Whipped shea butter is a gorgeous beginner-friendly DIY, so in this post I’m going to teach you how to make three different whipped shea butters. The first formulation uses just 4 ingredients, the second uses 5, and the third uses 9. Each formulation builds on the one before it so you can see how to modify and expand on (or, if done in reverse, simplify!) a whipped shea butter formulation.
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
I’ve packed this post full of helpful links, so for the best learning experience please click through and read the ‘bonus’ material as well. Happy making!
Post Overview
4 ingredients
Our first formulation is almost as simple as it can get—and if you want to go as simple as possible, I’m covering that, too!
The formulation backbone
I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that shea butter is both the star and the backbone of this formulation. Shea butter is a rich, nourishing butter made from the nuts of the shea tree. It has a soft, squish-able consistency and melts around 37°C (98°F).
Read more: How is shea butter made? Where is it from?
The soft consistency of shea butter is essential to the soft whippy consistency of the final whipped body butters we’ll make with it. I adore cocoa butter, but its brittle, snap-able consistency means it doesn’t make for a good whipped body butter backbone.
When you’re shopping for shea butter, you’ll be choosing between unrefined and refined shea butter. Both are lovely, but there are some pretty distinct differences.
Unrefined shea butter is a creamy beige colour and has a distinct smokey, nutty scent that is pretty strong and will come through in your final products when you use a lot of it (like we are with these whipped shea butters). Some people love this scent while others don’t particularly care for it. I find it pleasant, but assertive. If you’re using a lot of shea butter, its scent isn’t something you can mask with essential oils or fragrance oils—you’ll have to work with that scent.
Refined shea butter is white and doesn’t smell like much of anything.
You can also find yellow shea butter; this is shea butter that’s been dyed with borututu root. You can use that for these formulations if you like; from what I’ve seen it is likely to be made from raw shea butter, so expect yellow shea butter to have that characteristic smokey/nutty scent unless your supplier states the shea has been deodorized.
You can use either refined or unrefined shea butter in these formulations, but to most people, the decision maker is the smell factor. If you aren’t certain you enjoy the smell of unrefined shea butter—or if you just want the ability to scent your final product freely without competing with the smoky, nutty smell of raw shea—I recommend purchasing refined shea butter.
Soften it up
Sunflower oil is our co-star, softening the shea butter and lowering its melting point to something a bit lower than body temperature so our finished whipped body butter melts readily when massaged into the skin. It also helps lighten the shea butter up a bit.
I’m using sunflower oil because it’s lightweight, inexpensive, and easy to get—but you can definitely use lots of different liquid oils instead! Choose something that absorbs relatively quickly, doesn’t cost a fortune, and is hopefully already in your cupboard. A few options include grapeseed oil, sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil, and safflower oil.
Learn more: A Guide to Carrier Oil Substitutions
Oils I don’t recommend for this job are castor oil (it’s heavy and sticky), sea buckthorn fruit oil (it’s so orange that your final body butter will turn you into an oompa-loompa!), neem oil (it reeks), and anything really expensive.
Sea Buckthorn Fruit oil is seriously dark!
Don’t over-complicate this part—if you’ve got a liquid oil you want to use and you like the way it feels on your skin, use it!
Extend the shelf life
Vitamin E—tocopherol—is a potent antioxidant that adds some skincare benefits to our whipped body butter and helps extend its shelf life by delaying oxidization (aka rancidity).
If you don’t have any vitamin E you can replace it with more of your liquid oil.
Make it smell pretty
The last ingredient in our first formulation is a bit of lavender essential oil for scent. You can definitely use a different essential oil (or a fragrance oil) if you want to; just be sure it’s safe for use in leave-on body moisturizers (IFRA category 5A) at 0.5%.
If you’ve decided to use unrefined shea butter, make sure you choose an essential oil that works with the smokey, nutty scent of the shea butter as that scent will come through in the finished product, blending with your essential or fragrance oil. You aren’t going to be able to drown out or eliminate the scent of raw shea butter with essential oils.
This ingredient also optional—simply replace it with more liquid oil if you don’t want to use it.
How we’re making it
The method we’re using to transform these ingredients into a jar of whippy goodness is a bit different from what you might’ve done in the past. Rather than melting everything together, we’re going to cold process this whipped body butter.
Cold processing is super fast and easy, and helps prevent one of the biggest problems makers run into with shea butter: graininess. Graininess happens in butters when they melt and then don’t cool properly. So, if the butter never melts, it can’t cool improperly and go grainy!
Learn more: Why is my body butter grainy?
Since we are cold processing this body butter, your shea butter needs to smooth from the get-go. Massage a bit between your fingers—if you feel any sand-like beads or lumps that are slow to melt, that’s not a shea butter you’ll want to use for this formulation.
