Coconut Body and Hair Butter: A Simple and Inexpensive Homemade Christmas Gift

I'm all about homemade gifts! They are often cheaper, more thoughtful and in the health, beauty and food department; they are better for you than store bought.
For Christmas this year I whipped up this butter using nourishing ingredients for skin and hair.
You can use whatever essential oils or infused oil you think are best. I will say however, that essential oils are biologically active, meaning they really do interact with your body, so please don't just randomly add whatever essential oil sounds interesting.  Before using any do your research. Make sure they won't interact with any medications you take, medical conditions you have and are safe to be used the way you intent to use them. I prefer herby, lightly scented things so this is not very strong smelling. If you like a more fragrant version you will have to experiment with the recipe a little.

Ingredients:

 Just so you know, none of this has to be exact.
Makes enough for 11 4 oz jars

 The base:
30 fl oz of coconut oil, I recommend organic extra virgin coconut oil 

8 Vitamin E gels tablets or I found out you can just buy vitamin E oil, trust me that is the way to go! It would be much less of a mess and less wasteful. If you use the oil I would add 1 tbsp.

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 tblsp Aloe Vera gel, try to find one without any colorings or preservatives, such as this

The extra's
2 tblsp of mint and rosemary infused extra virgin olive oil, recipe for that here
10 drops Lavender essential oil (per 15 oz of coconut oil used)
10 drops Tea Tree essential oil (per 30 oz coconut oil used)
I also want to make one with calendula, it's a very healing herb.

Coconut oil has this amazing ability to get all fluffy if you beat it while it’s solid. You will need a stand mixer, food processor or hand mixer to use this method; you could also maybe use a blender. If all you have to beat things with is a whisk then check out this recipe for Kitchen Wench Hand Glob (it’s much better smelling than it sounds, promise!)
So, first things first: measure out your coconut oil and start beating it. When it starting to get silky squeeze the contents of your vitamin E tablets, aloe and vanilla in, then continue to beat until it gets the consistency you like.


The coconut oil needs to stay solid in order for this to work. If it starts to melt pop it in the fridge, put it outside if you live somewhere cold, or move it to a cold room to solidify back up.
Depending on what you want to add for essential or infused oils you might want to split the batch and reserve some back or simply build the scents on top of each other. 
I made:
Vanilla Tea Tree
Vanilla Tea Tree Lavender
and Vanilla, Tea Tree, Mint, Rosemary

If you are very patient you can get all the lumps out but personally, I don't mind them and I'm not always that patient! If you do have pesky lumps don't worry, they still moisturize your skin  -or hair- just fine.
When you first use this it will feel very greasy but it soaks in nicely. This is great for dry, sensitive skin or rashes. The tea tree is antimicrobial, mint is antipuritic (meaning it stops the itch) rosemary seems to be antimicrobial and soothing; lavender is antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory. 
Tea tree oil and lavender may potentially have estrogenic affects and tea tree oil is toxic if taken orally so I would not use this on children, especially prepubescent children or while pregnant or even nursing. Some people may also be sensitive to tea tree or lavender oil so if you have never used it before you should proceed with caution and never make anything with more than 5% concentration of tea tee oil. Concentration of 5% or more have been known to case skin and eye irritation. You could easily make a child friendly version of this with maybe camomile and or calendula.
 You can also use this as a deep conditioner for your hair. Just work it into your roots and/or ends, wrap your hair up and let it set as long as you can before rinsing it out.

To turn these into gifts I portioned them out into cute little 4oz mason jars, wrapped them and tied a christmasy length of yarn in a bow around the top. 

So there you have it! So far I have had nothing but positive reviews from the ladies who received coconut butter for Christmas, most of them also asked for the recipe. Let me know how you like it!
As always, I would love to hear from you in the comments...

This post is participating in the Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Homestead Barn Hop, HomeAcre and Mostly Homemade Mondays blog hops, check them out to find other great blogs like our!