This Lemon Cream Body Butter is my favorite way to keep my skin nice and smooth through the dry winter months! It’s a super easy DIY all natural skin care recipe that comes together in just minutes. It keeps well for months and makes the perfect homemade gift as well.
This body butter is an all time most popular recipe! And for good reason, because it’s easy to make and works wonders on the skin! Usually body butters take forever to sink in and leave my skin semi-oily. But this body butter absorbs quickly and leaves my skin super soft.
Today is the second time I’ve given this super popular recipe an update with more tips. But the recipe has always remained the same. It’s a classic that’s one of my favorite natural skin care recipes. It’s extra easy because the recipe is all oil based with no liquid ingredients. This means you don’t need to worry about beeswax or emulsifying anything.
It’s as simple as melting together the ingredients, and adding essential oil! From there you can allow it to firm up on it’s own. This can take up to 24 hours depending on how warm it is in your house. Or you can stir it over an ice bath until it thickens up. Either way you’ll have a thick body butter that’s incredibly moisturizing.
Does anyone else slack off on skin care a bit over the winter months? My good habit of using my pumice stone everyday to maintain soft feet, disappeared somewhere over the winter. And now it’s spring and I just got my sandals out, so it’s time to take action. The pumice stone is once again in use, and this Lemon Cream Body Butter is fixing all my winter skin blues.
It’s really nice to have something extra moisturizing, and this really fits the bill. Also, it smells so good that I want to eat it, (sort of like a Girl Scout Lemon Cookie). This body butter is particularly good for softening dry or scaly skin, and restoring it to softness again.
I find that my hands, elbows, and feet need a little extra care throughout the seasons, and a regular lotion just isn’t always enough. Enter this body butter. Lately I’ve started using it as a cuticle cream as well, and it’s been working great.
Let’s jump in and make this Lemon Cream Body Butter step by step!
Step 1:
Start by measuring out each of the ingredients listed in the recipe.
I used lemon essential oil, but any citrus oil smells wonderful, as does vanilla. I buy my cocoa butter at a local health food store because it’s the easiest place to find it. You can also order it online as well.
Step 2:
Next you want to melt the ingredients over low heat until just warm and liquified. If you get the ingredients too hot you can destroy some of their beneficial properties.
Step 3:
After the cocoa/cacao butter is melted together with the coconut oil, add the Vitamin E oil.
Step 4:
This body butter becomes fully solidified after 24 hours. But I like to speed up the process by placing it over an ice water bath and stirring until it firms up. It will loosen up again, but after a day or so it will become it’s final firmed up texture. Mine has stayed solid up to 78ºF room temperature.
This is definitely a luxurious body butter, it feels like buttercream frosting. And I haven’t found anything else that softens my skin quite like this does.
If you don’t like or can’t use cocoa butter, try my Pumpkin Spice Body Butter for it’s incredible moisturizing from shea butter. It also smells so good and you can mix up the essential oils in that recipe for whatever scent you’d like.
This body butter doesn’t have any beeswax in it, so it melts as it comes in contact with your skin. I find that it absorbs into my skin way better than the ones that I’ve tried made with beeswax.
Note: Coconut oil melts at about 76ºF, and cocoa butter at 90ºF. So this body butter will become softer and even liquid if your room temperature approaches 80ºF or higher.
Update: the temperature in our house has fluctuated a lot as the outside temperatures get warmer, and my body butter has melted a couple of times now. You can remix it with a fork to make it fluffy again. Or just use it a little firmer. Either way, it works the same with very little change in texture over time.
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Lemon Cream Body Butter
- Total Time: 10 mins
- Yield: makes 2/3 cup 1x
Description
This Lemon Cream Body Butter is my favorite way to keep my skin nice and smooth through the dry winter months! It’s a super easy DIY all natural skin care recipe that comes together in just minutes. It keeps well for months and makes the perfect homemade gift as well.
Ingredients
6 Tablespoons coconut oil
1/4 cup cocoa butter
1 Tablespoon vitamin E oil
1/4 Teaspoon lemon essential oil
Instructions
Place the coconut oil and cocoa butter in a saucepan. Over low heat, warm until just melted.
Remove from the heat. Add the vitamin E oil and essential oil.
Cool until the mixture solidifies, (a few hours at room temperature). Stir the body butter vigorously with a spatula, and then transfer to a clean container with a lid.
Notes
To speed up the cooling process, you can place the body butter over an ice bath and stir vigorously until it goes from melted to firm and fluffy.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
This recipe was last published in 2016, but has been updated with new photos, more step by step photos, and lots more information and tips.
