does anyone have any recipies for home made hand lotion? for a guy? thanx

I don't have any recipes but I'd like to know how to make this, too - and I'd really like to know how to make a lotion in bar form (ideally with a good dose of beeswax in it - saw something similar in a pricey gift shop and it smelled heavenly and worked really well on my hands).

Magestic mountain sage (www.thesage.com) has a bunch of recipies for hand lotion, although most of them call for using emulsifying wax. They make the point that oil and other emollients can't hold water in, if there's no water in the mix to be held in, and oil and water don't mix.

That said, I've also made lotion bars like lush body massage bars. You don't want to use too much beeswax as the bar will end up becoming super hard and not nice and solid, but melty when you hold it. I used 6 parts cocoa butter, 2 parts oil/sweet almond oil, and 1 part beeswax. Melt it down, add a little essential oil fragrance and possibly color, and I used Ikea rubber ice trays in the shape of pears as molds, but anything you'd use as a soap mold would probably work too.

Jen

I always eye those ice trays at IKEA but never figure I'd use them (ice just melts away so why bother was my thought) but now I have lotion bars to make - woohoo! thanks for the recipe and great mold idea! (PS I once won a set of nudie icecube trays - from the 50's I think - playing bingo for white elephant gifts with a bunch of senior citizen ladies - now if I could only find them....)

I make a lotion that my friends Love.
boil 1/4 cup water, add 1/8 tsp borax
in separate pan heat
1/2 cup oil--almond, whatever, I usually use olive oil and almond
1 tsp. vitamin e (but not necessary)
3 tbsp. grated beeswax..

once beeswax has melted pour the oil into a ceramic bowl.
slowly add water, mixing slowly with wisk.
as it starts to thicken add as much fragrance as you'd like. (15-20 drops)
Is a nice thick cream.
Pour into jar.

I hope you like it.

Lara
PS those bars sound great.

<<bump>> for Jess

This page by Somerset Company includes a lotion recipe...you can scent it as you choose.
>http://www.makingcosmetics.com/dir/recipes.html

libby, the nudie ice cube trays sound classic!!! Are they 3-D or flattened on one side...i'm trying to visualize...

you're right, that'd be the greatest for soap!! :)

-S

I'm thinking the nudie icecube tray ladies were flat (their backs, of course!). I have searched my home (always an adventure in clutter-land) and cannot find them. I don't think they made the move with us and probably got left in the creepy dark basement where we used to live. I wish I still had them. They even came in this classic colored cardboard box with cool 50's-early 60's graphics. Why is it I keep so much junk that gets in my way and lose the good stuff? Argh! I wonder if you can still get icecube trays like that? Maybe I need to scope out ebay!

--Libby

Am I the only one who read "Home made hand lotion" as a sexual conotation (sp)? I'm such a dork! :)

lissa

i'm digging this post up from a while back because i tried laraji's recipe for lotion this weekend and it ROCKS! i want to try it again with a bit more beeswax, but anyone who's interested in trying this, it's easy and it turns out really nice. i scented mine with amber and sandlewood oil. i want to make a batch of peppermint next!

thanks, laraji!