Lotion Bar Without Beeswax Recipe - DIY vegan lotion bars (2024)

Published: Oct 10, 2019 · Modified: May 29, 2020

Discover how to make a homemade lotion bars without beeswax with this easy recipe! These DIY vegan lotion bars are beneficial for your skin and make a great handmade gift idea.

When I was a kid, I thought lotion as a birthday or Christmas present was kind of neat because of all the interesting scents. As an adult, I've realized that a bit of nice lotion as a fall or winter presentis so much more than something nice to smell - it's exactly what your hands and body need!

Today's tutorial is a recipe for scrumptious, beeswax free lotion bar. Because high quality beeswax can be difficult to find and/or expensive, this recipe is beeswax free. Making these lotions bars without beeswax also means these are vegan-friendly.

They use very few ingredients, are easy to customize and, perhaps most wonderfully, it smells like chocolate. What's not to love?

This post may include affiliate links, which means I may make a commission on purchases made through these links at no additional cost to you.

Ingredients forbeeswax free lotion bars

• 70 grams cocoabutter (I use organic food grade cocoabutter and also use it to make homemade chocolate!)
• 30 grams organic shea butter
• Jojoba oil or sweet almond oil(please see the note below!)
• Essential oils, optional, about 10 drops total
• Molds (Plastic or silicone candy/soap molds work perfectly)

Because this recipe is built around a base of 100 grams, it is easy to scale up! You can createa large batch and then have some amazing, unique handmade gifts for friends and family.

You will need either jojoba oil or sweet almond oil, but only a small amount.

• Ifyou plan to use your lotion bar somewhere hot, consider omitting the oil entirely.
• If it's cold out, add just a drop or two of oil.
• Both cocoabutter and sheabutter are solid at room temperature, but have low melting points. When it's cool, the added oil helps the lotion barmelt slightly in your hands for easy application.
• As regular readers know, we live in Hawaii and don't have air conditioning. When I make these lotion bars with a couple drops of oil, they will not melt sitting there at room temperature but willvisibly start to melt in my hands.

You have a lot of choices when it comes to molds for your lotion bars.

I like to use candy molds and they work really well, especially silicone molds, but you can also use ice cube trays or cupcake liners.

Silicone cupcake liners are better than paper liners because the oil tends to leak through paper. If you need to use paper cupcake liners, make sure to double (or triple) them up like in the photo below.

I used lavender and frankincense essential oils because the combination smells amazing and because they're both beneficial for skin.

Feel free to use whatever scents you'd like or omitthe essential oils entirely. Whichever oils you choose, please make sure they're safe for topicalapplication.

Good essential oils for skin include:

• Lavender
• Frankensense
• Geranium
• Rose
• Ylang ylang

How to make beeswax free lotion bars

1. If you haven't already, weighout the cocoabutter and shea butter. Cocoabutter smells like chocolate!

Even though the weights are different, the actual volumes of cocoabutter and shea butter won't be that different so don't be surprised when the two amounts look pretty similar. The cocoabutter is on the left in the photo below.

2.Set up a double boiler and add the cocoabutter,shea butter, and oil to the inner pot. Gently heat, stirring occasionally, until the butters are melted. This should only take about 5 minutes.

3. Remove the inner potfrom the double boiler and stir in your essential oils, if using. I used 7 drops of lavender and 3 of frankincense.

4. Carefully pour the melted mixture into your molds. To make cleaning your pot easier, wipe the inside clean with a paper towel while the pot is still warm then wash away the last residual film with hot water and soap.

5. To speed along the solidification process, you can placeyour filled molds in the fridge! Just be careful when moving the filled molds.

6. It will be easy to tell when the bars are solid because they'll go from amber-colored and transparent to solid and milky-yellow. When they're ready, pop them out of their molds and enjoy! Store the extrasin an air titght container or ziplock bag until you're to use them.

Even with the essential oils, you can barely smell them in the finished lotion bar because of the yummy scent of cocoa!It's both awesome to have you hands smell like chocolate and a little bit maddening.

More DIY bath & body recipes