Grainy shea? Make this instead: Perfectly Pillowy Whipped Shea Butter
Remember: making a body butter without heat removes one place graininess can happen, but it can still go grainy throughout its life. Protect your butter and its smooth consistency need to store your body butters somewheres with a stable temperature. If your whipped shea butter is exposed to temperature fluctuations—like by storing it in a bathroom that gets hotter every time someone takes a shower—it will go grainy over time.
Equipment you’ll need
The Formulation
4-Ingredient Whipped Shea Butter
21g | 70% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) (make sure it’s smooth!)
8.7g | 29% sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ)
0.15g | 0.5% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.15g | 0.5% lavender essential oil (USA / Canada)Weigh the shea butter into a small bowl that’s deep and large enough for whipping in. You’ll need an electric mixer fitted with one beater for batches 100g (3.5oz) and smaller (as we’re doing here).
Start by mashing the shea butter up a bit with the beater to get it into smallish clumps, and then fire up your electric mixer and whip the shea butter until it is smooth and uniform.
Add the sunflower oil, vitamin E, and lavender essential oil to the whipped shea butter. Stir/mash the mixture around a bit to roughly combine, and then whip away! You’re looking for the mixture to be whippy and smooth, and it will noticeably lighten in colour. Be sure to stop and scrape down the sides of your bowl and beater a few times with a flexible spatula to ensure a thorough, even blend.
Once the butter is lightweight and whippy, gently scoop it into a wide-mouthed tub or jar, and that’s it! I used a 50mL (1.69fl oz) frosted jar from YellowBee for my 30g (1.06oz) batch, and that worked beautifully. Make sure you don’t pack the body butter into the jar and squish out all that air we so lovingly whipped into it. If it doesn’t all fit, don’t force it.
To use, smooth a small amount over skin that could use some TLC. Take care not to over-apply as it is quite rich!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
5 ingredients
Our five ingredient formulation starts with our four ingredient formulation and adds just one inexpensive, easy-to-get, all-natural ingredient to help tackle one of the biggest problems with whipped shea butter: greasiness. There are several different strategies for countering greasiness; we’ll use one in this formulation, and another in the third formulation.
Cut the grease
I’m using corn starch in this formulation to help reduce greasiness, but there are other options, too. Arrowroot starch (also called arrowroot powder), tapioca starch, wheat starch, and rice flour (or rice starch) will all work, and I suspect any other fine starch you can get your hands (potato?) on would do the trick, too.
This silky smooth, absorbent white powder seriously cuts the greasiness, making the final body butter feel lighter and giving it more powdery feel on the skin. I’m using 15% in this formulation (reducing the shea butter to make room for it), but you can definitely play with that percentage. I’ve used as little as 10% and as much as 40% (though 40% starts to create quite a different sort of product).
While including a starch definitely helps reduce the greasiness of the body butter, it’s important to remember that the finished whipped shea butter is still ~85% fat, and therefore is still going to be quite rich. If you’re used to using store bought lotions, those might contain 20% fat, so a jump to 85% is going to be very noticeable. Body butters aren’t everyone’s favourite moisturizer; if you prefer lighter skincare, you might try making a lotion instead.
The Formulation
5-Ingredient Whipped Shea Butter
16.5g | 55% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada) (make sure it’s smooth!)
8.7g | 29% sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ)
0.15g | 0.5% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.15g | 0.5% lavender essential oil (USA / Canada)4.5g | 15g corn starch
Weigh the shea butter into a small bowl that’s deep and large enough for whipping in. You’ll need an electric mixer fitted with one beater for batches 100g (3.5oz) and smaller (as we’re doing here).
Start by mashing the shea butter up a bit with the beater to get it into smallish clumps, and then fire up your electric mixer and whip the shea butter until it is smooth and uniform.
Add the sunflower oil, vitamin E, and lavender essential oil to the whipped shea butter. Stir/mash the mixture around a bit to roughly combine, and then whip away! You’re looking for the mixture to be whippy and smooth, and it will noticeably lighten in colour. Be sure to stop and scrape down the sides of your bowl and beater a few times with a flexible spatula to ensure a thorough, even blend.
Add the corn starch and fold it into the mixture to reduce the mess potential before whipping it in.
Once the butter is lightweight and whippy, gently scoop it into a wide-mouthed tub or jar, and that’s it! I used a 50mL (1.69fl oz) frosted jar from YellowBee for my 30g (1.06oz) batch, and that worked beautifully. Make sure you don’t pack the body butter into the jar and squish out all that air we so lovingly whipped into it. If it doesn’t all fit, don’t force it.
