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.
Leave the E oil in however make sure it is T-50 Vitamin E and NOT the oil you take in capsule form. T-50 is all natural derived from plants. The Vitamin E that is in the capsules is synthetic and is not good for the skin and causes rashes in some people. Anther thing do NOT mix olive oil and coconut oil the combo has a drying effect on the skin that is why some soaps are drying. You want your body butter less greasy feeling put arrowroot in the oil before adding it to your butters. It makes a hug difference. It also helps the butter soak into the skin faster. I order it online. I personally love shea mango body butter with almond and a teaspoon of T-50 vitamin E to help the oils to last longer. It is an anti oxidant that helps oil from going rancid as fast.
Thanks so much for the Vitamin E oil tips, I always buy a brand meant for skin but I didn’t know about the T-50 kind. I’ve never mixed olive oil and coconut oil together before but I’m glad to know it’s not a good idea, I mostly keep it simple with a tendency towards coconut oil because I love how it keeps my skin moisturized!
Hey Kari! Love this recipe. Do you think I could add vanilla to it to change a scent a bit? This is my 1st time making anything like this at home, so I’m not really hip on how this things will or won’t blend together. Thanks for any direction!
I wouldn’t add vanilla extract to any body butter recipe because they are really high in oils, and the liquid of the vanilla won’t blend in properly. If you do want to add the vanilla smell, I would recommend a vanilla essential oil instead, it’s pretty expensive but a little goes a long way. Also you can sometimes find diluted vanilla essential oil where it’s been mixed with a carrier oil like grapeseed or something similar, and you could use that in place of the vitamin E oil. Let me know if you have anymore questions, and I hope you enjoy the recipe!
One thing you can do is take some jojoba oil and add in a bit of vanilla oleoresin and let that sit for a week or so and then use this vanilla scented jojoba oil for your vanilla scent.
What a great idea, thank you!!!
I finally found a paleo dessert that had all of the ingredients I had handy in my cupboard!
These cookies were absolutely delicious! I loved the almond butter flavor mixed with the cocoa.
The first batch I rolled with my hands into half inch balls and baked them for approx. 9 minutes. They came out perfect.
The next batch I spooned onto the cookie sheet and they resulted in huge oddly shaped splatters that needed to be cooked longer resulting in dryness and over chewiness.
Moral of the story: don’t make them too big, and don’t over cook them.
Otherwise you will have a perfect cookie!
What a great website- thank you so much for the recipe, and I look forward to trying some of your other items. Especially the body butter!
Did you make my Double Chocolate Almond Butter cookies? Those are one of my all-time favorites! 🙂 I hope you enjoy the Body Butter, I find it’s particularly useful this time of year at the end of a long winter!
Do you use solid cocoa butter bar or cocoa butter cream like in a jar?
I used 100% pure cocoa butter which comes in both jars and bars, but it’s definitely not a cream because it’s quite hard until it’s melted. I hope you enjoy the recipe, and be sure to let me know if you have anymore questions! 🙂
I made it, but it is still a liquid. I must’ve measured something wrong. Do you know how to remedy this?
I did use unrefined cocoa butter. Could that have anything to do with it?
I don’t think using unrefined cocoa butter would make a difference, but it could be a couple of other factors. How long did you let it sit? It does take a couple hours or so to firm up – this will mostly depend on temperature of the body butter and the temperature of the room. And my second question for you is what is your room temperature? This body butter will melt if it’s over 75ºF, so that could be the problem as well. If you wouldn’t mind filling me in on a few more details, we’ll try to get to the bottom of this! 🙂
I am allergic to coconut oil, do you have a suggestion on a substitution? Thanks!
I would try using jojoba oil or avocado oil, since both of these oils remain liquid at room temperature it will affect the thickness of the body butter – you could try lowering the amount of coconut oil to 4-5 Tablespoon when you sub in another oil, and add an additional 1-2 Tablespoons of cacao butter to create a similar texture. Hope this works for you, and let me know how it goes! 🙂
Hi. I wanted to make this but I don’t have shea butter or cocoa butter. Do you know any substitutes that can be easily bought or that are possible to use instead?
Cocoa butter is essential in this recipe because it’s what creates the thick body butter texture. I really don’t of any other possible substitute, but you can order cocoa butter online if it’s not available locally. 🙂
Can I use Almond oil instead of the vitamin E? Since I dont have any and want to try this sooner then later?
You should be able to substitute almond oil for vitamin E oil – the vitamin E oil is slightly thicker but I don’t think it’s enough of a difference to matter in the end. Let me know how it goes, and I hope you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
I tried this & it was great. My skin is extra dry so this thickness was great. Although I can’t smell the lemon the cocoa butter scent over power the lemon scent. Is there anyway to tone down the cocoa butter scent?
Different brands of cocoa butter smell more or less strong. You could add a bit more lemon essential oil, (but be careful with citrus essential oils because the irritate some peoples skin) or you could try using shea butter in place of cocoa butter which has a milder scent. The final product might be a bit softer because shea butter isn’t quite as thick as cocoa butter, but it should work!
Can I use Vitamin E cream instead of coconut oil? Butters are always too oily for my skin. Thanks for this! Glad it’s still up after almost a year!
I’ve never used Vitamin E cream, so I don’t know if the substitute would work. Let me know if you decide to try it, I’m curious about the results! 🙂