So what's this no heat method anyway...and why do I care?

Why I'm so happy you asked! When I began making my own lotion I started experimenting with some recipes off the internet like many others. There was heating, cooling, adding stuff just at the right time, yada, yada, bla, bla, etc. And let's be honest, full time job, a husband, and 2 kids, and the first thing that comes to mind is... ain't nobody got time for that, if you know what I mean.

Not to mention, when it was all said and done I had a product that was quite waxy (due to the beeswax to hold it all together) and I wasn't even sure if any of my essential oils were still in working order since I had essentially (no pun intended) cooked them. You see...I have issues following directions (and recipes quite honestly) and never did anything at the right time. Plus it was just all together too involved and wasn't producing the yummy whipped cream type product I was fantasizing about. 

Then I got interested in Shea butter because I did start to notice that the coconut oil as a primary ingredient (while one of my FAVORITE substances on earth!) can, believe it or not, start to dry your skin out...weird right?? I thought the few people that had mentioned this were off their kilter until it started happening to me of course. I'll have to do some research on why that is and get back to you.

At any rate, I went back to the internet and started watching what people did with Shea butter to prep it for use since it comes in kind of a lumpy mound. Well everyone and their mother was melting it (yeesh with the melting already!) one way or another, sometimes very elaborately and messily to be quite frank. It wasn't attractive. I thought...if this is what I have to do to use Shea butter, forget it!! Plus I wanted to figure out how NOT TO COOK OUT the good stuff, like...no heat at all (OK, OK mainly because as previously mentioned I wasn't sophisticated enough to add things at the right time and remember to take it off the heat before this or that, AND also help with common core math homework while simultaneously cooking dinner...OK??!!) 

So I put on my cooking cap and thought if I could add enough moist ingredients to the Shea butter, I bet I could whip it up with pure electric mixer power!! Well, guess what? IT WORKED!! I had to work out the odds and ends and fling lotion all over the kitchen in the process but the result was something...well...that looked edible...hence, the 'Body Food.' Although good as it looks it's not super tasty. I know this because my son felt the need to eat some, whereby I had to eat it just in case it was somehow toxic, even though I knew it wasn't and besides, how would my eating it along with him help the matter?? Again, what common core math has done to my brain...

Sooo, that's how it all came about. I call it 'double whipped' because I mix it for several minutes in the heavy duty KitchenAid mixer initially, and then I put some in a smaller bowl and whip it again with an electric handheld mixer and get MOST of the Shea chunkies smoothed out before it goes in the tins. I can't promise you won't EVER find tiny rogue blobs of Shea every now and again but these melt right down when they come in contact with your warm skin.

And that ladies and gentlemen, was the evolution of my double whipped, no heat method!!