homemade facial moisturizer
This moisturizer works great for me, and I use it twice a day, morning and night. My skin is normal-to-dry, with a couple of oily spots. I make my own because commercial moisturizers (even natural ones) usually give me a nice little pimple or two.
When I lived in the Midwest, the weather was so humid that a dab of plain coconut oil offered plenty of moisture. Here in Colorado, I soon found out that it soaked right in and my face still felt like a lizard!
After a little bit of experimentation, I came up with this simple 2-ingredient combination, and I have been making and using it for almost three years. Mixing raw shea butter with coconut oil gives it just the right heaviness to keep my skin soft and supple without any breakouts.
I buy raw African shea butter on Amazon. It’s not very expensive, lasts a long time, and has several uses. A lot of folks make hair moisturizers with it, and some people feel that raw shea butter helps reverse their wrinkles. I haven’t noticed that with myself, but I still love it! Then again, I’m out in this dry Colorado sun and wind a lot, so maybe it helps more than I think.
As well as a facial moisturizer, this recipe makes a nice body butter. It’s also a mild sunscreen/suntan lotion, since coconut oil has a SPF of about 8 and shea butter around 4 or 5. It gives my skin a nice golden glow when I apply it before going out in the sun (I rarely wear regular sunscreen). You can also make lotion bars by adding beeswax to this mixture and molding it into bars. I use them all winter for my super-dry hands.
Coconut-Shea Butter Moisturizer
Melt equal parts raw shea butter and coconut oil–I use 1/2 cup of each–over low heat in a double-boiler (mine is quite fancy, as you can see). When liquified, the shea butter will turn a dark golden color. At this point, you can add a few drops of essential oil if you want. Stir well and pour mixture into a glass container with a lid. After a few days, it will return to a light color and semi-solid state.
Just a tiny dab of this goes a long way. Let me know if you give it a try!
Note: The shea butter pictured here is this ivory one, but I prefer the yellow one I linked to above. After making this batch, I feel the ivory is inferior. As my batch cooled, there was a gray residue that settled to the bottom that made me a little suspicious. I got rid of it by pouring off the good part on top and scraping out the gray, but next time I’ll buy yellow again.
I ALSO BUY MY SHEA BUTTER ON LINE. I LOVE IT FOR MY FEET AND HEELS. JUST NEED I SMALL AMOUNT. IF U BUY IT ANYWHERE ELSE ITS VERY EXPENSIVE BUT ON LINE NOT BAD AT ALL. GREAT RECIPE. THANKS
[…] rinse it off, and it leaves my face feeling like silk. I work a little homemade moisturizer into my face, then spritz it. (My spritzer is about 1/2 cup distilled water, a drop or two of […]
I have a question. I bought some shea butter from the link you provided, and had some organic coconut oil already. I just made some tonight, and I saw a lot of black specks in it. Was yours like that also? I’m assuming it was in the shea butter because my coconut oil I know was clean.
Mine also had black specks–I’m not sure if it is tiny pieces of shell or something else (hopefully not mold!) When my mixture cooled, the specks mostly sank to the bottom, so I scooped off the top part and transferred it to a clean jar, and threw away the bottom layer.