Yay whipped butter.

[alkelle]

A few weeks ago I made some hard skin/lip balms that my mom and dad loved. My dad especially because he works at CAT and his hands get a little dry from the machinery and gloves and what not. I love it because my eczema is hard to treat and those balms do great things especially at school since I put them in lip balm tubes and keeping it in my pocket softens it just enough to apply to my hands while in class. The recipes I used were 1 part each: Shea butter, coconut oil, beeswax. And 1 part each: cocoa butter, coconut oil, beeswax (two different recipes). Pretty basic, nothing new, but if you're on the fence on making them I suggest you do.
Moving on, I made this whipped shea butter concoction a week ago because the sticks get a little hard to apply when you're lounging around and your hands are sort of cold. I use store bought lotion sometimes and I use the generic "oatmeal, unscented" lotion because it is so pricey and my eczema makes me go through a lot of lotion. My problem with lotion is sometimes it dries my skin out or doesn't help it very much so I wanted to make something that could be easily applied while I'm at home and figured I'd try the whipped butters thing and leave out the fillers that lotion seems to have in it. That recipe was:
2 oz Cocoa Butter
2 oz Sweet almond oil
3 oz coconut oil
6 oz of shea butter
I melted the cocoa butter with the almond oil, dropped in the coconut oil and shea butter and carefully whipped it with my egg beater. I guess softening the shea butter and coconut oil may have made it easier but I made do. I whipped it for about 5 minutes, let it come to room temperature since the cocoa butter was making it warm, and beat again for a minute or two. I put some on my hands it felt great, I proceeded to slather it on my arms, threw the mixture in some pint jars so it'll be easier to get to the bottom, went to bed, woke up with awesome feeling skin and have been using it since.
I used the cocoa butter mostly to cover the neutral smell of the shea butter and I found that it stiffened it nicely since the cocoa butter is harder.
I gave some to my mom, dad, and my cousin. My dad likes it just as much as the balm and my mom and cousin like it too. After applying it, it feels a little greasy but after a minute or two it sort of feels "filmy" or maybe silky, I honestly don't know how to describe it but I like it. My cousin has presented me with a question that I really don't know. She just had a baby 3 weeks ago and he has some dry patches all around his body. This started a few days after coming into the world so it wasn't her using the lotion that caused a reaction. The doctor said just keep him lotioned and oiled up but nothing is really helping. She asked if the shea butter mixture would be okay for him.
What makes me weary is the almond oil, nut allergies are scary things but I'm not a doctor and I told her to ask hers. Thinking about it some more, she uses it and then touches him and he seems okay except for his persistent dry skin. I'm afraid if I leave the almond oil out it will be too stiff. I guess I could leave out the cocoa butter or decrease it. What about sunflower oil? Will that be good in place of almond oil? I gave her the list of ingredients to bring to her doctor to get her opinion and already told her to run sunflower oil by her as well just to be safe.
I know my posts get sort of wordy but when I was searching through discussion forums (and I mean any forum I could find) the short question posts sort of annoyed me. I want to give my thoughts and see what other people think as well. Also, I want people who are searching just like me to see what I have done or what others have done. I especially want them to see this: Ask a doctor before using something on a baby. It may do great things for adults but babies can't communicate as easily if something is bothering them. Ultimately, parents have to make the decision that is best for their own child, and hopefully with the help of a doctor. Sometimes the little ingredients like Almond Oil get over looked but cause a world of problems.
By the way, good morning everyone! I used my CP caffeine soap this morning and I am feeling marvelous. Have a happy day

P.S. Sunflower Oil... good or bad substitution for Almond Oil?

 

[Obsidian]

I love whipped butters too. Yours sounds nice, mind if I try your recipe? For the baby, leave out the coco butter as it can be irritating to some people. I'd replace any nut oils with sunflower, avocado or rice bran oil.

 

[Lin]

Wordy posts are fine, but if you break it up into paragraphs with spaces between them it will be much easier for more people to read I had some trouble and may have missed things, sometimes I have trouble with my eyes focusing and text can seem to dance around and I lose my place. Paragraphs help finding the right place again! And some people just have to move on with they see a large portion of text that isn't broken up.

Sunflower oil is definitely another option for the liquid oil portion of a body butter. Avocado is another. I can't think of any of the other good cost effective options atm, more expensive ones would be like meadowfoam.

