Help! Lotion bar hard as a rock.

stacy_bareskin · Oct 20, 2008

I found a recipe for a lotion bar so I thought I would try it out. I melted all the ingredients together, put it in a container and let it cool. I came back to it and its hard as a rock!

I need to melt it down and add some more soft oils I am guessing. I have no idea how the person who made the recipe found any use for a solid block of oils.

Here's the ingredients:
14g beeswax
14g shea butter
14g cocoa butter
14g sweet almond oil
2.5g honey
1.25g vitamin e

I know now that its too high in hard oils and I knew the honey would be a waste of time the minute I put it in. It just settles on the bottom.

So, how do you get a better consistency in a lotion bar?

I have made lip balm before and it has a whole lot more sweet almond oil in it so should I bump up that? Any other ingredients that make a good lotion bar?

scorpiofire · Oct 20, 2008

I'm no expert but this is what i tried from a recipe i found on the web and i really liked the results .

1/3 beewax
1/3 hard oils(shea butter,cocoa butter,etc)
1/3 soft oils( almond,grapeseed,...)

Tabitha · Oct 20, 2008

I think the easiest way to tweak that recipe is to cut your cocoa butter back to about 2g or drop it all together. Otherwise you will need to increase your oil anywhere from an extra 14-28g.

stacy_bareskin · Oct 20, 2008

This is why I only made a small batch. Thank goodness for that.

I might recalculate what I currently have and and add some softer oils to smooth it out a bit. I don't want to throw out what I've made coz its so easy to melt down and fix. It smells really strongly of beeswax and cocoa butter so it definitely has enough of those two ingredients!

mandolyn · Oct 21, 2008

stacy_bareskin said:
This is why I only made a small batch. Thank goodness for that.

I might recalculate what I currently have and and add some softer oils to smooth it out a bit. I don't want to throw out what I've made coz its so easy to melt down and fix. It smells really strongly of beeswax and cocoa butter so it definitely has enough of those two ingredients!

That's what I'd do, just melt it down & add oils until it's the consistency I want. You might end up with waaaaaaaaaay more than you first anticipated. Depending on what eo's/fo's you used, they may burn off & need to be added back in.