Handmade Honey Body Butter Recipe for Radiant Skin
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A thick and nourishing honey body butter that you can make with a few ingredients, including cocoa butter, honey powder, and chamomile essential oil. It’s especially soothing and conditioning for dry skin, but you can also use it as part of your daily skincare regimen.
This is a simple, natural skincare recipe that you can make in under half an hour using simple and natural ingredients. Honey body butter combines the conditioning properties of cocoa butter and shea butter with the repairing and hydrating properties of honey. Gently melted together with sweet almond oil and scented with skin-soothing chamomile essential oil, this is simple and nourishing skincare that you can easily make yourself.
Follow the instructions below to prepare a single pot for yourself or several to share with friends and family. If you don’t have all of the ingredients or wish to use others, there’s also guidance on how to customize body butter recipes.
Use DIY Honey Body Butter All Over
The honey body butter created by this recipe is firm yet creamy, melting on contact with your skin. Although it’s probably too heavy for your face, it’s wonderful when massaged elsewhere on your body, such as your legs, arms, and knees. It spreads on like butter, leaving your skin feeling soft and smooth. This luxurious homemade body butter helps keep your skin conditioned and supple, making it especially great for dry skin. It also adds a radiant glow, thanks to those wholesome butters and oils.
The honey in the recipe is honey powder, which doesn’t contain any water. It helps to moisturize your skin, and doesn’t contain any of the preservation issues that liquid honey can introduce. Using honey powder means you don’t need to add a preservative to this recipe, but it’s more challenging to find. I recommend ordering it online. Make sure you get the powder and not the granulated version—you want it as fine as possible.
Honey Body Butter Ingredients
This recipe contains just a few wholesome ingredients. Shea butter is a conditioning oil that closely emulates your skin’s own sebum. It is also great for eczema-prone skin and can help soothe and repair damaged skin from burns, scars, and stretch marks.
Cocoa butter is used for many of the same reasons as shea butter, but it also has a delicious chocolatey scent. That aroma is one of the reasons that I use it in this lip balm recipe. Cocoa butter also contains Cocoa Mass Polyphenol (CMP), which studies have shown could help ease conditions related to overactive immune systems, such as Psoriasis.
Used on their own, these butters would create a very solid skincare product. That’s why we mix a liquid oil into the recipe to soften the consistency. Sweet almond oil is my favorite carrier oil, but you could use another if you wish. Although entirely optional, you could even macerate skin-healing oils into your carrier oil. Calendula is a fabulous skin-healing herb, as is chamomile, which is why chamomile essential oil is in this recipe. The sweet almond oil that I used is infused with comfrey leaves.
Benefits of Honey for Skin
As a beekeeper, I may be a bit biased on the benefits of honey. I extract it from the comb every year, and I use it in everything from Greek yogurt to handmade soap. The evidence for honey’s health and healing properties is vast, though. It’s used as an alternative treatment to heal wounds, in some cancer therapies, and is well-known as a gentle throat soother. Honey is an essential ingredient in medicine, food, and beauty as these fifty different recipes show.
In skincare, honey is used because it can heal wounds and skin abrasions, such as those caused by eczema and acne breakouts. It’s also a substance that can attract moisture from the air to your skin. This makes honey a valuable ingredient in skincare recipes that aim to replenish moisture and suppleness to the skin from head to toe. Unfortunately, adding real honey from the jar to this recipe could introduce microbial growth. That’s why using dried honey powder is much better.
How to Make Honey Body Butter
The instructions for making honey body butter are simple, but let me explain a little more. Overheating oils can oxidize them, speeding up rancidification, and it can also change their texture and flavor. If you overheat oils infused with delicate herbs, such as the comfrey-infused sweet almond oil that I’m using, then beneficial properties may be lost. To avoid overheating, we gently melt our ingredients together using a double boiler.
It’s simply a pan or bowl that’s set inside another pan of hot water. This method indirectly heats the ingredients, melting them at a lower and more even temperature. You don’t have to buy a special device to do this in your own kitchen—simply find two saucepans that fit one inside the other. The photos in the recipe below will show you my setup.
Another thing to keep in mind is that essential oils and herbal oils should be added at the lowest possible temperature. This preserves each’s scent and integrity.
Customize this Honey Body Butter Recipe
The easiest types of natural skincare you can make are oil-based salves, body balms, and body butters. The basic instructions for making them are to measure and melt the ingredients together. When they cool, they solidify into varying consistencies, depending on the ratio of hard to liquid oils. Additionally, since they don’t contain water, you don’t need to use preservatives, and you can customize them to your heart’s content.
