If you love the feel of silky-smooth skin that also smells amazing, then you’ll love creating your own scented body butter. Our simple recipe today will show you how quick and easy it is to make your own luxurious moisturising body product with just three key ingredients.

The secret to this easy recipe is our Body Butter Base, which is pre-thickened, pre-preserved and best of all, fully customisable when mixed with Craftovator’s fragrances and colourants. This rich and creamy body butter base contains sunflower oil, shea butter and cocoa butter, providing much needed moisturising benefits for normal and dry skin.

To see how simple it is to create your own body butters at home, you can jump right into our video tutorial below or read on for a written tutorial with pictures as well as more information on how to customise your own body butter at home.

Our tutorial is meant for personal use only. If you’d like to sell your body butter products, you’ll need to purchase our Body Butter Assessment and follow the guidelines on selling your bath and body products as laid out in our blog post here.

Difficulty Level: Beginner

Makes: 600g of product (2 x 300ml jars)

Ingredients

• 600g Body Butter Base
• 6g Cashmere & Musk Fragrance Oil
• Up to 6g Sparkling Gold Mica Powder

Equipment

• Kitchen Weighing Scales
• Heat Proof Jug
• Spatula
• Small Pot (for the mica powder)
• 2x 300ml Wide Neck Cosmetic Jars (or any other suitable container)
• Piping Bag (optional)
• Microwave (or double boiler)
• Digital Thermometer

Step 1 – Measure out your ingredients

Weigh out 600g of the Body butter base, 6g of Cashmere & Musk fragrance oil and 6g of Sparkling gold mica powder.

Whilst you can use the full 6g allowance of mica powder, we’ve found this may be more than you require, depending on the colour chosen. You can also omit the colour completely from the base and just use a sprinkling on top if you wish.

Step 2 – Stir the Mica Powder with the Fragrance Oil

If using mica powder, add this to your fragrance oil and stir it in.

If you would like to use some to sprinkle on the top, set some mica aside for later use.

Step 3 – Heat the Body Butter Base

Using either a double boiler or microwave, heat the body butter base to 50-60°C. The base should be continuously stirred during the heating process.

If using a microwave, heat on short 30-60 second bursts stirring thoroughly in-between.

Step 4 – Add the Mica Powder & Fragrance to the Base

Whilst continuously stirring, add the fragrance oil and mica powder to the melted body butter base.

You will need to stir until the mix has fully combined and you can no longer see any mica streaks. Do not whip or stir too rigorously to avoid incorporating any air bubbles.

Once your base has cooled to around 50°C, you can fill your pots by pouring or spooning your body butter mixture into your containers. Allow the butter to cool back down to room temperature before placing the lids.

If you would like to pipe the mixture, allow the mixture cool back to room temperature before proceeding with with the next step.

Step 5 – Prepare Mixture for Piping

Once your butter has reached room temperature, you will be able to pipe the body butter into your containers. You can choose to use clingfilm or place directly into the piping bag. We like to use clingfilm as it tends to hold the mixture in place and keeps waste to a minimum.

First, lay out your clingfilm onto the counter and add your mixture down the centre of it.

Now fold the sides over, try and squeeze out any air pockets and roll up the ends.

Snip off one end of the clingfilm and place inside your piping bag.

Step 6 – Pipe the Mixture

Pipe your mixture into your containers

Step 7 – Decorate with Mica Powder

Using the left-over mica from earlier, sprinkle on top of your finished product.

Your body butter is ready to use immediately!

What Fragrances Can I Add to My Body Butter Base?

In our tutorial we used Craftovator’s Cashmere and Musk fragrance oil which provides a luxurious scent to the skin, with notes of florals and musk and a whisper of dreamy vanilla.

Cashmere & Musk is one of our scents from our Woody & Spicy Fragrance Bundle which is perfect for the coming autumn months. However, if you prefer lighter or more summery scents, there are plenty of options to choose from.

In fact, choosing your own fragrance for your body butter is, in our view, the best part of this project. As body butter is a leave-on product, the scent is going to stay on your skin for some time.

The most important thing is to check whether the fragrance oil you would like to use is skin-safe. You can do this by checking the IFRA 49th Amendment document which is available for download on the fragrance product pages.

Body butters fall under category 5A, so if the IFRA documents for category 5A states the safe usage as being 1% or higher, then you can use the full 1%. However, even if the IFRA gives a percentage of more than 1% it is advised to still only use no more than 1%. If it’s less than 1%, it’s not suitable for use in body butter.

How Much Fragrance Oil Can I Use in My Body Butter?

You are able to scent your body butter with 1% of fragrance oil. What does this mean? When considering the total weight of your finished product, you want to ensure that no more than 1% of that total weight is made up of your fragrance oils.

For instance, if you are using 600g of body butter base, 1% of the total weight would be 6g of fragrance oil (600 x 0.01 = 6g). You always want to measure your fragrance oils in weight, not by millilitres.

Why? Because millilitres are a volume measurement and not a weight measurement. Oils will often vary in their viscosity (meaning some will be lighter and some heavier) so even at the same volume, you will find they will be different weights. To account for this and to make it easier, every ingredient should use the same unit of measure - in this case, grams.

What Can I Use to Colour My Body Butter?

We like to use skin-safe mica powder in our body butters, but you can add different skin-safe pigments too. With both mica and pigments, remember to mix them with your fragrance oil first and then add the mixture to your base to allow them to disperse more easily.

Mica powders are a great choice for body butter as they can leave a subtle shimmer on your skin, whereas pigment powders will bring vibrancy and fun to your products. Be wary though, using a large amount of the concentrated neon or vibrant pigments could have some transfer onto the skin.

We hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learning how easy it is to create your own scented body butter! Be sure to check out our brand new range of cosmetic jars, perfect for you next body butter project.