As for the baby... Like you said in your post, she needs to bring a list of ingredients and ask her Dr first. Definitely can't make advice for such a young infant. Along with allergy concerns, shea butter cannot be used by those with latex allergies. So if anyone in your family has a latex allergy, I'd say she shouldn't use it on the baby. And to of course bring it up with the physician before using. Is she using soap on the infant? That young soap shouldn't be used if that may be a contributing issue. I don't know if she's fully bathing at all at that age, but if she is bathing less or doing washcloth baths with plain water instead of any part of his body submerged would be another thing to discuss with the Dr. In adults after getting wet you can slather the skin with an emollient to hold in the moisture and prevent having gotten wet from drying out the skin, so she can discuss that as well for after bathing. The body butter would be a good one to slather up with after getting wet. And slathering up well before getting dressed is good. Think along the lines of beauty suggestions to slather up the hands and put on cotton gloves before bed. In my personal opinion and experience with eczema as well, body butters and balms are much better than lotions and even heavy creams. But everything run by the physician first for infants and children, then the mother can decide what she wants to do.

 

[alkelle]

I love whipped butters too. Yours sounds nice, mind if I try your recipe? For the baby, leave out the coco butter as it can be irritating to some people. I'd replace any nut oils with sunflower, avocado or rice bran oil.

Try away, it came out fluffy and stiffened slightly. I covered the beaters, spatula and bowl and just used that for a day or two after putting into jars. Why waste any? lol. I did not know that about cocoa butter. I'll tell my cousin. I don't think it will do harm to the baby since Johnson has a cocoa butter and shea butter oil but still better safe than sorry and always ask your doctor. If the butter seems too thin for your liking throw in a little more shea butter. A lot of recipes say to put it in the fridge and whip but I just whip it and let it come to room temperature since that's how it's going to be stored and whip it again.
If I create a recipe I'll always share it with all of my notes so everyone can see what I already tried and know what completely fails. I'm a rebel, if I find a recipe I always ask myself "what if I do this, add this, leave this out, use more, use less" and then I do it and it fails and I find out someone already tried to do just that and it failed which could have saved me a fail, ingredients are precious things, testing is great but I, like most people, don't want to waste ingredients on fails. Same goes for my crochet projects, I can't stick to a pattern no matter how hard I try, I have to do something different and sometimes it doesn't work out better.

I wanted to throw the safety for babies thing out there even though it seems like common sense. I think the idea of natural causes some common sense to go out the window for some people, it's all natural it must be good without a thought to nut allergies or irritants to babies. I'm not trying to offend anyone, I'm not perfect at all and sometimes common sense goes out the window for me too and then I have a light bulb moment and go "ohhh" in my head (really, not in my head, I say it out loud if someone is around followed by "I'm a moron.").

Again, I'm sorry I'm so wordy, I treat e-mail, forums, texts like I'm actually talking, like once I type it, I can't take it back.

 

[alkelle]

Wordy posts are fine, but if you break it up into paragraphs with spaces between them it will be much easier for more people to read I had some trouble and may have missed things, sometimes I have trouble with my eyes focusing and text can seem to dance around and I lose my place. Paragraphs help finding the right place again! And some people just have to move on with they see a large portion of text that isn't broken up.

Sunflower oil is definitely another option for the liquid oil portion of a body butter. Avocado is another. I can't think of any of the other good cost effective options atm, more expensive ones would be like meadowfoam.

As for the baby... Like you said in your post, she needs to bring a list of ingredients and ask her Dr first. Definitely can't make advice for such a young infant. Along with allergy concerns, shea butter cannot be used by those with latex allergies. So if anyone in your family has a latex allergy, I'd say she shouldn't use it on the baby. And to of course bring it up with the physician before using. Is she using soap on the infant? That young soap shouldn't be used if that may be a contributing issue. I don't know if she's fully bathing at all at that age, but if she is bathing less or doing washcloth baths with plain water instead of any part of his body submerged would be another thing to discuss with the Dr. In adults after getting wet you can slather the skin with an emollient to hold in the moisture and prevent having gotten wet from drying out the skin, so she can discuss that as well for after bathing. The body butter would be a good one to slather up with after getting wet. And slathering up well before getting dressed is good. Think along the lines of beauty suggestions to slather up the hands and put on cotton gloves before bed. In my personal opinion and experience with eczema as well, body butters and balms are much better than lotions and even heavy creams. But everything run by the physician first for infants and children, then the mother can decide what she wants to do.

Thank you for all of your suggestions with the oils and butters. I'll also try to break up the posts more

 

[shunt2011]

You could also use grapeseed oil or meadowfoam seed oil. I would also add some vitamin E if using either avocado, grapeseet or sunflower. I love solid lotion and whipped butters. They make the skin feel so wonderful.

 

[new12soap]

If the almond oil is refined it has been stripped of the proteins that can cause an allergic reaction, even in those with nut allergies.

Yes absolutely run any product ingredient list by the pediatrician first, good call!

If the doctor can recommend something, a commercial lotion (as most of them will do IME, usually mostly just glycerin and water with a little mineral oil), you can check the ingredients list on that and sort of reverse engineer and just use what of those ingredients you like.

Your recipe sounds awesome, I may have to give that one a go myself