Which oils to add to Shea Butter?..Pic added

[Pam W]

I'll be trying my hand at whipped shea butter in a day or two (depending on Mr. FedEx) and can't decide which oils to use. Oils on hand are coconut oil, VOO, avocado oil, sweet almond oil & emu oil and BW. I understand that shea can be somewhat greasy and I don't want to make it worse.

Any input/suggestions will be greatly appreciated. TIA

[jazzbo848]

coconut oil and emu oil are wonderful additions. i also add corn starch to help with the greasiness.........what % of butters to oil are you thinking of using?

cheryl

[Crafty1_AJ]

I love the three a's ... Apricot kernel, Amond (sweet), and Avocado!

I've also used jojoba and fco. HTH!

[Pam W]

coconut oil and emu oil are wonderful additions. i also add corn starch to help with the greasiness.........what % of butters to oil are you thinking of using?

cheryl

I'm thinking somewhere in the 60/40 range due the greasiness of the shea. I thought I'd add some corn starch as needed but not sure when to add it, during the whipping stage??

I experimented a little with the coconut & avocado oil; rubbed some in the back of each hand to see how they absorbed and the coconut went in a lot faster, the avocado took a little longer. I'm in Phoenix and being greasy in the desert heat can be uncomfortable:sad2:

[LovelyLathers]

I use avocado. emu, Jojoba alot, I really like it . It absorbs very nicely. But my favorite is Macadamia, Avocado, coconut, It is nice and light and absorbs very quickly. I do add cornstarch about half way through the whipping. About a Teas. pp. When I leave out the cornstarch I do not see too much of a difference in the greasiness but it absorbs so nicely that it doesn't matter to me, Sue

[SheilaW]

The Shea is going to be somewhat greasy no matter which oil you use. The younger women in my family wont use it except on their feet because they don't have that dry alligator skin that aging seems to bring. Any " older " woman that has tried it loves it.

[jazzbo848]

with the hot weather, you may want to up the % of butter so that your product does not melt AS quickly.................

i use about 1 TBS. of cornstarch pp and i add towards the end of the whipping process.

another thought...double walled jars also provide some pretection from the heat.

remind your testers to use just a smidge because it will be very rich. remember that this is not a water based cream.

i was demoing this at a show and had just explained the above to a customer who got a huge amount out of the jar with the plastic spatula and proceeded to rub it into her hands...........she asked me for a paper towel to rub off most of it and then she said i really meant it about using a small amount.......

cheryl

[Crafty1_AJ]

I agree about making it slightly stiffer in the Phoenix summers! It would seem it would hold up better.

[Pam W]

FedEx just came :smiley2: . The straight shea isn't as greasy as I was expecting, absorbed into the skin almost immediately with very little 'after-slick'. Thought I'd make a couple small batches with different ratios for comparison.

Thanks for all the feedback....now I'm a slip-slidding away to the kitchen.

[Elizabeth]

Pam I've tried just about every known oil in my body butter and have come to the realization that all of the "light" oils perform similarly. The one I prefer is Meadowfoam Seed oil, but it is pretty expensive. Fractionated Coconut oil is a nice and cheaper alternative.

What really makes the big difference is the additives you use. I found in order for cornstarch to impart a "silky" less greasy feeling, you really have to use alot of it, which in turn causes the butter to get hard! Some of the silicone based "degreasers" are wonderful to use as they give the silky soft feeling without compromising the texture of the butter. I use IPM (Isopropyl Myristate) as it doesn't change the light airy appearance of the whipped butter.

One more suggestion: I can't speak enough about EMU oil! What a tremendous difference it has made to what I thought was already a great body butter.

HTH

[Pam W]

Can I stop whipping now:cheesy2: Actual color is light blue and fo used is Orchid Rain from Aroma Haven. This is actually a re-batch .. first go round was pretty greasy and the FO was way too strong. So I added more shea & a little more corn starch and it's much better. In fact it ain't half bad for a 1st timer.

My % make no since after adding the extra shea & this is aprox. what I ended up with:

shea butter 75%

coconut oil 13%

avocado oil 6%

sweet almond 6%

Elizabeth: I use Emu oil straight up all the time but decided to leave it out of this batch since I was adding FO. When I used Emu oil in soap w/FO, I could taste the fo in my mouth -yuck - it did too good a job of being a carrier oil. I'm going to do another small batch for a construction worker friend that's been complaining about his hands & I'll use the Emu oil but no FO. Thanks for the info on the additives.