Whipped Body Butter Too Hard

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KudzuGoddess

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Feb 12, 2021
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Location
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New to body butter and can't figure out what I am doing wrong. Recipe is as follows:
Mango Butter
Shea Butter
Hemp Seed Oil
Have made it several times and am now at approx 2/3 butter, 1/3 oil ratio. Still whips up hard as a rock. What do you recommend?
 
Increase your soft oil. Take a small portion of your batch and begin adding more hemp (or other soft oil) in small amounts till you reach the consistency you like. Keep track of how much you added so you can adjust your formula accordingly.

When I lived in hot, humid Texas, my recipe was very similar to yours, except I used jojoba rather than hemp oil. Was a perfect whipped body butter there. After moving to a drier, colder climate, I now have to use almost 50% liquid oil to get a whipped consistency.
 
You obviously need to add more Soft Oils to your recipe. As @AliOop suggested, start with a small batch and increase your Soft Oil by 5%. If that doesn't work, try another test batch and increase by 10%. You could also try another Soft Oil and see if that doesn't produce a different result. I picked up some Fractionated Coconut Oil and Grapeseed Oil to test in mine as I need a little more 'give' because of the colder temps.
 
Good suggestion for switching up the oils, @TheGecko. I personally haven't used hemp oil and don't know how it behaves in combination with butters.

My personal favorite soft oils/waxes for body butter are jojoba, argan, and meadowfoam seed. The MFS oil in particular gives a very nice, non-greasy finish. But it is pricy and not usually available locally unless one lives near a supplier.
 
All this was such a great help! I increased the oil, added some arrowroot powder, and got the fluffiest end product. It is so dreamy. Thank you all! In my next batch I did take the excellent suggestions of switching up the oils, I tried using only mango butter and grapeseed oil. The result is a bit of a chemical/physics marvel. It is solid, kind of fluffy but mostly on the hard side, at room temp but as soon as it touches skin it melts instantly into an oily mess. It's not terrible because the grapeseed oil absorbs nicely so I see potential here but, holy cannoli, it's weird. I am excited to try and rework it to make it a bit more stable. Thank you all for encouraging me to keep trying!
 

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