1 post tagged “crafts and constructs”

What's the last thing you crafted, constructed or created yourself?

Ever since I tried this whipped shea butter for a review on Product Girl, I wanted to try and create my own. I figured it wouldn't be that hard but now I figure that I will leave this task to the professionals and actually buy it instead of trying to make it... it's a choice my kitchen and I can live with.

Sheabutter1

In my first attempt, I took pure shea butter, jojoba oil and some edible passion fruit oil and tried to make whipped shea butter just like Joanna's. I followed this recipe and took 60% shea butter and 40% jojoba oil and melted it together. Once everything was thoroughly melted, I added in the passion fruit oil to fragrance the shea butter. I used quite a bit more than the recipe suggested but I figured I couldn't go wrong... passion fruit is my favorite fruit and I'm into anything scented with it. After using a hand mixer to whip everything together and a few times of placing the mixture in the freezer for a few minutes at a time, I came up with this.

When I tried this, it smelled good. This was what I was hoping for but I didn't like the consistency I got. The shea butter was light and fluffy but as soon as I put it on my skin, it was like my skin was a hot skillet... this melted immediately. I started thinking about what I did wrong... it must have been because I didn't add the cornstarch. Then I started thinking about everything I would do differently if I decided to make this again. I started making a list of possible scents and ingredients for the next time I tried to make this.

Sheabutter2

Eventually I did make another batch. Only this time I added the cornstarch I skipped out on the first time. I also mixed in a few other things. Instead of using shea butter for the entire 60%, I split it up and used shea butter and cocoa butter. I also split up the 40% carrier oil with half sweet almond oil and coconut oil. The cherry on top was the vanilla fragrance oil. My sister (and roomate) wasn't too crazy about the passion fruit oil so I figured I'd try to make something she would like as well.

Well... this time was better but not exactly what I was hoping for. The whipped shea butter did not melt on contact, it actually seemed to stay solid for a moment but after a bit of playing with it, it melted away. At least the consistency improved. It was still quite greasy, I added quite a bit more constarch than recommended and I think it helped but I think I need to tweak the recipe a bit more. Luckily, Joanna at Product Body is letting me bounce some ideas off of her and is helping me perfect my recipe. I'm not sure when I'm going to try again but this time I'll be sticking to just shea butter and trying a different scent, maybe something citrus-ey.