To use, smooth a small amount over skin that could use some TLC. Take care not to over-apply as it is quite rich!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
9 ingredients
Our 5-ingredient version is whippy, indulgent, and a lot less greasy… but it’s kind of boring. So in this version we’re going to fancy it up a bit with a few more lovely (and very flexible!) ingredients. You definitely don’t need all of these ingredients; I’ll be starting with our second formulation as our base and explaining how I make room for each addition so you can pick and choose what you want to include.
A fancy carrier oil
It’s really easy to have fun with the liquid carrier oil part of the formulation. You can swap out all of the sunflower oil for something fancier, or mixing two or more liquid oils—just ensure it totals the original amount of liquid oil.
Creating a blend is a great way to include more expensive oils, oils that have a smell you’re not crazy about (evening primrose oil, for example), and oils that are really colourful (like sea buckthorn fruit oil) that could potentially stain your skin at higher concentrations.
Since this formulation is cold processed you can use quite delicate oils as they don’t need to be exposed to any heat to incorporate them in this formulation.
And, if you’d like to further lighten up the skin feel of your body butter, you can include an ester like isopropyl myristate (IPM) as part of your liquid oil blend.
Learn another way to reduce greasiness: Whipped Shea Citrus Body Butter
I decided to swap 10% of the sunflower oil for some light and summery raspberry seed oil.
Some botanical goodness
Up next, let’s add a bit of botanical goodness for some herbal skincare benefits. There are two easy ways to do this.
The first way is to use an herb-infused carrier oil as part of your blend of liquid oils. This can be an infused oil you made yourself or one you’ve purchased.
Learn more about making your own infused oils with these posts from LisaLise:
- Infused oil with calendula
- Infused oil with calendula: Straining & bottling
- Rose-Infused Oil With the Cold Infusion Method
The second way is to use an oil soluble botanical extract at a usage rate suggested by your supplier. Make sure you check the INCI of your extract; water soluble extracts (with a base of water, glycerin, and/or propanediol) are far more common than oil soluble extracts, and those won’t work here.
Bramble Berry has a great selection of oil soluble extracts with a base of caprylic/capric triglycerides. I’m going to use their oil soluble calendula extract at 5% for a skin-soothing boost, reducing the liquid oil to make room for it.
A bit of colour
This next addition is totally optional, but fun: we’re going to add some colour. The easiest way to do this is with a wee bit of a colourful mica. These are available in every colour under the rainbow; just make sure you’re purchasing ethically sourced, cosmetic grade micas. All the cosmetic suppliers I shop at only sell ethically sourced, cosmetic grade micas; I don’t recommend purchasing your micas from Amazon or a craft store unless you can confirm the source and grade.
Half a percent is more than enough to colour the finished body butter without making a mess—too much mica will start to turn your body butter into a very messy body lipstick! Reduce the liquid oil to make room for the mica.
Since I used raspberry seed oil earlier I chose a pink mica to “match”; 0.5% of YellowBee’s “Innocent Kiss“.
Make it even lighter
This last ingredient will help lighten up the whipped body butter even more, and if you’re not a fan of greasy skincare, it just might replace shea butter in your DIY pantry.
This new ingredient is a butter that’s soft and creamy—just like shea butter—but is WAY lighter and faster absorbing. It’s mango butter!
In this formulation I’m going to blend lighter mango butter with richer shea butter by trading 25% of the shea butter for mango butter. I do find mango butter is a bit softer than shea butter so it isn’t always a perfect 1-for-1 swap, but it worked really well in this formulation.
You can, of course, use mango butter as the star of your whipped body butter formulations for much lighter whipped body butters—but that wouldn’t really be a “whipped shea butter” any more!
A formulation starring mango butter: Cranberry Orange Whipped Body Butter
The Formulation
9-Ingredient Whipped Shea Butter
The butters (make sure they’re smooth!)
9g | 30% unrefined shea butter (USA / Canada)
7.5g | 25% mango butter (USA / Canada)The liquids
4.05g | 13.5% sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ)
3g | 10% raspberry seed oil (USA / Canada)
1.5g | 5% oil-soluble calendula extract
0.15g | 0.5% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.15g | 0.5% lavender essential oil (USA / Canada)The powders
4.5g | 15g corn starch
0.15g | 0.5% colourful micaWeigh the butters into a small bowl that’s deep and large enough for whipping in. You’ll need an electric mixer fitted with one beater for batches 100g (3.5oz) and smaller (as we’re doing here).
Start by mashing the butters up a bit with the beater to get it into smallish clumps, and then fire up your electric mixer and whip the butters until they are smooth and uniform.
Add the liquid ingredients to the whipped butters. Stir/mash the mixture around a bit to roughly combine, and then whip away! You’re looking for the mixture to be whippy and smooth, and it will noticeably lighten in colour. Be sure to stop and scrape down the sides of your bowl and beater a few times with a flexible spatula to ensure a thorough, even blend.
