Category Archives: Lotions

Ultra Healing Lotion Bars

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These luxurious lotion bars are silky smooth and packed with moisturizing goodness for your dry winter skin. Plus, they’re easy enough to make last-minute and ready to hand out for Christmas tomorrow!

Recipe

2 oz Beeswax

8 oz Sweet Almond Oil

2 oz Shea Butter

3 oz Mango Butter

3 oz Cocoa Butter

One oz blend of your favorite extracts

16 Push Tubes

0.25 oz Fragrance or Essential Oil

Process

Melt beeswax, sweet almond oil, and cocoa butter first. Then stir the shea and mango butter into the hot oils and wax. Add extracts and fragrance or essential oil. Pour into push tubes, label, and enjoy!

Some recommended extracts:

Oat Extract: Soothing for all types of skin and especially popular in baby skin care products, Oat Extract is also considered moisturizing and mildly anti-aging. This extract is water soluble and suggested for use up to 10% in conditioners, soaps, and lotions.

Carrot Extract: Carrot Extract is high in vitamins A and E and beta carotene. It is an anti-inflammatory, soothing chapped and uncomfortable skin. It is thought to bring balance to the moisture in both skin and hair as a conditioning agent. This water based extract will be beneficial in handmade hair conditioner and skincare recipes, especially for dry winter skin, aging or matured skin. Use at 5 – 10% for conditioners and 1 – 5% for skin care. Extract is yellow in color.

Aloe Extract: Aloe is renowned for it’s ability to heal, moisturize, and sooth irritated, inflamed, or sunburned skin. Our Aloe Extract is water soluble and is fantastic in soaps, lotions and shampoos. Suggested usage rate is 2 – 15%, a natural yellow color.

Chamomile Extract: Chamomile Extract is used as an anti-inflammatory and also as a mild sedative. Use it in sleepy-time cream, night time baths or pulse point formulas. On the skin, it helps to reduce redness and is soothing on inflamed skin.

Evening Primrose Extract: Long known as a natural anti-inflammatory, Evening Primrose extract has traditionally been used in mature skin preparations, but also wonderful to soothe skin dryness, itchiness, and redness. A natural yellow, this extract is water soluble and can be used in handmade haircare and skincare products, including lotions and soaps. Suggested usage rate is 2 – 6%.

Don’t Miss Out!

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Jill Heuser, lotion instructor at Soap Weekend Intensive and founder of Northwest Scents in Bellingham, will be doing another lotion class on Friday, June 24th at Otion, just in case you weren’t able to make it to this year’s packed Intensive Weekend event (starting this Friday!). Learn how to design your own luscious lotion recipe, the regulations surrounding labeling, and all about preservatives! The class includes all handouts and materials for you to make two 8 oz bottles of lotion to take home. Sign up online or give us a call at (360) 676-1030.

Lovely Lotion Bars

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Lotion bars are unique and make wonderful gifts. Simply package them in a travel candle tin with some tissue paper and your label on the top!

Recipe:
5 oz. Beeswax
8 oz. Sweet Almond Oil
4 oz. Mango or Shea Butter
2 oz. Cocoa Butter

1. You’ll need a microwave safe dish with a handle and spout, a spoon, and molds–my favorites for this project are the little Guest Molds. Try the Guest Sun and Moon, the Guest Mini Dragonfly, or the Guest Bee Soap. Make sure to have a pot holder handy because melting beeswax can get pretty hot! Optional ingredients are color and fragrance (the examples shown are uncolored).

2. Spoon the beeswax into the container and melt in the microwave for 6-8 minutes. I like to do this in couple minute bursts and mix in between to make sure my dish doesn’t overheat to the point of breaking.

3. Add the rest of the ingredients once the wax is melted. Let the heat of the wax melt the butters.


4. Add color and/or fragrance. For the recipe above, use 1/4 oz. fragrance and about 1/4 teaspoon of color per recipe. No food color.

5. Pour the melted mixture into your molds. If you don’t like the results, you can remelt the entire batch and add more color or fragrance.


Tip: If your balm is very hot when you pour, it is more likely to crack on the tops as it cools. If you start getting cracks, pour at a lower temperature. Wait for 1 hour before moving, then cap, label and use. I like to put mine in the freezer for about 10 minutes to help them pop right out of the mold. Try using the Bug-Be-Gone Synergy Blend with an inspect inspired mold. You’ll be a real hit at any outdoor festival or market this summer.

Itching to Make Lotion?

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If you can hardly wait until August to learn how to make lotion at Soap Weekend Intensive, we have a class with SWI instructor Jill Heuser coming right up at Otion! Jill is the lotion and soap making artist behind the beautiful and luxurious products of Northwest Scents.

Northwest Scents grew out of one woman’s dream for quality, gentle and unique bath and body products. Jill’s goal is to use the highest quality ingredients available to create the finest selection of bath and body products possible. Using exotic butters, oils and other natural ingredients to nourish and pamper her customers.


Northwest Scents has quickly become a local favorite. She creates products in her “spare time” when she is not wrangling her three energetic kids. Jill has been making bath & body products for 8 years and has taught at Otion for the last 4. With her degree in Biology, she’s a natural at explaining the chemistry behind lotion making.

Her next class will be held at Otion on Saturday March 6th at 3pm. Learn how to design your own luscious lotion recipe, the regulations surrounding labeling, and all about preservatives! Cost is $30 and will include all handouts and materials for you to make two 6 oz bottles of lotion to take home. Feel free to sign up online or call us directly at Otion at (360) 676-1030 to reserve your spot.