Body butter didn't thicken

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

squeakycleanuk

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2013
Messages
194
Reaction score
44
I had my first attempt at making a body butter today, using one third butter (mango and shea), one third coconut oil, one third avocado oil. However, I couldn't get the mixture to thicken (using a stick blender). Any ideas what I did wrong?
 
I cannot give you a for-sure answer becaus I have not made body butter. However it might be too much soft oils. The recipes I have read suggest equal parts butters to oil. Coconut is counted as soft. Or just whi it up more and see if it helps. Sometimes it takes longer.
 
Are you wanting it just thicker? Or are you wanting it to totally stiffen up? Because if you want it just thicker, you need to ease back on the amount of avocado oil. That is a large amount of liquid oil compared to the butters & coconut oil - it is going to stay more fluid and softer. Try adding more of the butters and coconut oil to reduce the overall amount of avocado oil in the batch Or remove the avocado all together if you want it to totally stiffen up. Also, I use the whisk attachment for my KitchenAid stand mixer or for my Hamilton Beach stick blender, I don't use the pureeing attachment of the stick blender for my body butter.
 
Did you add the oil hot? I sometimes do that when i want to get a softer body buter i just add more oil but after it cools over night it stiffens up more. You can add more of the butters if it is still to loose just melt it and whip it into the previous batch and that should make it closer to the texture you want. Im more of an 80(butters)/20(oils) person when it comes to bbs
 
After watching a video on youtube I'm starting to think it was because I tried to blend too soon. The woman on the vid waited till the butter had solidified before attempting but mine was still in liquid form, so I obviously hadn't let it cool enough. It should be more solid now though so I'll give it another go :)
 
For whipped body butters, I also use about 80% butters and 20% liquid oil. I don't melt the butter in advance unless it's something really hard like cocoa butter. And if I used cocoa butter, I'd probably up my liquid oil a bit to compensate. Generally I use shea or something of similar consistency.

If you like coconut oil, you could try the 92 degree melt point kind. That will give you a stiffer result.
 
Here's the oily on BB's. I use Mango Butter,(largest portion), Shea Butter, Coconut Butter, Sunflower oil. Melt your oils on low heat until just melted, when slightly cool, place into freezer until almost semi-solid. Take out, whip with a mixer, until creamy and heightens, just like when whipping thick cream. I then add my other ingredients, I do add Vegetable glycerin. Let sit for a short time, it will "freeze", then re-whip until creamy. Works great. They are one of my biggest sellers.
 
I don't have access to either a fridge or a freezer in my soaping / cosmetic area though (I do it at work). So I just left the mixture to cool on the worktop. It had cooled after a few hours but I don't think it had cooled enough as it was still liquid form. I think I just need to leave it for longer in future :)
 
I dont ever melt any of my oils. I just whip them up for about 5 minutes and have a wonderful "whipped cream" type of body butter
 
It had solidified so I whipped it up today and it turned out fine, except for the fact (as many of you predicted) it left an oil slick on the skin, way too oily! So I will attempt another batch, this time using 80% butter, 20% oil. Thanks for all the advice, much appreciated :)
 

Latest posts

Back
Top