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.
Can you still smell the chocolate scent from the cacao butter? I don’t personally like the smell in lotions myself, and I had trouble neutralizing it in some lotion bars I recently made.
There’s definitely a light chocolate/cacao butter scent int he final product which I love with the lemon essential oil. But If you don’t like that smell, I wouldn’t make this recipe because I don’t think you can cover up the smell. I have 2 lotions that don’t have cacao butter in them that you might like better, and I’ll leave the links below. I hope you find one that you like, and be sure to let me know if you have anymore questions! 🙂
https://getinspiredeveryday.com/lifestyle/cooling-aloe-mint-body-lotion/
https://getinspiredeveryday.com/lifestyle/easy-buttercream-lotion/
looks yummy! your pics are gorgeous…I will make this and try not to eat it:)
I think you’ll absolutely love the way it smells too! I hope you enjoy the recipe! 🙂
Hi, do you have to heat the ingredients up? Could I just mix them together if my coconut oil is already liquid?
Many thanks,
Sharon
I think you’ll still need to heat up the cocoa butter since it’s usually quite solid, but then you could add your liquid coconut oil, the other ingredients, and proceed from there. I hope this helps, but be sure to let me know if you have anymore questions! 🙂
What is the teaspoon equivalent in drops?
I’m sorry but I don’t know exactly how many drops would be the equivalent, but you can just add drops, stirring as you go until it smells good to you. I hope you enjoy the recipe, and be sure to let me know if you have anymore questions! 🙂
Since my skin reacts badly to cocoa butter can I replace it with something else? I have shea butter but it doesn’t have a pleasant smell.
I’m not sure what else to sub in for the cocoa butter other than shea butter, but you could try using more coconut oil with some beeswax melted in. I’m not sure if it will have the same texture since I’ve never tried it that way, but it’s the only other thing I can think of. You might want to try my Easy Buttercream Lotion or Cooling Aloe Mint Lotion instead. They’re both deeply moisturizing body lotions, and you can use straight coconut oil for extra dry places like hands, feet, and elbows/knees. I hope this helps, and be sure to let me know if you have anymore questions!
What is the shelf life of this? Does it have to be refrigerated?
This body butter doesn’t need to be refrigerated, and it lasts well for me for 6-8 weeks. I’ve always used it up within that amount of time, so I’m not sure how long it would last beyond that. The texture of the body butter does change over time with temperature fluctuations, whenever mine’s been melted in the heat of the summer, I just let it cool to a solid before re-mixing it with a fork or small spatula. I hope this helps, and I’ve made a note of the shelf life in the recipe for anyone reading in the future! 🙂
can you whip this and make it whipped body butter?
I haven’t tried whipping it, but I can’t see any reason that wouldn’t work. I hope you enjoy the recipe, and be sure to let me know how it goes, or if you have anymore questions! 🙂
I just made a batch of this butter and it is fantastic!! I didn’t have vitamin E, so I used slightly less than 1 tablespoon of Sweet Almond Oil instead. I also used Sweet Orange essential oil in place of the lemon for two reasons. One is because orange essential oil is not phototoxic, so I won’t have to worry about going out in the sun after applying and second, I wanted this to smell like those chocolate oranges you buy around Christmas time – you know, the ones you whack on the table to break apart into sections. And oh my goodness, it smells just like them! It feels heavenly on my skin too. Thanks for this easy, awesome recipe.
Oh, and just FYI for anyone making this, 6 Tablespoons (of the coconut oil) is equivalent to just slightly more than 1/3 cup. I found it much easier to use my measuring cup than my measuring spoon for this. 🙂
I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe, and I absolutely can’t wait to try your orange/cocoa butter combination because it sounds like it would smell wonderful!
Where is the step in the recipe/instructions that get it fluffy? I keep re-reading it, and all I get is that you melt it together and then let it cool. I can’t figure out when it should be getting it’s nice texture. Doesn’t seem to be a very complete recipe 🙁
Hi Louisa, first of all thanks for writing because I realized I needed to be more specific in the recipe. You do just melt the ingredients together and then let it cool, but I like to stir it vigorously to make it a little lighter before placing it in a clean container, (I just made a note in the recipe). Also I described a way to speed it up by using an ice bath in the post, and I added a note about that to the recipe. The body butter stays nice and fluffy around 70ºF but if the temperature flucuates the body butter can become hard at cold temperatures and melt at warmer temperatures. If it melts the texture isn’t quite as fluffy, but it works exactly the same. I hope this helps, be sure to let me know if you have anymore questions, and thanks so much for writing because it really helped me improve the recipe! 🙂
Can I double or triple this recipe?
Yes you can! I hope you enjoy the recipe, and be sure to let me know how it goes. 🙂