Someone asked me recently to make them a citrus scented body butter. I am wondering about the safety of using citrus essential oils in a body butter? I have read that it can cause sensitivity to sun exposure and cause you to burn more easily? I was wondering your thoughts on this, and if I put less of it in, does it lessen the chance of UV sensitivity?
Citrus essential oils can cause sensitivities in certain people. So, just to be on the safe side I’d leave the essential oil out all together. It will still smell good due to the cacao butter and coconut oil.
You could use orange essential oil in place of the lemon. Orange EO’s are not phototoxic like other citrus oils. And I think the scent of the orange and the cocoa butter would be scrumptious!
Thank you for the great suggestion! And I think you’re right, orange and cocoa butter sounds like a great scent combo! 🙂
Hi 🙂 Can you use this for the face also?
It’s not usually recommended to use a any kind of body butter on your face because it’s intensely moisturizing and most people find it too oily. Personally, I use straight oil on my face all the time and body butters in place of eye cream (always at nighttime), but I do try to stay away from anything scented on my face. In short, if your skin isn’t super sensitive it should be fine, or you can leave out the essential oil to be on the safe side. 🙂
Everytime I have made body butters they are very greasy on the skin. Is this one greasy?
Thanks
I didn’t find it greasy at all on my skin, but body butters are meant for the driest areas like hands, feet, elbows, and the like. If you’re finding body butters greasy, only apply them to the areas that need a bit more moisture. I’ve found this body butter makes an excellent cuticle cream as well.
I’ll bet this smells amazing. I’ve made whipped body butter and regular body butter before and I’m addicted to homemade lotions now. Would love to try this recipe. Pinning.
The smell of this body butter is half the fun!
Great recipe, very similar to mine (in my book). Its amazing what you can make at home to moisturize, repair and protect your skin. Natural ingredients and recipes like these and others using essential oils like tamanu, neroli and frankincense that have wonderful beneficial properties for skin 🙂
I developed this recipe based off my love of cocoa butter and all it’s great moisturizing qualities. Funny that it’s similar to yours, I guess there’s nothing new under the sun. 🙂
nice recipe. question. should i melt the butter then measure?
I melt or soften my coconut and or cocoa butter when they’re solid before using them to get an accurate measurement.
Citrus essential oils can cause skin to become more sensitive to the sun.
Citrus essential oils can be the most irritating to those with sensitive skin, but you can just leave them out for a very effective unscented body butter!
Very tempting!
Thank you for sharing your idea!
Have a great summer!
Would it matter if Shea butter were used in this recipe instead of cocoa butter?
Shea Butter is not quite as hard as Cocoa Butter so I would use 6 Tablespoons of Shea Butter to 1/4 cup of coconut oil. That would be my best guess!
Hi Kari
Can I use lemon butter in place of cocoa butter?
I’m not sure what lemon butter is, I’ve only ever heard of it for recipes like a compound butter to top steaks and the like with, so I can’t say!
Since it melts above 76, can it be stored in the fridge? Do you ever? Seems a bit chilly, may be nice on the footsies during the summer though.
You can store it in the fridge but it will be pretty hard. Whenever it melts, I just pour a bit into my hands it still works the same way. You could also try the wax substitution for more stability in the summer!
Coconut oil will remain in a semi-solid state even at higher temperatures if beaten with an electric mixer while it is in its solid state. So if you cool this mixture and then put the chunks into an electric mixer and blend until creamy, it should remain that consistency even at warmer room temperatures.
Thanks so much for your great tips, I can’t wait to try them out! 🙂 Sometimes I let my lotions fully cool in my blender and then blend until fluffy and super smooth, but I’ve never tried the mixer before.
Was it easy to make?
This is probably my easiest DIY recipe to make because you simply melt the ingredients together, and then stir it vigorously over an ice bath until it thickens. It’s easier than homemade lotions because it doesn’t contain any wax, and there’s no emulsification process. I love making this recipe for gifts because it’s quick and easy to make, and everyone loves it because it leaves you skin super soft.
I am having a ball making my own body butter and other spa products using MakeYourSpa – I’m making all sorts of things for friends! It’s great for learning how to make luxurious spa products at home immediately and it’s easy 🙂 I save a lot of money not going to the spa and the products are exactly the same, if not better. I have used my friends and family to try out the products I’ve made and they have been absolutely delighted! I’m thoroughly enjoying working my way through the recipes and then adjusting them to my own design. I really wish I had started this years ago.
I’ve have to agree with you that homemade is so much better, and definitely much more cost effective!