Add the powders and fold them into the mixture to reduce the mess potential before continuing to whip the butter.
Once the butter is lightweight and whippy, gently scoop it into a wide-mouthed tub or jar, and that’s it! I used a 50mL (1.69fl oz) frosted jar from YellowBee for my 30g (1.06oz) batch, and that worked beautifully. Make sure you don’t pack the body butter into the jar and squish out all that air we so lovingly whipped into it. If it doesn’t all fit, don’t force it.
To use, smooth a small amount over skin that could use some TLC. Take care not to over-apply as it is quite rich!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
Other questions
How much do each of these formulations make?
As written in grams, each of these formulations will make 30g (1.06oz). Because we’re whipping a bunch of air into the butter (increasing the volume), each 30g (1.06oz) batch fills a 50g (1.76oz) jar nicely.
As I’ve provided these formulations in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate them to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. I highly recommend starting with the 30g (1.06oz) batch size; an ounce of body butter is quite a lot and you can always scale up in the future if you love it.
Will these body butters melt in hot weather?
Yes, absolutely. Read this to learn more.
How long will these whipped shea butters last?
Kept reasonably cool and dry, they should last at least a year or two before any of the fat goes rancid. If you didn’t include the vitamin E this will shorten the shelf life as vitamin E slows rancidity.
If you notice it starts to smell like old nuts or crayons, that’s a sign that the oils or butter have begun to oxidize; chuck it out and make a fresh batch if that happens.
Do these whipped body butters need a preservative?
Because these body butters are 100% oil-based, they do not require a broad-spectrum preservative; broad spectrum preservatives ward off microbial growth, and microbes require water to live—no water, no microbes!
Vitamin E helps extend the shelf life of formulations by delaying oxidization (rancidity), but it isn’t a preservative as it does nothing to ward off microbial spoilage.
How should I store these whipped shea butters?
Store your whipped body butters around 20–21°C (68–70°C). If your butter is exposed to high temperatures it will melt, and if it is exposed to temperature fluctuations (for example, stored in a bathroom that gets hotter every time someone takes a shower) it can go grainy.
Learn more: Why is my body butter grainy?
What should I do if my body butter is too soft or too hard?
This is such a common problem with whipped body butters that I’ve written an entire blog post about why this happens and how to fix it; you can find it here.
Gifting Disclosure
The shea butter, mango butter, sunflower oil, vitamin E, and mica were gifted by YellowBee.
The calendula extract was gifted by Bramble Berry.
The raspberry seed oil was gifted by Berry Beautiful.
Links to Amazon are affiliate links.
I’ve never made a body butter. I’ll give this whirl. I will start with most complcated version , plan to add things that don’t really belong, confuse myself and then google it all for days just to add to my confusion before I actually make it. I just to roll like that.
Thank you so much for sharing these options! I’m always nervous to add a powder to an anhydrous butter (fear of graininess or skin residue), but I’m going to try it next time I mix some up.
Also, just FYI: It looks like there is a typo in your formulation panels. For the cornstarch amt, you typed “15g” instead of “15%”.
it is 4.5 grams or 15% of the recipe. That is according to the video she does with it
I am wondering if you have ever added a magnesium brine to this. If you have, what measurement of the brine and did it change the other measurements?
Hi! I noticed that your text for version 3.3 of the body butter says you replaced 25% of the shea butter with mango butter, but the formula indicates that it was closer to 50%. Could you please confirm that the ingredient amounts are correct? Thanks!!
It’s correct—I was talking about the entire formulation, while I believe you are thinking about just the butters 🙂
Hi Marie,
Can I substitute an extract powder like strawberry or cranberry for the cornstarch?
Can I use coconut oil as my liquid oil
Is coconut oil a liquid where you live? If it’s a liquid, yes.
I made this twice. First as you had it ( shea and mango butters and cornstarch).
Today I made it again. Didv4times the volume and used all mango for the butter and increased the cornstarch to 20%.
I am thrilled with the outcome.
Whipped up light, feels less greasy, lighter and absorbs more quickly just as you explained.
Thank you!
Can you share where you purchased the small containers? I would like to make the product and give out samples.
They’re linked in the formulation instructions—the part where I discuss packaging it up and say/link to what I used 🙂
I guess there’s all different ways to make body butter. I’m just surprised that you use an electric mixer. The way I make mine is by melting the butters together (shea and mango) and using beeswax. After I let it cool, I add in some almond oil, vitamin E oil and a few other things including my essential oils. I put it in the fridge for 10 min, and then whip it with a whisk. I do that twice and it comes out extremely fluffy and it’s very moisturizing. I’m not saying that the way you make yours is wrong, I just found it extremely interesting because it seems like the more difficult way to make it.