Harmattan hacks: Easy DIY body butter and lip scrub

Harmattan is here!

Well, not quite if you’re in Lagos, but soonish. I’m not looking forward to the dryness, heat, and dustiness, but hey, I’m looking forward to Christmas, and it’s a small price I have to pay.

The dryness is not an excuse to walk around with flaky lips and ashy feet. So I’m sharing the ‘recipe’ for a body butter I made that constantly keeps my body well-oiled and a lip scrub that keeps my lips from flaking.

As usual, n’est pas compliqué!

Here we go!

DIY cocoa shea body butter

What you need:

• Shea butter
• Cocoa butter 
• Coconut oil
• Fragrance
• Bowls
• Blender/ Hand Mixer

Cocoa butter is optional. I added it because I wanted a chocolatey scent in addition to its emollient properties. But it turned out the shea butter is more potent in smell, or maybe I used the wrong quantity. Thankfully, the fragrance oil made it smell a lot better.

Steps to preparing your harmattan-be-gone body butter

1. Combine everything except the fragrance in a stainless steel bowl that can sit on a pot.

2. Place a pot of water on a fire and let boil.

3. Place your bowl of ingredients on the pot. Make sure it’s steel or something that won’t melt. The alternative would be to let it sit in hot water, but that would take longer.

4. While your ingredients are heating up, stir.

5. Once everything has melted together, take it off the fire.

6. Set it on something refrigerator-safe. I transferred mine to a cooler pot.

7. Place it in a fridge until it hardens. Give it 1-2 hours. I placed mine in a freezer because I wanted it to set fast. You know PHCN is unreliable.

8. Scoop and place in a blender/ hand mixer and mix on the highest setting.

Using a blender will result in a creamy consistency, but you’d get whipped butter with a hand mixer. Both are great. I was hoping for whipped body butter, to be honest, but I don’t have a mixer, and this was great enough for me.

Left: I blended everything without melting and freezing. It was watery
Centre: Followed the procedure listed above. It was creamy
Right: Used a spoon to mix it instead of blending. It was oily.

9. Add your fragrance when mixing. If you have essential oils or fragrance oil, add a few drops.

10. Transfer to your jar of choice and voilà! I got these cute little jars from @Packageitng on the gram. You can also reuse an old jar.

Doesn’t it look so good? It melts right into your skin. No more ashiness, no more cracks, your palms will also feel soft from applying it to your skin! I’ve used it on my hair to seal in moisture too.

But hey! Please don’t use it on your face. Coconut oil and cocoa butter are said to be comedogenic. That means they clog your pores and cause breakouts. So please keep it for the rest of your body and use a light moisturizer for your face. Capisce?

Read also: Make Greek Yoghurt in your kitchen (Hint: it’s very easy!)

DIY Nah-mattan sugar lip scrub

I’ve got bars sha! LOL

Exfoliating your lips is as important as exfoliating the rest of your body. And this sugar scrub helps to keep crusty, flaky lips at bay.

You only need two ingredients:

1. Sugar, white/ brown. I always use white because that’s what I have
2. Coconut oil/ olive oil

I always use olive oil because it leaves my lips feeling supple. But I had coconut oil and used that. It was good, but I prefer olive oil.

Direction:

Combine both and mix. I’d say 1 part oil to three parts sugar.

How to use:

1. Apply in a rotating manner to both your upper and lower lip.

2. Rinse with cold water

3. Still feel some loose skin? Use a baby toothbrush to get the rest of the chaff off your lips. You can also use a regular toothbrush, but go easy and do not injure yourself.

4. Apply a lip balm to protect and seal the moisture.

Le fin.

Will you try these? I hope you do!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year in advance!