY: Whipped Body Butter (Almond Joy in a Jar)

Hope you remembered to show your momma some major love and appreciation on Sunday!  This year I decided to show the love with some ultra rich body lotion.  I used this recipe for inspiration.  After calling around to find the unrefined shea butter (trickier than you might think) I settled on a combination of shea butter and coconut oil for my base. Both are hard as a rock at room temperature and surprisingly popular--had to go to 3 different stores! Whole Foods sells shea butter at $25/3 oz! Yowza! With a little google research I stumbled upon the Now Foods line and purchased their 7 oz containers of shea butter and coconut oil, 7oz for $9 and $7 respectively. For you locals, the coconut oil was sold at Whole Foods and the shea butter at BeeHive Nutrition. I also picked up Almond Oil from Whole Foods.

Now I didn't exactly measure these out to perfection...and it allllmost did me in. But I put these 3 rock-like butters in with the whole bottle of almond oil and microwaved it all down to a liquid. Then be sure to stir in your cornstarch (few tablespoons) til its all the way dissolved. I ended up with some chunks at the end, so don't overlook the importance of that step! Then you freeze it (I didn't let it cool long enough in my first round) and mix it in an ice bath.

Slowly but surely it will take on a whipped cream consistency. My fabulous husband saved the day on this one. I panicked when it wasn't thickening up and ran out to the store to buy sugar. While I was gone Cody stuck it back in the freezer and then started whipping it again. By the time I got home, it was beautiful, whipped body butter! So this project was legitimately from the two of us. Once you've got it whipped a generous sampling is in order, just to be sure you've done it correctly of course. If you're satisfied, jar it up (get cute jars at your local Goodwill) and you have a great gift for a loved one or yourself!

The combination of coconut and almond reminded me of almond joy candy bars--which I can't for the life of me understand why my mom enjoys.  But at least it helped me name the lotion: Almond Joy in a Jar! I highly, highly reccomend this recipe--really great lotion. And I'm a tad OCD with my lotion, so take my word for it!!!

Which leaves me with a question for you, if you were stranded on an island what's one thing (besides the obvious stuff like water & food) you would just have to have? It would be lotion for me!