The Cure for Dry Cracked Hands
Tis' the season for cracked dry skin. During the winter months, the cold temperatures and dry air draw moisture from your skin. NewYork Presbyterian has an excellent article with 10 tips for protecting your skin during the winter.
The list contains great tips, including moisturizing daily. During cold and dry months, it may be time to change up your moisturizer. You can learn more about picking the best moisturizer by reading our recent blog post.
If your skin is extremely dry and cracked, you might try adding a moisturizer with beeswax. Bees make one of the oldest raw ingredients that when used in skincare products forms a protective barrier on the skin’s surface. When beeswax is used in skincare products, it protects skin from environmental irritants and winter weather. Beeswax create a barrier all well allowing the skin to breathe freely, it is an exceptional non-comedogenic (non-pore blocking) ingredient.
One of our favorite products for winter is zero waste beeswax lotion bars. We call lotion bars or bee bars. You may also know them as solid lotion bars. Lotion bars can come in tubes, tins, or sticks.
The bars are a concentration of quick absorbing oils, butters, and beeswax to protect and nourish your skin. This provides a moisture packed bar that remains solid at room temperate and melts with the warmth of your body. In addition to the skin loving properties they are portable, eco friendly, and are long lasting.
If you search online, you will find several recipes and videos on how to make lotion bars. When we started making lotion bars we used the Wellness Mama lotion bar recipe.
The homemade lotion bar recipe includes equal parts coconut oil, shea butter, and beeswax. You can add in vitamin e oil and essential oils to increase the nourishing powers of the bar.
Our recommendation is to make the lotion bars and place warm oil mixture in silicone molds. We prefer a 1.5” circle lotion bar mold, so the bars will fit in 2” sealable tins. Once you determine your container, gather your ingredients.
Instructions:
1. Combine beeswax and coconut oil in double boiler and heat over medium heat, while stirring.
2. When all ingredients are melted, remove from heat and add shea butter. Continue to stir until melted.
3. Stir in optional ingredients (vitamin e and essential oil). We love using lavender essential oil, patchouli essential oil, and orange essential oil to create a beautiful scent and add to the healing properties.
4. Pour mixture into molds and allow bars to cool and harden.
5. Allow bars to sit for 24-hours and then remove from mold.
As you get comfortable with the recipe, you can substitute oils and butters. We recommend trying mango butter and cocoa butter. When you swap out oils, mango butter, or cocoa butter. When making changes may have to adjust the rationale of oils, butters, and beeswax. We stick with the same mold, but it would be fun to swap out shapes for holiday gifts. Hearts for Valentines, Flowers for teacher gifts, etc.
Don't want to make them
If you would like us to do the work you can purchase our lotion bars for $7 on our website. We promise you will love these simple nourishing bars.
