What do you need?

Let the fun begin:

1. Grate cocoa butter to speed up the melting process in the step 3 and put in in the beaker.

2. Add shea butter to the beaker.

3. Melt the Phase 1 using water bath or double boiler. I advise you not to use the microwave. Melt it very slowly and stir while melting in order to prevent the butters from burning and to retain their nutrients.

4. When everything has liquefied, remove from heat and let the mixture cool a bit.

5. Now you’re ready to add the Phase 2, step by step: firstly jojoba oil. Stir it well.

6. Now cool the mixture (it has to be below 40°C) and add essential oils (in this case sweet orange essential oil).

7. Mix well and stand the beaker in iced water or fridge to speed up cooling and to help it coagulate smoothly.

8. When the mixture cools down, pour the blend into your bar moulds.

9. Place the mould in the fridge and leave it to set over night.

10. When they are solid, gently remove the bars from the mould and store them in a dark and cold space.

FAQs + tips and tricks:

• My balm bar forms an uneven shape when solid?

  To prevent this to happen, make sure you melt your butters very slowly and then you are stiring well while melting and while cooling. Make also sure to cool them slowly and to wait for mixture to cool and become thicker before pouring it into bar moulds.

• Where can I buy the ingredients?

  For the ingredients I’d recommend you the following 2 websites: https://naissance.com/ and https://www.primaveralife.com/.
  You can be very creative when choosing bar moulds, however, I suggest you to use silicon moulds in order to remove balm bars more easily.

• What do emollient, occlusive and INCI mean?

  Emollient – to smooth and soften your skin.
  Occlusive – a characteristic of an ingredient to provide a physical barrier to block water escaping from the skin.
  INCI - International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients. This is an universal, worldwide system of formal names for cosmetic ingredients and it’s based on the Latin or scientific name. An important reason for using this INCI name is that there may be several different trade names in use for an ingredient. By using INCI name, you can be 100% sure of the actual ingredient that you use.

• Can I replace or leave out any of the ingredients? 

  Of course, there is still a lot of room for you to be creative with the ingredients you have. I’d advise you to keep the the proportions of hard (cocoa butter) and soft (shea butter, mango butter,..) butters, oils and essential oils in the same in order to keep the firmness. 

  • You can replace shea butter with another soft butter, for example mango butter. You can also leave it out and replace it with oils, however, the firmness of your balm bar may change. 

  • Instead of jojoba oil you can use other carrier oils: avocado oil, hemp oil or sweet almond oil. 

• Is it ok to use it all year round? 

  For the summer or temperatures above 25°C I’d recommend you to increase the amount of hard butter (cocoa butter) and decrease amount of oils in order to maintain balm bar’s firmness. You may also add up to 1% w/w* wax: beeswax or candelilla wax. It’s very important to story balm bars in a cold place, e.g. in the fridge.

• Which essential oils should I use and why? 

  Essential oils give a product wonderful natural fragrance and flavour.

  • You can replace sweet orange essential oil (EO) with: lavender EO, grapefruit EO, peppermint EO, etc. however, don’t exceed 1% w/w* of the whole formulation, meaning, don’t add more than 1g per 100g of final product in order to avoid skin sensitisation.

  • Be careful when using citrus essential oils (grapefruit, bergamot, lemon, lime), since they are photosensitive - meaning they may cause oversensitivity of skin to light. If you have a very sensitive skin, you may avoid the essential oils - don’t worry, cocoa butter already gives it a hint of chocolate flavour. 

• Is the product vegan? 

  Yes. 

• How long does it last? 

  These balm bars should last at least 6 months. Even longer, if you store them in a dark and cold place. In the recipe we also added vitamin E, that acts as an antioxidant, meaning it prevents oils to oxidise and go rancid. Thus it prolongs product’s shelf life. Vitamin E also contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress.1

* % w/w: weight for weight" or "weight by weight", the proportion of a particular substance within a mixture, as measured by weight or mass.

1. EU Register on Nutrition and Health Claims