Making Cocoa Butter Lotion

Written by Danny Cunningham, Tyler Roots, Shadrack Bitangimana

We usually don’t have any reason to use makeup products, let alone make our own. Whenever our teacher told us that we are making makeup products, we decided that making a lotion would be the most useful for 3 boys. We looked for different lotion recipes online, and we went with one that was cheap, and very easy to make. We decided to do lotion because we are all athletes, we get bruises and scratches on our skin very often because we are active teenagers. This is very simple to make, there are only 4 ingredients - Cocoa butter, distilled water, lecithin, Vitamin E capsules.

Here's what you need to know about these ingredients:

- Cocoa Butter is important in the lotion because it gives it the texture and the scent of cocoa. Cocoa butter is one of the most stable fats known, containing natural antioxidants that prevent rancidity and give it a storage life of two to five years, making it good to use over time.

- Distilled Water is important because it acts as a solvent in this recipe. The use of distilled water for cosmetics ensures that no bacteria or chemicals are present in the product to protect the safety of the customer.

- Lecithin is used for smoothing food textures, emulsifying, homogenizing liquid mixtures, and repelling sticking materials. It works good in cosmetics because it functions as a skin conditioning agent.

- Vitamin E is an important fat-soluble antioxidant in cosmetics, which is why we used it in our lotion.

The amounts of each ingredient:

- 16 TBSP of Cocoa Butter

- 240 ml of Distilled Water

- 3 TBSP of Lecithin

- 3 capsules of Vitamin E

Steps:

1. Gather the needed materials and measure them

2. Place the distilled water and Vitamin E capsules into a glass container

3. Place that glass container inside of a pot filled with hot water until the Vitamin E capsules melt.

4. After they melt, add the cocoa butter and the lecithin into the glass container.

5. Let them melt inside the pot with the heat on for about 20 to 30 minutes.

6. After it all looks mixed together into one liquid, take the glass container out and mix it again with a spoon.

7. Put the liquid into your container of choice. (It should be hot, so be careful.)

8. Let the liquid cool for at least 20 to 30 more minutes.

9. Use your homemade cocoa butter lotion!

Making this lotion went smoothly and was very simple. If 3 teenage boys who know nothing about cosmetics can make this, so can you. The part that took the longest was waiting for the ingredients to melt into one liquid, but after that, the rest of the process was easy. When we started, we honestly didn't know what to expect and assumed it wouldn't come out great. Now that we are done making it, it came out so good that we actually plan on using it in the future. We hope this can help you out if you are looking for a cheap, and simple process to create your own lotion! Be safe and have fun!