Clearly I Have Too Much Time On My Hands

We've had a problem in our house. It revolves around lotion. Little Man is hyper allergic to... just about everything. So we have to buy expensive lotions, detergents, shampoo, etc. Living in a dry climate, the kids' skin needs some serious, regular moisturizing. After six years of lotioning up all three kids, I decided to hand a bottle over to the twins, and after a short "tutorial" on how to apply your own lotion, and walk away. It was a mess, and they went through nearly a whole bottle by themselves.

Luckily, I ran across this Pinterest recipe for Lotion Bars and decided to let my inner hippie loose on a "summer craft." (the summer craft that almost killed us all with all the errands, but still) I got the same molds from Hobby Lobby and opted for unbleached, "natural" beeswax. (because I relish ways to out-hippie someone) Then I went a little berserk with the recipe-tweaking. The idea of rubbing the kids (and presumably myself) with Crisco and vegetable oil skeeved me out. So I replaced these with coconut oil (which I already use in recipes) and then... one long story, reading through too many comments, and several runs to Hobby Lobby later, I settled on cocoa butter as my third additive. Finding Hobby Lobby had changed out a lot of the items I thought I saw on previous trips I sat in my car and asked myself "where could I find pure, food quality cocoa butter?" From previous experience I knew that Whole Foods was a great place to let my hippie flag fly. No one would bat an eye at such a request for cocoa butter. And I was right. I could walk right up to the lady with dreadlocks down to her butt and she'll point me to the cocoa butter without even raising an eyebrow of the explanation "I need it to make my own lotion bars." If ever I have need for very obscure ingredients, (food or otherwise!) I have always found it at Whole Foods, it's ridiculous, frankly.




I had all my ingredients, I had the kids watching Peter Pan and eating lunch, I had to grate beeswax, I also found that cocoa butter smells just like chocolate and made me super hungry.
The recipe called for equal parts of each ingredient, 1:1:1 ratio. But HOW MUCH is that for a mold of four? I did 1/2 cup of the coconut oil, cocoa butter, and shredded beeswax. It only filled 2 of the molds, which, fine. I did not want to shred more of that awful beeswax. The coca butter was weirdly hard as a rock too. Another point? The wax is extra hard to get off of pots, spoons, dishes, everything.

I have lots of extra raw ingredients left. I maybe spent about $25 on everything combined. So I suppose this is somewhat cost-conscious. They look like soap, but are actually lotion, so I will have to keep tabs on the bars to make sure no one is using it like soap. I used Little Man as a guinea pig and he has yet to have any irritation. The bars are very oily, obviously this is kinda the point, but seeing as it is summertime, they are kinda melting on the counter. May need to keep it in the fridge, which sounds ridiculous. I suppose it is better than losing whole bottles on kids that can't potion out lotion for themselves. The wax melts with bodyheat, so it is somewhat self regulating.

Anyway. That is my craft for the summer. Because I couldn't make up my mind and had a busy schedule the week of craft time, (which is just dumb) this may be my ONLY foray into craftiness in the foreseeable future. See a need, solved the need. Yay Pinterest!