If you’ve tried DIY body butters or other butter/oil body products, or even balms (these contain some wax in addition to the butter and oils) in the past, you may have encountered the skincare DIYer’s first challenge: gritty or granular products.

I have some tips for you on how to avoid it, but first I want to tell you about a few important things.

Grainy body butters don’t break down, they work just as well, and the “grainy” texture will usually melt on skin contact and have the same wonderful end results on your skin.

The grit is nothing but the fatty particles of butter that can form if your product does not cool fast enoughor if your product is stored in areas where the temperature fluctuates enough to partially melt and re-solidify your product. This can occur naturally in a home where the temperature fluctuates by 10-20 degrees, or it can happen when your product is in transit and sitting in a van for a few hours, or in a warehouse (for example, UPS or USPS).

Choosing all-natural products that do not contain emulsifiers, stabilizers and other “chemicals” or synthetic ingredients comes at a small price – a possible variation in textures and some graininess. The choice is ultimately yours, but since these products do not lose their effectiveness and it is simply an aesthetic flaw, I ask that you do not stress if your healthy DIY body butter or natural product has a certain grittiness.

Avoid granulated butter – experiment A vs. B

I have made two sets of body butters, one with the wrong way to go (test A) and the other with the right way to go (test B).

Both sets of butters were made with the same ingredients and simple formulas:

Body Butter #1: Unrefined Shea Butter

Body Butter #2: Unrefined Shea Butter + Apricot Oil

Body Butter #3: Unrefined Shea Butter + Apricot Oil + Beeswax

I chose very common ingredients because for the purposes of this experiment it is not critical to use one butter or oil over another. The COOLING system is what will produce either a smooth or grainy end product.

The first step, as it is in most formulas, is to melt your ingredients. I used a double boiler system by adding about 2 inches of water to a shallow pot. I put it on low heat and put my 3 body butter ingredients in separate glass containers. Then I put the containers in the pot.

I let everything melt completely. Body Butter #1 and #2 were quick to melt, about 15 minutes. The 3rd took almost 45 minutes of constant stirring to melt the beeswax.

Then I poured everything into jars. And this is where the experiment starts.

Experiment A – the wrong way

I placed a set of each of the 3 body butters, 1A, 1B and 1C, on the counter in my kitchen to cool at room temperature. My house is kept at about 72F, but this would work the same if your home temperature is somewhere between 50F and 80F (below or above that is not common unless you live in the arctic or tropical forest and have no heat- or cooling system: / )

This gradual, slow cooling of your body butter creates a separation of the fattest parts of your body butter, this will show in graininess throughout your formula. Products with beeswax will be similar, although beeswax is faster to cool, there will still be some graininess in the final result.

Experiment B – the right way

I placed the second batch of 3 body butters in the fridge (2A, 2B, 2C) and this allowed the ingredients to cool quickly, giving the oily particles no time to separate and become grainy.

The freezer can also be used for this step, but for this article I want to stick to the simplest ways to do this process first.

Using the freezer, whipping up your body butter, and having more layered or complex formulas is easy once you master these basic steps.

In summary, it’s all about how quickly you cool your body butters.

What if I do it the right way, but over time my product still gets grainy?

As I mentioned earlier, one cause of grainy body butter is temperature fluctuations when the product is stored or when it is shipped.

If you follow the correct method above (Experiment B), your product should be stable, even if it melts a bit, and your best bet in this case is to refrigerate the partially melted body butter for a few hours to get it. back to its normal consistency. You can then store it at room temperature. You can also check out my previous article on fixing granulated butters here.

That’s it, ladies and gentlemen.

I hope you found this helpful, please leave any questions or comments you have on this topic and chime in with any other tricks or tips you have for us DIY skincare fanatics 🙂