Shea Butter-Sal Butter Comparison Body Butter, Take 2

Shea and Sal Butters make wonderful skin care!

Yesterday, I thought that my first comparison batches of body butter were too greasy. With my opinions in hand, I turned to our trusty technical support team for formulation assistance and advice. (Our tech support folks are great at helping!)

After discussing my original formula as well as what I liked and disliked about the recipe, I was given some suggestions to try. Those suggestions were:

• Reduce the oils by at least 10%.
• Increase Emulsifying Wax to 4%.
• Add Dry Flo TS at 5%.
• Increase water into the high 60s.

With the advice in mind, I reformulated and made another tiny batch. Here’s what you’ll need to make this body butter.

Recipe:

INSTRUCTIONS:

Weigh all but fragrance and preservative into a microwave-safe container. Heat using short bursts of time, stirring between each heating, until the mixture is liquid. Allow to cool to 120 degrees (F) before adding fragrance and preservative.

The body butter will be quite thick and not pourable. I packaged this in our one-ounce jars, which come in a set with lids. (100 grams fills three jars with a little extra – told you it was a tiny batch!) To easily fill any size jar, I’d recommend putting the body butter into a plastic bag and cutting off the corner so you can easily pipe the product into the jar without making a big mess.

NOTES:

I am astonished at how much of a difference the changes made in this formula! The greasy feeling is gone, but the body butter still has a great feel. It must be the addition of Dry Flo TS that has given this butter such a powdery feel on the skin. I like that! The cream has plenty of viscosity too, and it absorbs readily into my skin. I was even able to immediately handle papers and my phone without leaving greasy fingerprints everywhere. That is always nice in a hand cream, though I plan to use this all over my body to fend off the alligator skin!

As with the other products I made to compare the two butters, there is not a lot of difference between the Shea Butter version and Sal Butter versions. Though the two butters are quite different in solid form, they seem to perform very similarly in formulations. Shea is slightly preferred by testers; well, only one tester preferred the Shea Butter over the Sal Butter. Everyone else just liked both samples.

I scented this batch with Hibiscus Passion FO, which smelled like it might be overpowering. I’m glad to report that it is not! The fragrance in the cooled body butter is definitely floral with slight notes of spice and musk. Surprisingly, I like it as I usually am not a fan of floral scents. I noticed my testers sniffing the jar several times; they seemed intrigued as I was by the varied notes in the fragrance.

If you are looking for a thick moisturizer, give this formula a try. I think you will be pleased!