You can use another light liquid carrier oil in place of sweet almond oil, such as grapeseed, apricot kernel, olive, or sunflower oil. You could alternatively use mango butter, sustainable palm oil, tallow, or lard as a substitute for the shea butter. Cocoa butter is a hard and brittle oil and gives this body butter its thickness. There’s no direct substitute for that exact amount if you want to maintain the final consistency. You could replace it with a much smaller amount of beeswax or soy wax.
More Honey and Skincare Inspiration
- Chamomile skin lotion recipe
- Herbal Healing Salve recipe.
- Cocoa mint cracked heel balm recipe
- Carrot seed and rose body butter recipe
Handmade Honey Body Butter Recipe
Equipment
- clean, dry, and sterilized containers (tins or glass jars)
Materials
Honey Body Butter Recipe
- 1.76 oz shea butter (refined) 50 g
- 0.88 oz cocoa butter 25 g
- 1.23 oz sweet almond oil 35 g
- 1 tsp honey powder 2.5 g
- 10 drops German chamomile essential oil optional
Instructions
- Measure the shea butter and cocoa butter into a small saucepan. Float this saucepan in another pan filled with simmering water to melt.
- Once the oils have fully melted, place the pan on a potholder and pour in the sweet almond oil and honey powder. Gently whisk together. If you notice the oils solidifying, place the pan back in the pan of water until they are fully melted again.
- Next, wipe off any moisture from the pan of oils, then place it in the freezer for five minutes.
- After five minutes have passed, take the pan out of the freezer, add the essential oil, if you’re using it, and whisk together well. Place the pan back in the freezer for five more minutes.
- Ten minutes in the freezer should have cooled the mixture to a consistency where there’s a thin solid skin on the surface. Underneath this skin, it should still be a little liquidy. Whisk it all together a final time, and you’ll have a beautifully scented and creamy honey body butter that’s easy to scoop out into a container. Work quickly, though, because it will quickly set solid.
- Scoop the honey body butter out of the pan and into your desired container. It could be a recycled jam jar, a pretty vintage pot, or a cosmetics tin like I’m using. The important thing is that it’s clean, sterilized, and perfectly dry.
- The body butter’s final consistency is like dairy butter that you’ve taken out of the fridge and has softened a little. It’s firm but easily scooped up. This honey body butter has a shelf-life that’s determined by the shelf lives of any of the ingredients that you used. Check the back of all of the bottles and the closest date is your shelf life. However, once you begin using it and getting your fingers in it, make sure that you use it all up within six months.
Well, I’m a professional and I say it works. Please remember that the world is filled with a majority that parrot what they’ve heard without trying for themselves. The best way to know if something works is to try it for yourself – especially in something as simple as this honey body butter. Though honey does contain a small amount of water, it’s not enough to separate out in a water-free (anhydrous) recipe. It’s also not enough water for microbes to survive in, so no preservative is needed. That’s the beauty of honey!
My hands have been feeling like sandpaper. I made this recipe exactly without the optional essential oil. It smells so delicious like the cocoa butter. After only one application, I could tell it was healing my skin. Thank you so much for sharing. It looks and feels a tad greasy, but it absorbs quickly (15 mins)
I’m really pleased that you’re enjoying the body butter recipe! Cocoa butter has such an incredible natural scent.
I’ve been trying to find something to replace the Treehut organic shea body butter with almond and honey. I am going to give this a shot.
Thanks for the tips.
I was trying to replicate Crabtree & Evelyn’s citron, honey and coliander cream, but it’s made in the UK, and many UK products aren’t exported to the US anymore. Can’t get it.
While my recipe is slightly different than your’s with the butter and carrier oil, the addition of arrowroot and a small amount of bees wax, I needed to know when the honey is added. That was the trick.
I added lemon and coriander essential oils after the mixture was cooled and then
whipped it.
My version of the Crabtree & Evelyn classic is actually more potent than C & E’s, yet not overwhelming. Not sticky at all. Not greasy at all. I’m a newby at this and am very pleased with the results. I am happy to share my recipe here:
1). 1/2 cup Shea Butter and 1 TBSP beeswax to double boiler. Melt.
2). Mix 1/4 cup Grapeseed oil with 1 tsp arrowroot until blended. Add 1 tsp honey and mix. Add to melted Shea Butter mixture. Mix well and refrigerate for 30 minutes, or in the freezer as Lovely Greens suggests.
3). Add equal amounts of lemon and coriander essential oils to the cooled butter mixture. I used 6 drops each.
