Natural beauty…

I just made my first homemade lotion and I couldn’t be more excited!

What are the ingredients in your store-bought lotion? One of mine that claims to be a shea butter body-lotion has over 20 ingredients some of which are: Stearic acid, cetyl alcohol, dimethicone, and triethanolamine… yuck. I’d rather have fewer and more natural ingredients… like this recipe!

Winter Hand Salve aka. Eczema Fighting Lotion… (original recipe from A Sonoma Garden)

Ingredients: Shea butter, Sea Buckthorn oil, Vitamin E

Ingredients

2 oz. Shea Butter
.45 oz. Sea Buckthorn Oil
4 Vitamin E Tablets (or .025 oz)
All of these ingredients can be found at your local Health Food Grocery store. I get mine at Organic Harvest. If you can’t find them locally, you can purchase online at Mountain Rose Herbs.

Directions

Combine Shea Butter and Sea Buckthorn Oil in a Pyrex measuring cup
Place the Pyrex in a pot of simmering water until melted
Remove from heat and add Vitamin E
Let cool to room temperature
Transfer the oil mixture into a mixing bowl and whip it into a meringue-like consistency (it must be at room temperature for this to work!)
Transfer the lotion into a container
Store in the fridge!

Melting the shea butter and sea buckthorn oil

Whipped into a lotion

Finished product! Ready to use. (I reused a baby food jar. Reduce, REUSE, Recycle :))

Why is it so good for eczema?…

It’s the Sea Buckthorn Oil! This marvelous oil has copious amounts of Phytosterol, Vitamin E, Beta-Carotene, Anti-Oxidants, and Carotenoid which helps to substantiate its relatively high success rate as a skin repairing and conditioning oil. Sea Buckthorn has been traditionally used for a wide range of skin ailments for its revered nourishing, regenerative, and restorative actions. Sea Buckthorn oil is used superficially to assist in healing skin injuries, burns, wounds, eczema, lesions, sun damaged skin, and abrasions. Current studies are being performed on its ability to combat wrinkles, acute dryness and other symptoms of prematurely aged skin.

What about the Shea Butter?…

Shea Butter has been used for centuries in Africa for its moisturizing and healing properties, where it has been used to protect and condition skin which has been damaged by the sun and wind. Shea Butter is naturally rich in Vitamins A, E, and F, as well as a number of other vitamins and minerals. Vitamins A and E help to soothe, hydrate, and balance the skin. They also provide skin collagen which assists with wrinkles and other signs of ageing. Vitamin F contains essential fatty acids, and helps protect and revitalize damaged skin and hair. Shea Butter is an intense moisturizer for dry skin, and is a wonderful product for revitalizing dull or dry skin on the body or scalp. It promotes skin renewal, increases the circulation, and accelerates wound healing.

How does it feel?…

It is a little oily but my hands feel great. My skin gets pretty dry in this crazy Alabama fall weather (70 degrees one day, 50 degrees the next). When you store it in the fridge it will harden a bit. I scrape it out with the back of my fingernail and it melts almost instantly in the heat of my hand. A little goes a long way! Use a small amount.