Welcome to a colorful and fun article on how to add a splash of color or tint to your DIY Body Butters, Lotions, Lotion Bars and Lip Balms!

This is a basic beginner’s article on how to add a nice tint to your skin care products using only natural products.

Two simple ways to color your skincare

1. Mica powder / Eye shadow

The most common way to add color to your homemade body butters or products is glitter.

Mica is a natural product derived from rock, that’s really the simplest explanation. Mother Earth has rocks, crystals and other naturally occurring deposits that have a color. When you grind the material down to a powder form and add some color pigments, you have glitter.

It revolves around some questionable ways in which this product is extracted and produced, and I’ve read that some countries use less labor to achieve this. Welcome to capitalism, I guess. I personally cannot stop all the evil in the world and forcing a child to work is outrageous (note to self – asking your children to clean their room and do the dishes does not count as forced labour).

What you can do to avoid this unethical practice is to research your supplier and be satisfied that they are honest and ethical and that they only use fair labor to produce their glitter.

Eye shadow to color your skin care

This is an easy alternative to adding color to your body butter and adds some sparkle to your products. We all have some unused eyeshadow that just doesn’t look good on the eyes, but because of the colorful options, can be used in small doses in your skin care.

How much glitter should you use?

For the homemaker or DIY enthusiast, you can simply eyeball how much to add to your formula. I always start with a teaspoon for a formula that makes about 8-10 oz of Body Butter and I add more as needed

When to add Mica

Because glitter is in powder form, the best way to incorporate it into a body butter is before the whipping step. You can fold it in (hey Schitt’s Creek fans, you know that fold in the cheese scene, right?). Simply add a little at a time, fold it in gently so it doesn’t get everywhere, then decide if you need a little more to get the color or shade you want.

It’s fun to add a pop of color AND a sparkly shimmer too, gold or silver are the typical pigments that leave a subtle tint on your skin and make it glow in the sun.

2. Butter and oils

The other 100% natural way to add a tint to your body butter is to use butters and oils that have an inherent color tint. This includes:

Raw cocoa butter – it’s a dark creamy colour

Blue Tansy Essential Oil – this gives a blue hue

Cold-pressed rosehip oil – it has a nice amber or close to red colour

Yellow Shea Butter – this butter contains a small percentage of a yellow African root that gives it a yellow color. When added in a small dose, it gives your products a golden/yellow tint

There are other natural oils and butters that have a more intense color and feel free to research away, but you get the idea, right?

How much to use and when to add these

These ingredients are added at the melting step. In the recipe below, I added cocoa butter and rosehip oil at the melting stage in a 1:1 ratio (1 oz butter to 1 oz oil), that way the ratio of butter to carrier oil stayed consistent with my first recipe that has glitter.

Recipes in this article

In both recipes I used a ratio of 40% butter to 60% carrier oils. This makes for a soft body butter that is easy to apply to your skin and melts quickly on skin contact. Start with a small amount because these body butters are water-free, which makes them very rich. I recommend using them after a shower or bath when your skin is damp and your pores are open and receptive to more body butter absorption.

First recipe – Dyeing with mica

4 oz mango butter

6 oz Apricot oil

Glitter (I used about 2 teaspoons, this can be varied depending on how vivid you want the product to be)

Optional (not shown in video): 20-40 drops of essential oils of your choice

Second recipe – Coloring with butter and oils

4 oz mango butter

6 oz almond oil

1 oz cocoa butter

1 oz rosehip oil

Optional (not shown in video): 20-40 drops of essential oils of your choice

Easy steps to make your tinted body butter

1. Add mango butter and carrier oil of choice (apricot, almond, or any other light oil) to a heatproof container, place over a pan of 1-2 inches of water, and let it all melt slowly over low heat.
2. When the butter is completely melted, stir, remove from heat and refrigerate for about 1 hour, or until the top and sides are set but the center is still soft.
3. Optional: Add optional essential oils
4. Add glitter to recipe #1
5. Fold in and stir to incorporate your colors
6. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for a few minutes, scraping down the sides as you go, until you have a creamy consistency
7. Fill your jars and voila, your amazing body moisturizer is ready to use!

Store these at room temperature in a jar with a lid or similar container. Use on your body daily for the ultimate in natural moisture and relief for any dry skin.

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