Cocoa Rose Lotion

I'm on a roll this week. Over the weekend I made another batch of soap, now I'm at it again tonight with two projects: lotion and styling gel.

I love my lotion, but I will admit I'm still not getting consistent results. This is the first scented lotion I've tried, which just boils down to adding essential oils to my basic olive oil recipe. I used essential oil of cocoa and rose (mixed with jojoba). I tried to find real, true, pure rose Otto oil, but it isn't sold anywhere in Rochester. I do know that the Wedge in Minneapolis used to carry it. This is where making your own bath products get fun, because rose oil is supposed to be great for the skin, but at a whopping average of $1 a drop (yes, a DROP), commercial products containging it tend to be 1) rare 2) fakes or 3) extremely expensive... We're talking the $100 4-ounce bottles here. Adding it yourself isn't gunna be cheap... Add 10 drops and now you have a lotion that costs over $10 to make. Still, walk up to a Clinique counter and you can easily find an inferior product for more money.

Note, my rose oil is not pure.... It is a mix, so it was far cheaper than that... But isn't it nice to know you can choose to treat yourself to some of life's niceties every once and a while?


Start filling you double boiler with .5 oz of beeswax (I have also use a tin can for this)...


Add 1/2 cup of olive oil...


Heat until the beeswax dissolves. Then, remove from heat and add essential oils. For this batch I did 10 drops rose oil (in jojoba) and 5 drops cocoa.


While the mixture of oil and wax is heating, be sure to fill your blender with very hot water. This prevents the oil and wax mixture (what does that make class? Oh yeh, lip balm!) from solidifying when it hits the cool glass.

There are certain steps I never get a picture of just because I am involved in actually doing them. The next step is to dump out the hot water, then add the hot oil and wax mixture to the blender. Cover the blender, but leave the small opening open to add water in. Add in a thin stream of 1 cup warm water. Stop every once in a while to scrape down the sides.... Blend blend blend! Until it is finally mixed.

So, if you really think about it, lotion is basically a lip balm with water added to it. The beeswax acts as an emulsifier. In fact, there was a little bit of oil mixture left to cool in the double boiler, and it makes a great lip balm.


I have to admit, this is still a trial and error process for me. I always end up with a great product, but every single time I get little bits of water that stay in my lotion... I haven't quite perfected the technique yet. I looked it up online and it sounds like I either need more wax or I need to add in the water much slower. It's still a work in progress at this point. I would like to try sell some on Etsy, but I don't think I can do that until I've perfected how to get the emulsion perfected as each would be made to order. Here's to learning as you go!

A note about the essential oils... They turned out a bit light, I may even try doubling them next time. Also, just a side note that they will act as a preservative (woohoo for good preservatives!) for you lotions, so this one should last longer.

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Location:5th St NE,Rochester,United States