4). Whip the mixture with a fork or hand mixer. Dispense into a glass container.
Thanks Again.
Please can i use Shea butter, coconut oil, honey and put some drop of turmeric oil on it? Will it be nice on light and sensitive skin
Coconut oil melts very quickly so it can be a troublesome ingredient for body balms and lip balms. Anything above 78F (25C) and mixtures containing coconut oil start melting. Turmeric can be skin staining as well.
Ya…so I just made this body butter, sure doesn’t look like your photo..
but anyway I ran into all kinds of problems & thus have questions…I bought a scale for this, which I had trouble figuring out how to measure(subtract the bowl weight? Use a paper towel to measure on?)
I’ve never done anything like this before…grams?ounces? How to get accurate measurement for the almond oil …the easiest part of the whole thing was the 10 drops of Chamomile oil..I made 3 batches trying to get it right plus I have 1lb of each Shea & cocoa butter,only way I could find it online…the cocoa butter smell I do not care for at all, thought maybe the chamomile would override it but it did not, in fact there is no chamomile scent to the mixture at all🙁The last batch I used less cocoa butter & increased the Shea butter to try to diffuse the cocoa smell…not much luck with that…So I’d like to know if I can keep the b.b.in the containers in the fridge to last longer? Also the left over blocks of the butters can I keep in the fridge until I want to attempt this project again? Thnx
Hi Vickie, as an absolute beginner, you might have some work to do in order to understand recipes, measuring, ingredients, etc. To use a kitchen scale, place your bowl on it and turn the scale on. You can also press tare (or another button) to bring the readout down to zero so that you can measure ingredients. Cocoa butter is one of the main ingredients of chocolate and smells that way too. Most people adore the scent but since you don’t, I’d recommend that you save it for soapmaking and use another hard oil instead. Full replacement with shea butter, for example. The chamomile essential oil will come through without the scent of cocoa butter distracting you. You may add a little more essential oil if you wish though. Ten to fifteen drops, though.
Greetings! As far as the scale goes. Turn it on 1st. Place your container on it, THEN press tare. What that does is eliminate the weight of the container so that you’re only weighing the added product. I used grams for this project. It came out loose and took forever to thicken because I didn’t use cocoa butter. Just 75 grams of Shea. I hope this helps as far as using the scale goes. Best wishes 🤍
Hi,
Thanks a ton for the recipe. I have a few questions, please answer them whenever you have time.
1. Can I add any other essential oils along with camomile oil? If so, what are they?
2. I don’t want my body butter to be too hard and too watery. It should have that creamy consistency and should melt as soon as I apply. Will your recipe work? Should I tweak the ratios?
3. I’m actually looking for a body butter for my 2 year old, would you recommend this or do you have any other suggestions?
Hi Meheru, there is no water in this recipe, so there’s no chance of it being watery. It’s also a true body butter, so creamy (as I think you’re imagining it) isn’t the right way to describe it either. This is an oil-based body butter that is much more like a salve or body balm in consistency. Yes, perfectly fine for all skin-types and the essential oil question is complex because yes, you can add others, but each type has its own usage rate. Go beyond the usage rate and the body butter could be irritating to the skin. As a beginner, I recommend that you stick with the recipe :)
You could either rehydrate it or add 3/4 of the amount listed for honey. I’ve not used honey powder in this recipe before though so I’m not sure what the outcome would be, though. It may add a slightly gritty texture?
I just want to thank you ,you have helped me with so many things and everything I do turns out just like yours except this I’m following everything exact and it just doesn’t look like your I’m not sure how it should feel as I have never used body butter before I was making this for a friend who had her knee replaced and I think this would help with dryness and scarring any suggestions would be appreciated
Hi Jo, would you please email me photos of what your body looks like and give me more detail? Also, did you change any of the ingredients? Have you double checked the ingredients and that your kitchen scale works correctly? tanya at lovelygreens dot com
Hi there. Could I substitute mango butter for cocoa butter, or is it too soft?
It’s too soft, as you thought :)
I used shea butter as a body cream, loved it but now I’m using coconut oil it smells divine and I also use it for my hair and cooking.
When your using coconut oil in your hair. Do use it straight out of container ? Or is it mixed with something ?
You can do either if you wish :)
What can you use for substance for the sweet almond oil
Any light-textured liquid oil — sunflower oil, apricot kernel oil, rice bran oil.
Hola!
Con que puedo sustituir el aceite de almendras dulces?
Gracias de antemano por tu respuesta.
