Friday, May 6, 2011

How to: Make the Easiest Moisturizer Ever

I just made the easiest moisturizing bar (or heart as it were) in about 5 minutes. Yep, 5 minutes. And it made my morning routine a little easier too. So, of course I needed to share this tidbit of joy with my loyal readers!

And there it is! It's cute, no?
Here's the low down: I have used Virgin Coconut Oil as my moisturizer of choice for years now and I love it. I think you might love it too if you try it.

Why?

Here are my reasons:

1) It smells like heaven. Not "fake sun tan lotion type smell".... I'm talking rich, intoxicating, REAL coconut. Mmmmm. Seriously, you want to eat it.

2) A jar lasts a really, really long time. I've been using the same jar for months now and it might be halfway empty. That means it's pretty darn affordable, especially if you buy it in bulk. It has a shelf life of 2 years, unrefrigerated.

3) It's not just for slathering over your body. You can also use it for baking or sauteing food as a butter alternative. The side of the jar I have recommends using it in a pineapple upside down cake. Yum. I'll take one of those, please. And you can use it as a moisturizing treatment for your hair.

4) It's just straight up oil, plain and simple. Have you ever looked at the ingredients list of some moisturizers at the store? Yeah, pretty sure if I can't pronounce it I don't want it on my skin. And like I listed above, you can eat it. Doesn't get more natural than that.

Okay, so it sounds perfect. What's the problem?

Coconut oil stays in solid form until it reaches 76 degrees. That pretty much means it's always in solid form at my house. I usually dig a little oil out of it's jar with my hand after I get out of the shower, but it can be tricky to get the amount I want out when it's solid. I wondered if there was an easier way.

Of course there is!

I figured if I melted the oil down and poured it in my trusty silicone heart mold, I'd have a lotion bar of sorts.

Turns out I was right.

Here's how to do it:

1) Scoop out a couple tablespoons of coconut oil into a saucepan.

Optional: I also added a tiny bit of beeswax to mine since summer is approaching and I wanted it to be less melty once the temps start warming.

2) Melt oil over low heat. Once oil is melted, you could add any additional essential oils (lavender or orange or lemon could be really swell) and pour it into your mold.

3) If oil doesn't quite reach the top of your mold, scoop out some more solid oil and add to pan. It will melt fast because the pan is hot. Do this until your mold is full.

4) Let cool. I popped mine into the freezer for a few minutes to firm it up before I pushed it out of the mold. (NOTE: This is a tip I will use in the future when I try to get soaps out of this mold, as I had a problem with this in an earlier post. It works like a charm!)

5) Slather the goodness!

Having coconut oil in a bar form makes it SO much easier to apply! Just slide it over your skin and it melts instantly. I keep my bar on a small dish in the bathroom cupboard.

So...any tidbits of joy you want to share with me?

4 comments:

  1. Hi Jess! A while back, I read about a natural deodorant that sounded interesting. I just made some a few days ago and am loving it. It's also made with coconut oil, so I thought you might be interested.

    I don't have any exact proportions, but melt some coconut oil and mix in a few drops of antimicrobial essential oils (I used some pine, lemon, and rosemary because they were what I had around). Then stir in baking soda until the oil seems saturated with it, and stick it in the fridge to re-solidify. A touch of beeswax would probably be a good idea here too.

    This leaves you with kind of coarse paste that you just rub into your pits. You could probably put it into an empty deodorant tube too. As long as you go light on it, your skin absorbs it well enough that it doesn't get oil on your clothes (at least in my experience so far). And while I do smell like a human and not like perfumey deodorant, there's no stink and low moisture. I'm okay with smelling like a human!

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  2. OH, and it also goes on totally clear! No white marks.

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  3. This sounds fabulous-thanks for sharing! Love the pine, rosemary, lemon combination. I generally don't wear deodorant, but I have a lot of people ask me about a natural kind that works and I had a friend make me some once that seems similar to this. I might whip up a batch and do a tutorial on it in the near future. Cheers!

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  4. Here's where my inspiration came from. She uses several additional ingredients. Also, fantastic blog if you've never seen it before!

    http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2009/08/natural-homemade-deodorant/

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