Beautiful woman applying cream on leg in bathroom
Image: Shutterstock/Piotr Marcinski

Have The Smoothest Skin With Homemade Lotion Hacks

Dry skin is the worst, especially when it starts cracking and gets red. But you don’t have to invest in high-end lotions. Stop dry skin, save money and harness the best of natural ingredients with these homemade lotion hacks.

Lotion recipes come in all shapes and sizes. Some have beeswax, some are basically oil and others have a host of essential oils. To make this easy, below are some of the most common ingredients in homemade lotions:

  • A natural butter base like coconut or shea
  • Carrier oils like olive or coconut oil
  • A liquid component like tea, aloe vera, or witch hazel
  • Essential oils of your choice
  • Optional Vitamin E oil for nourishing skin
  • Optional melted beeswax for a thicker consistency

These basically crop up in different amounts in different mixtures. Feel free to experiment.

A Simple, Homemade Lotion

An easy way to make your own homemade lotion is to combine three parts carrier oil like olive or coconut to one part beeswax in a glass jar. From there you can add several optional ingredients like a splash of vitamin E oil, a few tablespoons of shea butter, a splash of liquid like tea and essential oils to your scent preference. Melt all the ingredients in a microwave for a few seconds or place the glass jar in a couple inches of boiling water. Then mix, let cool and you have your easy homemade lotion.

Homemade Lotion Hacks For Moisturizing

Feel like getting moisture even faster? An easy hack is to just use coconut oil directly on the skin. For the driest parts, slather on the oil and cover your skin with cloth like a sweater or glove. Leave on all night and then rinse the oil off in the morning.

While not exactly homemade, another option for getting all DIY with your moisturizing routine is to add essential oils to a commercial, unscented lotion. This will allow you to reap the skincare and scent benefits of different essential oils.

How To Use Essential Oils For Scent

Whether you’re using essential oils with commercial lotions or adding it to your own homemade concoction, it pays to know which oils are good with which aromatherapy benefits. Below is a handy introductory guide:

  • Relaxing scents: lavender, chamomile, patchouli, rose, sandalwood, bergamot
  • Rejuvenating scents: peppermint, orange, lemon, eucalyptus, rosemary
  • Spicy, energizing scents: cinnamon, clove, allspice, basil, sage

By combining these scents in different ways, you should be able to make a lotion that either packs a punch in one of these categories or is a balance between two or three. Remember that these oils are potent, so you should only need a few drops for a basic lotion recipe.

Using Your Homemade Lotion

Lotion with the ingredients above should be kept at room temperature. Use it within six months, however, or you risk it going bad.

You should be able to use it for basic dry skin and for eczema.

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