Hi Gaisy! Due to the warm climate in which I live, my babassu is 100% liquid if kept at room temp, although having just said that, we recently had a cold spell set in this past week and the little set-aside portion of babassu that I have at room temperature has firmed to a soft, slushy consistency. In my opinion, if your babassu is soft enough to mash, I wouldn't melt it. I would just mash/stir up the magnesium powder with the soft/slushy babassu and call it done. Actually, that's just what I did this morning (I needed to replenish my little jar of homemade deodorant), and it worked perfectly fine.
Yes- it's totally working for me with just the babassu and magnesium. It's truly amazing how well this stuff works. For what its worth, I've never added arrowroot to mine, and since it's working so well without it, I personally don't see the need for it.
The babassu/magnesium hydroxide mixture sinks right into my skin and does not cause any oil slicks or stains on any of my shirts/blouses
at all. And it goes on smooth without any friction/scratchiness- even when I've increased the magnesium to babassu ratio to see what it feels like with a paste-like consistency (several folks who wrote reviews on Amazon underneath the Magnesium Hydroxide product were making their homemade deodorants with it into a paste, so I thought I'd try it out). To tell you the truth, the mixture actually feels quite smooth and soothing to my skin...... the total opposite of how baking soda feels to my skin. I really think you're going to love it.
IrishLass