Lotion Bars

This idea of making lotion bars, started with seeing it on a blog somewhere a long time ago.  I even purchased the ingredients, a double broiler (purchased three states away and hand carried it home with me on the plane), and have had this task on my to do list for about two years.  It has sat on my shelf waiting for me to get the courage to actually make it, because I thought it would be a hard task to accomplish.  Boy, was that an understatement.

First, I put all the ingredients in the double broiler and proceeded to melt all of it until it was in complete liquid form.

Then I poured into the molds.  I only used three of this mold, as I had used up most of the product in the mini cupcake pan and the regular cupcake pan.  This way I had smaller disks of the lotion bars for gifts and give aways.

I was trying different sizes, and different ways of how the product would set up in the different molds.  I will not be using the paper cupcake holders next time, as too much of the product comes off on the paper and is wasted.  After the liquid hardens, the product just pops out of the molds, easy peasy.  

So then came the next dilemma, how to wrap the product for distribution.  Ahh, wax paper did the trick, with some nice little labels listing the product information.  By the way, I purchased all of the product used in the lotion bars at Bramble Berry, Soap Making Supplies.  They sell much more than soap making supplies and everything they sell is 100% natural, including the process to produce items like their shea butter.  The link to their site can be found here, and they also have a blog that gives instructions, videos, and recipes to make things like these lotion bars.

My lotion bars only contain beeswax, shea butter, avocado oil, and cherry blossom fragrance (which they provided as a free sample with my order).  The harden bar, when rubbed on the skin will soften enough from body heat, and then you just rub it in like a normal hand lotion.  Just not as messy.

The final dilemma came after one would open the bar, how to store the bar for later and ongoing use? My first thought would be just a plain old ziploc sandwich bag, or just keep rewrapping it in the wax paper, but that was not acceptable to me.  I needed to make a pretty bag to hold it in, but did not want to use fabric as it would smear and come through the fabric, making a mess.  

 I had some PUL fabric left over from a swim bag I made, and some clear plastic table cover material I had left over from this post bag, and thought it would make a pretty bag.  I also wanted to have easy in and out access, so I used a pattern called a snap bag.  This is where the bag snaps open and closed using thin metal bars at the top of the bag (actually, most snap bag makers use metal measuring tape cut up to size).  This is what the outcome is for my lotion bars:

My husband took the mini sized ones to work to give out to the girls at the front desk area, and they all really liked them, and one even ordered one of the larger round disks for her husband.  Another one wants to buy a bar, but fragrance free.  Which was going to be my next batch anyway, so I will be selling another bar next week.  I know that might sound like a small deal to those of you who sell big time in homemade items, but this was just something I wanted to do for myself and already I have sold one and have an order! This is big for me.   Yipee!

Warmest...