should I melt my grainy shea prior to making body butter?

[Candybee]

I know its a soft butter and does not need to be melted to make whipped body butter. But its very grainy and was wondering if the graininess will whip out or do I need to melt it first then let it start to solidify before whipping it into my body butter recipe?

 

[AliOop]

Yes, it is much better to melt (temper) the grainy shea first. Be sure to put the melted batch in the fridge immediately, or it will go grainy again.

You can either start whipping it before it is completely solidified, OR let it solidify completely, then take it out of the fridge and let it come to room temp before whipping. I would do the second if you have a large batch of grainy stuff that you don't intend to use all at once. After you have tempered it, it shouldn't go grainy again unless it gets too warm in storage.

 

[Candybee]

Thank you AliOop! I'm so glad I asked. Apparently my instincts about the graininess was right. I definitely don't want grainy whipped body butter!!!

 

[AliOop]

No, you sure don't! I love me some shea butter in my body butters but those grains just ruin the experience, don't they? Let us know how your batch turns out.

 

[Carly B]

Does it have to be heated to a certain temp to get rid of the graininess, or just melted then refrigerated right away?

 

[Candybee]

Since I was doing a large batch I put all the butters and oils in the micro together and melted everything down. I had cocoa butter in the recipe so I just went ahead and melted them all, blended together, and stuck the whole bowl in the fridge with some saran wrap on top. Just checked it and its nice and creamy and soft even after several hours. But I am going to continue to refridgerate overnight.

Then I will take it out in the morning to let it come back to room temp before I whip it up. Keeping my fingers crossed this works. The combo of my butters and oils makes them all have different melt points and texture so hoping blending them will tame it all out.

 

[Candybee]

Does it have to be heated to a certain temp to get rid of the graininess, or just melted then refrigerated right away?

When I warm oils like shea or palm I melt thoroughly until the liquid looks completely clear. Its the only way I know that the stearic is melted too.

Before I started doing that I would end up with stearic spots in my soap. So I learned to melt those two particular oils until they are a crystal clear liquid to get rid of the problem.

 

[Candybee]

The whipped body butter came out pretty nice. Except I don't think I will be using cocoa butter again. It was only 5% of the butters but it still made the butter a bit heavier and chocolaty smelling. I think if I make some chocolaty body butter I will definitely use the cocoa butter then. The natural chocolate scent was nice and comes through in the butter.

 

[Hope Ann]

The whipped body butter came out pretty nice. Except I don't think I will be using cocoa butter again. It was only 5% of the butters but it still made the butter a bit heavier and chocolaty smelling. I think if I make some chocolaty body butter I will definitely use the cocoa butter then. The natural chocolate scent was nice and comes through in the butter.

You can use refined cocoa butter for no smell. I understand what you mean about the weight, but it does ads a nice occlusiveness that helps trap the moisture in when you apply post shower.

Hope

 

[Candybee]

You can use refined cocoa butter for no smell. I understand what you mean about the weight, but it does ads a nice occlusiveness that helps trap the moisture in when you apply post shower.

Yes, I have used it before and will keep the refined in mind. Right now, I have several pounds of lovely chocolate smelling cocoa butter to use so thought I would try it in the body butter.

BTW-- I used Slick Fix from WSP instead of regular tapioca. Slick Fix is a modified tapioca starch and I can't recall at the moment how it is modified. I think something in the starch is removed? or something. Anywho, I wanted to see if it made a difference in the afterfeel. It does help with minimizing the greasy feel of the butter. I noted that when I dabbed some on my skin and rubbed it in it seemed to absorb right into the skin with only a slight or very light feeling of oil on the skin. Very nice!

 

[CatahoulaBubble]

The whipped body butter came out pretty nice. Except I don't think I will be using cocoa butter again. It was only 5% of the butters but it still made the butter a bit heavier and chocolaty smelling. I think if I make some chocolaty body butter I will definitely use the cocoa butter then. The natural chocolate scent was nice and comes through in the butter.

Add some peppermint EO to your cocoa butter whipped butter. It makes it smell like thin mint cookies. Makes me hungry. You don't want to add too much but just a titch gives it a lovely scent and a tingle to your skin.