30+ Natural Lotion & Skincare Recipes to Make at Home
Learn how to make your own natural and affordable skincare using plant-based ingredients. It’s easier than you’d think! Use these more than thirty skincare recipes to create simple moisturizers, rich creams, lotion bars, and healing balms.
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Imagine walking into the beauty section of your favorite department store. Pots of beautifully packaged creams line the shelves with prices that seem disproportionately large for their sizes. Perhaps you wouldn’t bat a lash at them: the expense is normal. You might change your mind when you learn that the cost of making high-quality lotions and creams is pocket change.
Natural skincare can also be easy to make yourself. Once you become familiar with the process you’ll also be able to customize recipes for your own skin type and purpose. The below recipes are my own and from health and beauty bloggers around the web and each will help you to create inexpensive yet luxurious skincare products at home.
Skincare Recipes from Trusted Sources
The skincare recipes below are either from myself or from sources I trust or have vetted. They’re grouped into a few different categories and if you’d like to try super easy skincare recipes check out the oil-based products in body balms and lotion bars.
Another great source to get you started is this ebook on growing, harvesting, and using calendula flowers to make natural skincare. It includes detailed instructions on how to use the healing petals to make everything from lotions and rich creams to bath fizzies, handmade soap, and more. Calendula is one of THE best skincare herbs that you can grow, harvest, and use for homemade creams and lotions.
The Basic Process of Making Lotions and Creams
The basic process to making lotion involves blending together water, oil, and an emulsifier. It’s a little like making mayonnaise if you’ve done that before. You’ll also need a broad spectrum preservative if you’d like your lotion to last more than a week. Of course, there are plenty more steps in the process and ingredients you can add to your recipes. Essential oils, hydrosols, thickening agents, and much more. Regardless of the complexity of a lotion/cream/moisturizer recipe just remember that the most important ingredients are water, oil, emulsifier, and preservative.
You’ll Need Emulsifiers
Those four ingredients may be familiar to you, but perhaps you’re wondering about the emulsifier. It’s an ingredient that ensures that once mixed, the oil and water don’t separate. There are a lot of emulsifiers to choose from and include everything from beeswax and borax together (please research this method before trying it) to commercial e-waxes and natural emulsifiers such as Olivem 1000. Please also be aware that beeswax on its own is NOT an emulsifier. Some recipes will claim that it is, but this article and test from Formula Botanica shows why it’s not a good solution.
Basic Lotion Recipes
- How to make Simple Face Lotion from Lovely Greens
- Basic Lotion Making from the Soap Queen
Face Products
- Organic Aloe Face Cream from Lovely Greens
- Soap-free Facial Cleanser Recipe from Lovely Greens
- Fresh Face Oil-Free Lavender Lotion from the Soap Queen
- Oil Based Skin Serum from Crunchy Betty
- Hydrating Face Serum + Eye Oil from hello glow
- Chamomile & Elder Sensitive Skin Lotion from the Nerdy Farm Wife
Rich Creams for Hands & Body
- Rose Hand Cream Recipe from Lovely Greens
- Calendula & Honey Body Cream from Lovely Greens
- Sultry Jasmine Lotion from the Soap Queen
- Chamomile & Lavender Lotion from Homespun Seasonal Living (uses Borax)
- Herbal Citrus Eucalyptus Hand Salve from the Herbal Academy
For Skin & Body Issues
- Handmade Balm for Eczema and Psoriasis from Lovely Greens
- Dandelion Magnesium Lotion for Aches & Pain from the Nerdy Farm Wife
- Homemade Calamine Lotion from the Herbal Academy
- DIY Soothing Eczema Cream for Dry, Painful Skin from Joybilee Farm
Body Balms & Butters (oil-based)
- Healing Calendula Salve from Lovely Greens
- Natural Lavender Body Balm from Lovely Greens
- Carrot Seed and Rose Body Butter from Salt & Ritual
- A Mother’s Love Hand Balm from Formula Botanica
- Elderflower & Rosehip Salve from The Nerdy Farm Wife
- Wintery Body Butter with Warming Notes from Formula Botanica
Lotion Bars
- Rose Lotion Bars from Grow Forage Cook Ferment
- Lotion Bar Recipe from Mommypotamus
- Cocoa Butter & Shea Lotion Bars from Learning & Yearning
- Vanilla Bean Winter Lotion Bar from Garden Therapy
After Sun Care
- Homemade After Sun Salve from Garden Therapy
- Sol Relief After Sun Spray from the Hippy Homemaker
- Oatmeal & Honey Bath for Sunburns from Popsugar
I do love your site and the lotion turned out fab thank you. I would love to make a thicker face cream so would I just add less water
You could use a little more e-wax, a little less water, or a thickener like xanthan gum or guar gum. Or all three :)
Hi Tanya!
I am new at making cold processed soaps, I watched your rosemary soap video how beautifully you managed to prepared perfectly shaped soaps. Whenever I try making soaps, they seize and the next day I get disheartened seeing there curved edges! Please help me. I am counting all the factors while making soap but each time that happens.
Hi Iman. If your soap is seizing, then there’s an ingredient(s) that is causing that. Usually, that happens when using fragrance oils instead of essential oils for scent. Other ingredients like beeswax can make soap solidify quickly too. Try making one of my non-beeswax recipes and see if you have the same issue? I’m unsure what you’re referring to with curved edges though? Do you mean pock-marked?
thanks Tanya for summarizing up those useful face mask recipes. My face’s skin now has issue with the pores. Is there any way to keep them smaller?
You could try by keeping your skin clean, moisturised, and by exfoliating regularly.