Body butters %

[SweetDani]

Hello everybody!! I am venturing into making body butter, have the ingredients I want, but......and I am legitimately embarrassed to ask this, but how do i figure out the percentages?? for instance, I want my butter to be 80% hard butter, 20% liquid oils. I will not be using any fragrance oils or color. these are the ingredients I will be using:

mango butter
kokum butter
coconut oil
avocado oil
starch (minimal, 1 tsp. per lb, is what I've learnt)

I'd like the percentage of mango to be higher than kokum, but both butters to be 80% of the total. Sorry if this is sounding too convoluted, not really sure if I am asking this correctly. I only want to make fairly small batches, like using only 8 oz. of the two butters combined.

I would like to make a spreadsheat to plug in diff. numbers for when I choose to add different ingredients, or different batch amounts.

I did make a nice shea butter this past weekend, tho it a bit too greasy for my liking. I got the recipe off the internet and it is in measurements of cups - 1/2 cup, teaspoons - but like I read all over, its best to use weight measures. I just don't know how to figure out the amont of each ingredient, especially since I want to use more mango than kokum, and......ugh......anybody willing to help a girl out ?? many thanks and much appreciation.

peace, everyone.

 

[The Efficacious Gentleman]

Make a spreadsheet with the first cell having your target batch weight. Make it the smallest unit possible *

Under that, have 5 rows with ingredient name in one column, % in the next and then "amount" in the third. Format the % column as a %.

Enter your ingredients in column, then the % that you want in that column, in the third one you will need to set it to multiply your target batch amount by the % column. So if your target is 200grams and you want to use 55% mango butter, it would tell you that you need 110grams if it. When you change the % to 60%, it will tell you that you now need 120grams.

I would also put in a calculation to add together all of the % to make sure that they add up to 100 - making little tweaks can mean overlooking that you have calculated correctly


* this is so that you don't end up having 0.01 lbs or something and having to convert

 

[SweetDani]

Thank you so much for your response, Efficacious Gentleman!! I plan on using oz. I will work on this today. I am not at all confident.

so if I want to make say, 8 oz. of butter, that is what I start out with. I hope you don't mind if I ask for your assistance again if I can't get the spreadsheet figured out. I can be quite daft at times.

thank you again, and peace.

 

[dixiedragon]

I am not great at math, so I often work with units of 10 when I can.

So, instead of 8 oz of body butter, make 10 oz. 2 oz of avocado (that's 20%) and then divide the other 8 oz among the hard butters any way you like.

 

[SweetDani]

Dixiedragon, that's a really good idea, I was thinking of doing just that to make it easier on meself, but I need to do a small test batch before I do a big batch. I will be whipping this up, and hope to have a good recipe in place so I can give this as Christmas gifts to my family & friends.

thank you so much for your reply! so kind of you.

peace, all!

oh, shoot Edit: I wanted to get your opinion if I should even use coconut oil - opinions, anyone? Is it good for the skin? I know its no good for my face, but didn't know how much it contributed to the oily greasy feel of the shea butter i made.

 

[dixiedragon]

Coconut oil is good for many skin types

 

[PuddinAndPeanuts]

I took a look at swiftcraftmonkey to get a better feel for the kokum- I've never worked with it. I know it can firm up your final product a lot though. With these ingredients, I think I'd start with this:

10% kokum
45% mango
25% coconut
20% avocado

If you're inclined to try more kokum, you could maybe go up to 15% with it and use less mango or coconut.

Starch- I'm bad. I don't weigh it. I can tell you that when I masterbatch I divide everything into gallon ziplock bags that are pretty **** full. For one of those I use 5 heaping teaspoons of tapioca starch. (Whole Foods carries it). I am floored at what an amazing difference this stuff makes.

I would love to hear how this turns out. It sounds like a really nice combination. Very balanced.

 

[IrishLass]

I love my kokum butter body butter (I've been making it for over 10 years now). I use 50% kokum butter, 30% mango butter and 20% meadowfoam seed oil. I personally like my butters to be more on the firm-ish side, and I don't like them whipped. To get an idea of the level of firmess I'm talking about, my butter made with the above ratios scoops out of my jar easily enough for me with one of those cosmetic sampler spoons- much like the workable consistency of slightly softened culinary butter, i.e., firm, but just soft enough to spread on toast without breaking it (the toast).

IrishLass

 

[SweetDani]

Oh Wow! Thank you Irish Lass!! This is soo helpful! I'll be making your recipe for the men for their hands!