| Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption |
| mochyn |
Hand creamAnyone got a recipe? I've run out. I've got plenty of essential oils to make it smell nice! |
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| judith |
There is Nettie's recipe here. | ||
| mochyn |
I'd forgotten about that. What could I use instead of ccoconut oil, I wonder? | ||
| judith |
I have some here if you can wait until Friday. | ||
| mochyn |
I'm trying not to use too much imported stuff: the olive oil I can live with, always have it in the house, but I draw the line at...
... Just remembered there's a small comtainer of coconut oil in the bathroom!  I'll use it up then.
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| mochyn |
I'm going to use rose water instead of ordinary H2O (well, actually water that's had dried roses boiled in it) and sunflower oil instead of olive because it's got less of a smell to it.
Wish me luck! |
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| judith |
Sounds good.
I'd be interested to see how it turns out - I get through loads of hand cream. |
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| wellington womble |
Me too. Definitely post results, please. | ||
| mochyn |
Well, it looks and smells good. I used sunflower oil in place of the olive oil and boiled a handful of dried rose petals, 2 cloves and 2" on cinnamon in water. I strained the bits out and used the remaining fluid in place of the plain water and added 10 drops of frankincense oil and 6 of ylang ylang at the end. Very creamy! | ||
| dpack |
probably smells better than a bull but bull lanolin is ace winter hand rub and makes the chap friendly | ||
| mochyn |
Yup: when I've been spinning the hands feel great, although the smell leaves something to be desired! | ||
| wellington womble |
Ugh, I can't stand the feel of lanolin on my hands. Yuck. And himself is allergic to it.
So the sunflower oil was OK, was it? I keep meaning to try rapeseed oil - makes fab salad dressing. |
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| cqueenie |
I love the sound of this hand cream! Are there any beekeepers on here that sell beeswax?
Beekeeping in Shetland is a bit scant, too windy for the poor hives... |
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| Midland Spinner |
I make hand cream with approx 1/3 beeswax, 1/3 coconut oil & 1/3 cocoabutter. It makes a cake, (a bit like soap) & I rub it on - that way I only use what I need.
If I want it softer (i.e. if it's going in a jar) I put in a bit of sweet almond oil - maybe 1/4 each?. I don't put essential oils in mine, but that's personal taste, I like to keep it unscented. If you put water or rosewater in it will go off quite quickly, so keep it in the fridge & only make a small amount. |
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| wellington womble |
Does it keep OK as a cake? I found nettie's handcream went off very quickly, so I got out of the habit of making it. The lip balm I made keeps brilliantly (I'm still using it years later) | ||
| nettie |
It's quite a greasy cream, you can use almond or groundnut in place of coconut. Olive I think would be too heavy.
If the cream goes off it's brilliant for using as wood polish, so it won't be wasted!!! |
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| Jools |
Any recipe with water will have preservation issues, but anhydrous recipes (without water) will last until the oil goes rancid which is usually a pretty long time. Whipped body butters are nice. If you have a stand mixer, you can whip about 60% of a hard oil with 40% of a liquid oil for half an hour or so. Add up to 3% essential oil if you want to fragrance it. |
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| Midland Spinner |
Yes, it seems to keep fine as a cake. Even so, I only make smallish batches. But I'm still using some that I made in May. The ones I tried with rose-water in went mouldy & rancid fairly quickly, but the others are fine.
My main problem with the latest batch was the beeswax I used - it was quite dark in colour and has a fairly strong smell (not unpleasant, just not 'handcreamy') The first lot I made had some pale beeswax that smelt yummily of honey - much nicer. I'm currently looking for some little tins to put cakes of handcream in for presents. But so far I can't find any. (There used to be loads of little tins in the shops, didn't there?) |
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| Jools |
This place has aluminium tins for balms:
http://www.naturallybalmy.co.uk/ourshop/cat_140001-1520ml-Aluminium-Screw-Cap-Jars.html |
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| Midland Spinner |
Thanks for the link (I'd seen them before, but lost the address, so that's really handy), but I should have said "Pretty tins". | ||
| Jools |
Ah, those'll be more difficult to find as most suppliers sell blank tins for you to add your own labels.
One of the ladies on the UKSoaping group has a website with a whole host of links to various suppliers, so you could try there. http://freespace.virgin.net/michele.jack/index.html |
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| Midland Spinner |
I bought a couple of lovely tins with Matthew Rice's lovely illustrations on them for presents last year - really nice, almost too nice for hand cream!, that's the sort of thing I had in mind, but no one seems to have anything similar this year. Maybe it's because I haven't visited a 'town shop' for more than a year, and not been to a city shop for longer - hmm maybe I need to get out more? | ||
| sally_in_wales |
What about that waterslide transfer paper, that way you can print out your own designs, transfer them on, then a quick squirt of varnish and you are done | ||
| wellington womble |
Possibly! 
Jools, could you clarify what you mean by hard oil and liquid oil - are just talking beeswax and (say) almond oil. Also, when you whip them up, how do you know when they are whipped enough (just wondering if it takes half an hour, how I will know when to stop!) |
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| Nick |
[quote="Jools"
Whipped body butters are nice. If you have a stand mixer, you can whip about 60% of a hard oil with 40% of a liquid oil for half an hour or so. Add up to 3% essential oil if you want to fragrance it.[/quote] Swopping the essential oil for, say, butter flavour, and that's almost exactly the recipe for I Can Tell It's Not Butter, and similar being made on TV last night. Are hand creams and marg essentially the same thing, with difference 'flavours'? |
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| mochyn |
After half an hour? |
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| Jools |
There's no beeswax in whipped body butters. By hard oil, I mean something like coconut, shea or mango. You can also use cocoa butter, but you'd need to play around with the percentages of the liquid oil as cocoa butter is very hard. I usually use sweet almond for the liquid oil. You can whip the butter for less time, but I like my body butters to have a lot of air in them so they're very light and fluffy. That's why I bought my Kitchen Aid mixer, because the motor is strong enough to leave it going for ages. Mind you, it also makes kneading bread dough a doddle and that's what it gets used for more often! |
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| wellington womble |
Ah, that makes sense. I think I might have some shea butter somewhere.....
Thank you |
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| sally_in_wales |
there is a lot to be said for a single oil as a moisturiser as well, I've got a bottle of grapeseed oil with a dollop of real rose oil in it, and a couple of drops of that goes a long way and isnt obviously greasy. Sometimes I think its easy to get too complicated when something that will work well is already there in the kitchen | ||
| Jools |
Very true Sally.
Hubby bought me some hot oil thingies the other day, for my hair. I had a look at the ingredients and wasn't impressed, especially as the first one was water! I tried one and it left my hair feeling lank. I much prefered the dollop of melted coconut oil I'd used before when I did a hot oil treatment. |
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| sally_in_wales |
too true, I have ultra dry hair, and regularly have himself oil it for me. These days this just means a glug of olive oil from the kitchen, maybe with a drop of lavender or rosemary oil in it for a nice smell. Leave it on overnight, wash out in the morning, and my scalp feels the right size for my head for a few days at least. |