Homemade Organic Facial & Body Cream
Some recipes for homemade creams and lotions are really complicated. This one below has a lot of steps, but is relatively easy in comparison to most.
Any herb face and body cream:
Pick a herb. You can use most any herb, but I suggest choosing one that’s good for your particular skin type. You can use elderflower, calendula, linden blossom, and more. If you’d like to make a cream for children I suggest comfrey or chamomile, which are gentle.

Gather supplies:
- 4oz fresh organic herb of your choice (or 2oz dried) - fresh is best
- 150 ml almond oil, or if olive oil is too rich for your tastes, try almond or apricot oil - just be sure it’s a nice quality oil
- Two tablespoons beeswax
- Two tablespoons organic cocoa butter
- Two teaspoons honey - if you can aim for a high quality raw honey you can use processed honey, but your cream will be a little less thick
- One teaspoon borax
To make:
- Place herbs in glass or pottery bowl and pour 1/3 pint boiling water over them. Steep for 4 hours. If the water looks too low, you can add a bit more.
- Into a small double boiler (that’s already boiling) add: oil and beeswax - slowly melt beeswax.
- Add cocoa butter and melt.
In another pot that’s being warmed but not boiled:
- Add 1/3 pint of your herbal infusion - liquid only
- Add borax, and stir until dissolved.
- Add honey, and stir until dissolved.
Remove both bots from heat. Mix contents of both pots together - it works best if you add the infusion mixture to the oil mixture slowly. Beat mixture until creamy - as soon as it starts to cool it’ll thicken and be harder to beat so start right away.
Store in little containers. Sometimes I’ve added tea tree or other essential oils to this mix as well. If you add oils do it during the last stage - the mixing part. Remember to check and see which mixtures of herbs and oils will work for your skin. This cream DOES NOT need to be kept in the fridge. Most lotions do, so this is a huge plus.
If you want to give this as a gift, you can pick up a thrift store, antique looking lotion pot - just be sure to include ingredients on a little card for the recipient, you don’t want to risk them being allergic to a herb or oil.
Before getting started don’t forget to read: Homemade Beauty Products – Safety 101
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POSTED IN: Homemade Beauty Products, Organic Body
5 opinions for Homemade Organic Facial & Body Cream
Marye
Apr 16, 2008 at 9:19 am
Jennifer…this is great! Someday I will have time to use all these cool recipes!
Dr Alison Grimston
Apr 16, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Hi Jennifer, what a wonderful opportunity to make home - made lotions. I can always sense the chemicals in the bought ones! I look forward to trying these out. Well done!
Dr Alison Grimston
Holistic Doctor and Healer
Jennifer
Apr 16, 2008 at 11:40 pm
One day Marye, you’ll sit down and make all of them and have to open a shop :) There are quite a few recipes on here now.
@Alison thanks for visiting Tree Hugging Family. It’s true it does seem like you can feel the chemicals in products. Also, cool anti-milk stuff on your site. Milk is terrible. Well, organic is better, but still… We only do soy at my house. I liked the breast cancer slant your sis found.
Julie F
May 1, 2008 at 3:08 pm
I can’t believe I missed this. I’ve been looking for a lotion recipe, one that doesn’t need to be in the fridge. Good grief, I am kicking myself for missing this. Now I just can’t wait until payday!
Jennifer
May 1, 2008 at 9:01 pm
It’s impossible to catch everything here - we post a lot. I should do a better sunday round-up and bold stuff. :)
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