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The Beauty Alchemist: How to make your own lotion.
Tired of hormone-disruptors, cancer-causing chemicals and all kinds of mutant additives floating in your conventional lotion?
Me too.
I’m also tired of paying for getting intoxicated.
Death is inevitable, so why pay for it? Illness can be fought or prevented, but even when it can’t, it should at least come free of cost. They should not happen at the expense of your pockets or be an indirect (oops!) cause of mindless businesses and corporations filling their bank accounts with our health.
So let’s go to the kitchen, you and I, right now and make ourselves a creamy, nourishing body lotion.
Our skin is the largest organ in our body and, poor thing, it gets drier and moodier in the winter.
We’ve talked about switching from lotion to oils and recommended some of the best skin-friendly oils available—and, even for those of us who don’t generally use lotion, cold weather lizard skin sometimes needs a moisturizing hug.
Here’s how to make your own lotion for much, much (so much less) than buying it—less money and less chemicals.

Ingredients (you can find these at any health food store):
- 3 tablespoons of beeswax (or the equivalent). Make sure you get 100% pure beeswax — no fake petroleum potion.
- 1 cup of any virgin oil of your preference. Different oils are better for different types of skin–sweet almond, grapeseed, hemp seed, coconut, jojoba, argan—your pick.
- 1 1/2 cup of rose water. If you’re more adventurous, you can use green tea (cool off first).
- 1 tsp (or around 30 drops of essential oil). Choose your favorite based on healing properties, aroma, or both.
Experiment:
- Add the oil and beeswax to a Pyrex measuring cup (or the like).
- Place the cup (or safe glass recipient) in a saucepan. Fill it with water that reaches halfway up the cup and put it on low heat until the beeswax melts. Once it is completely melted, remove from heat and let cool only for a few minutes.
- Use a blender to mix it up. Add the rose water (or green tea) first and turn it on high. Use the hole in the lid to add the warm mixture of oil and beeswax. Mix until reaching a soft, creamy, rich texture.
*You can also use a stick blender but the results won’t be as great or you’ll need an extra hand to blend while you’re adding the ingredients. The secret to reaching the desired creamy lotion texture is to start blending at high speed before you even start adding the oily ingredients and not stop until it’s finished. When cooling, the beeswax thickens, so you don’t want it cooling off before being able to mix well with the other ingredients—something that only a constant powerful blending boom will get you.
- Add the essential oil as a final step and blend some more.
- Pour in a cute jar. Do not let any beeswax down your sink, it will clog your home’s arteries.
You can keep your new healthy, yummy lotion at room temperature or in the fridge, for up to six months.
Remember, remaking your face — or, rediscovering your real, chemical-free one, is a work in progress. It gets worse before it gets better. You’re learning a new language.
So don’t despair if your lotion comes out too thick or light or heavy or bright. Pay attention, take notes, try again, fail, try again, fail, succeed.
It wasn’t until my third or fourth try that I actually “got it,” and the consistency turned out just the way I wanted. The first couple times, let’s just say my lotion-making was a strange and gross kitchen-beauty alchemism.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if we all started making our own lotion and body-care products or bought only homemade beauty-care and insisted in being not just a passive part of the finished product—at the ignorant end of the production chain—but a vital and active part in the whole process.
Intelligent and creative transparency is much more beautiful than toxic ignorance.
We’d have no choice then but to boycott with our daily power–that of choosing what we spend our money on–the companies hurting our skin, our lungs, our hormone cycle and our immune system.
I wonder how much healthier and conscious an image our mirrors would reflect back on us then, and how much our universal skin would change (for the better).
*****
Want to join the homemade-handmade beauty revolution? Don’t keep your wisdom and beauty to yourself. Send us your natural bodycare recipe, suggestion or article to create@rebellesociety.com.
*****
More Beauty Alchemist:
{Yummy Beauty.}
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