Hi Virginia, I used google translate to try to understand your question: “Hello! What can I substitute for sweet almond oil? Thanks in advance for your reply.”
You can use any vegetable oil that is liquid at room temperature in place of the sweet almond oil. That includes grapeseed oil, sunflower oil, and olive oil. Choose one that you don’t mind the scent of, and in the case of sunflower oil, I’d recommend a cold-pressed version. Hope this helps :)
Muchas gracias!
Hi Bonnie, you’ll know as a beekeeper that honey in itself doesn’t really have a shelf-life. We have to put one on bottles we sell because of regulations, but in reality, honey can last years, even decades, or longer and does not get colonized by bacteria. The other ingredients in the recipe are oils which also don’t get colonized by bacteria. Bacteria need a wet environment to grow. Shelf-life is explained in step 7.
When I have to add the honey powder?
In step 2
Could you tell me the reasoning behind putting it in the freezer (steps 3- 5) when it will all be whisked together/melted anyhow? Thank you.
It cools the body butter quicker and allows you to whip a little air into it. This changes the texture, and stops the honey powder from settling at the bottom as it cools.
Can I mix Shea butter, palm kernel oil, honey and little wax for body butter? How does it look after whisk and place under sunlight? Thanks.
Hi Samson and yes you can. You’ll need to work with different ratios of ingredients to create the recipe that you like best though. Trial and error until you get the right consistency.
Mine didn’t turn out well. In the final whipping process (step 5), I wasn’t able to obtain “an opaque creamy white” and it didn’t completely harden in 24 hours. Should I melt all the ingredients and try whipping, again?
Hi Linda — I’d recommend that you remelt and then skip the whipping step. Just pour the contents into a container afterwards. It will firm up like a body balm and you can use it in the same way.
Hi Tanya, I tried making it. The consistency was really very smooth and soft while whipping. But after leaving overnight at room temperature it has hardened. Is it possible to make body butter with creamy and soft consistency that spreads easily?
Thank you
Yes, you can make honey body butter with more of a ratio of liquid oils to solid. In other words, use less cocoa butter and shea butter, and more sweet almond oil. Doing that will create a softer texture, all the way down to a liquidy ointment.
Hi Tanya, I am a vegan. Can you recommend any replacements for the honey powder? Or would the recipe be just fine if skip it? Thanks!
Just skip it :)
please can I mix shea butter, honey powder, coconut oil, and lemon to get beautiful chocolate skin? please let me know if this remedy is good for chocolate skin.
Lemon juice has water in it so I’d not recommend it for a product that doesn’t have a preservative in it. As for shea, coconut, and honey — they’re great for all skin types.
Hello, I would like to ask how big is this batch? is it just a jar or more? Thanks!! I am thinking to try it later today
It makes a pot about the same size as a Body Shop Body Butter tub.
Yeah, I thought so. I will double the ingredients and will try today! Thank you!:)
Can coconut oil be used in this recipe?
Absolutely! Play with the quantities but it might work well to replace the Shea Butter with Coconut oil as far as firmness goes. But if you want to keep the Shea, work the coconut oil in by replacing some of the liquid oil and Cocoa Butter.
Where do you find all the stuff to make this? Love shea butter, it’s great for my face
There are links to where you can find all the ingredients online in the recipe card.
How much honey did you use?
What is the shelf life of this butter at room temperature?
The shelf-life is dependent on the exact ingredients that you used. Look on the labels to see when their best-by dates are — the closest date is your body butter’s best-by date. Once you begin using it, it needs to be used within six months.
Can this be made without using the cocoa butter? Could you just use extra shea butter instead?
You can do :)
Will this butter last longer than 6 months if a clean spatula is used instead of fingers to remove from container each use? Also, can this be whipped to be fluffier?
Yes, definitely, on both counts :)
Can I add only honey powder with my shea butter?
Yes, you could do but the consistency might be hard if your room temperature is cool. Adding a small amount of liquid oil, such as sweet almond oil, will help make it a softer consistency.
do you store it at room temperature or in the fridge?
Room temperature
Thank you! I made some today and it came out great. I was looking for something without all the crazy chemicals- I especially don't want them to rub off me onto my new baby!
That's so good to hear :)
It's about the same consistency.
Is this the same consistency as the Body shop body butters or greasier?
Another reason to make body butter at home! Thanks for stopping by Posie :)
Oh wow, sounds much yummier!! Also, those Body Shop butters are really expensive, so this is fabulous all round, love Posie
Glad to help :) Let me know how you get on!
Brilliant – thanks so much for the recipe. Can't wait to make some.