Welcome back to the craft room and today’s Flashback Friday Hard Lotion Bar post. You may recall, I am a huge fan of making handmade gifts for my extended family every Christmas. Not only is it a gift they will not have gotten before, but it is truly from the heart. During the run up to Christmas 2016 I spent a huge amount of time on Pinterest looking for inspiration. When I ran across instructions for making a hard hand lotion bar, I knew this was part of the gift everyone would be getting. Let me walk you through how I made these fun and adorable little hard lotion bars.
Hard Lotion Bar
Every year I try to create something special for the women of my family, and this year was no exception. After thinking long and hard and trying to come up with something new, different, and hopefully useful I decided to try my hand at two different things: hard lotion bars and making soap from scratch. Tonight, let’s start with the lotion bars.
Who has ever heard of a hard lotion bar before?? I know I sure didn’t until I started prowling around my favorite site, Pinterest. There are many different recipes out there, but they are all similar in nature, oils (olive, coconut, almond) or butters (cocoa or shea), beeswax (white or yellow) and an optional fragrance or two. You will also need a few other essential supplies: a heat resistant container to melt everything in, some form of weighing or measuring your ingredients and a mold to pour your melted mixture into.
The Hard Lotion Bar recipe I chose to try calls for equal weights of coconut oil, sweet almond oil, and beeswax. There was no exact number to shoot for in this recipe, just make what you need. Because I needed 9 bars including myself, I chose to use 2 ounces of each item. Using a scale, I weighed out each of my ingredients and placed 2 oz. of coconut oil and 2 oz. of beeswax pellets into a Pyrex measuring cup. This was then set into a saucepan with some simmering water to melt. I set aside the 2 oz. of sweet almond oil until the hard ingredients had melted.
As you can see in the following image, it will take the beeswax a lot longer to melt. Coconut oil will start to liquify at 78 degrees versus the beeswax pellets that begin to melt at 140-150.
After the coconut oil and beeswax had liquefied, I added the sweet almond oil. However, since the house was chilly, when I added the chilled sweet almond oil to the warm oils, they solidified just a bit. It didn’t take long for the mixture to completely melt and blend together. If you want to add a fragrance, this is the time. I did not opt for that, so I have no reference to how long it would last.
Being extremely careful, pour the hot mixture into your mold. Because I am using a Pyrex measuring cup, this part of the process was a little bit cleaner. A silicone mold would be the best option as the bars can be easily removed when cool. I found this adorable flower silicone candy mold at Michael’s. It didn’t take long for the mixture to begin to cool and harden in the mold as you can see in the following picture. If you are making a larger batch and your mixture starts to solidify before you are finished pouring, just return it to the warm water to remelt it.
I let the bars sit in the molds most of the day. About an hour in our chilly house would have been fine. If you are making these hard lotion bars in the warmer months, you may want to let them sit in the mold for a longer duration of time.
When all the lotion bars are fully solidified, pop them out of the mold. I chose to place them in a cute little tin for gift giving, but you can simply store them in a Ziplock bag if you are only making them for yourself. I like to use my lotion bar right before bed, but they are perfect to use any time of the day.
Thank you for joining me for today’s Flashback Friday Hard Lotion Bar post. These little bars are so easy to make, and use. My mom loved them so much, she requested an extra bar so she could have one on the nightstand and a bar in her purse. Have you ever heard of a hard lotion bar before this? Let me know in the comments if you have, or if this is a product you would consider using? Don’t forget to join me for the next Flashback Friday post to see what else went into this Christmas gift for the family. Until then, have a fantastic week and I will see you back in the craft room soon!
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