Homemade Chamomile Moisturizer

Pin ItAfter reading about an olive oil whip made with beeswax in my favorite book, Making It-Radical Home Ec for a Post-consumer World, I purchased some beeswax. RootSimple actually has Making It's recipe on her blog and while it sounds great and is a simple 3 ingredient recipe, I wanted something more for my face cream, so I decided to explore my options. Many of the recipes contained ingredients that I didn't have at home such as vitamin E oil, rose extract, witch hazel, almond oil and more. While I'm sure each of those ingredients has its benefits, I wanted something I could make with ingredients I already had at home.

After visiting dozens of sites, I finally decided to create my own recipe based on A Sonoma Garden and Fimby's recipes that actually closely resembles Making It's Silky Cream recipe (I'm telling you, this book is awesome for DIY projects!) While my goal was to make a face moisturizer, you can definitely use this cream all over your body.

Equipment:

Scale and/or 1/4 cup measuring cup

Small glass bowl
Spoon

Whisk

Medium pot (I recommend using an old pot, because you probably won't want to use it for cooking anymore after it has had beeswax in it) and a larger pot so that you can create an double-boiler

Canning jar (or other container with lid. I recommend glass)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup (3oz) olive oil 

1/4 cup (1.5 oz coconut oil)

0.75 oz organic beeswax (~2 tablespoons)

3/4 cup water

1 chamomile teabag 

1/4 cup aloe vera juice

(Essential oil, if you want to add a scent)

*Note: You can make it with just 1 cup of water and leave out the chamomile and aloe vera juice. I added chamomile because it has a nice smell and soothing and moisturizing properties which are exactly what I wanted out of this cream. Aloe vera is also supposed to have great properties including reducing acne and blemishes, hydrating skin

Directions:
First sterilize all of your equipment to reduce bacteria growth. Following Fimby's advice, I did this by placing all of the equipment in a big bowl and covering them with boiling water. I then rinsed a big baking dish out with boiling water and placed the equipment in it to dry.

Next put some water in the large pot and bring to a slow boil. Boil some more water and use 3/4 cup to make chamomile tea.

While the water is heating, measure out your oils and beeswax and place them in the medium pot.

Place the medium pot in the large pot (make sure there is enough water so that the medium pot is sitting in it, but not enough for it to boil over into the medium pot).

Stir the ingredients until it has all melted.

Remove from heat. Be careful the oils will be very hot!

If you are going to add essential oils, add them now.
Immediately add 1/4 cup aloe vera gel to the 3/4 cup of chamomile tea (this will cool the mixture down. You want it to be lukewarm).
Add the mixture to the oils while whisking. You want to mix the ingredients before the mixture cools otherwise your cream will separate (you are creating an oil and water emulsion). Continue whisking until all the ingredients are fully incorporated. It should look creamy.

Pour the mixture into the canning jar. If there is any excess water at the top, pour or wipe it off to decrease the chance of mold. Try to get air bubbles out of the jar as that will help the lotion keep longer. Close the jar once the lotion has cooled. 

That's it! You've made moisturizer!

It's a pretty thick cream, so a little goes a long way. If you don't plan on using it immediately, refrigerate it (it'll keep for 6 months). If not, you can leave it out for 4 to 6 weeks according to Making It. (I'm leaving mine out and will post an update on how the consistency held up over the next few weeks, how long I used this batch and if I have any problems with mold or spoilage).

If your mixture separates once it's cooled (which mine did), scoop it back into the double boiler, gently warm, then blend again. Because I'm hand-whisking the risk of separation is increased. I actually continued having separation problems, so I placed the actual jar in the hot pot of water and when it was warm, I sealed the jar shook it to blend and then opened it, let it cool down some more. I then placed it in the fridge for a little while. This seemed to help reduce the separation...I'll keep you updated.

If you have a handheld mixer or blender you are willing to get dirty, you can use it, but remember that clean-up can be pretty messy. Speaking of clean-up...I recommend trying to get as much of the cream off of your equipment then cleaning it with hot, almost boiling, water. I put a big pot to boil, then using gloves and my homemade dishwashing liquid, I washed all of the items in the big pot with an old sponge. After you're done scoop any solid pieces out of the pot and throw them in the trash. Then pour the water down the drain and follow with a baking soda/vinegar mixture to avoid clogging.