Reformulating Your Body Butter
Try shea butter for the highest melting point. Shea butter is a classic ingredient that’s included in a lot of body butters, both due to its high melting point and the fact that it’s great for your skin. You can add shea butter into your body butter because it won’t melt until it reaches 113 °F (45 °C). Refined shea butter has a strong smell, but it doesn’t contain as much fat.
Incorporate mango butter for a very high melting point and a nice smell. Mango butter has one of the highest melting points around (about 86 °F (30 °C)). For an even better chance of keeping your body butter solid, add mango butter as the main ingredient. Contrary to its name, mango butter doesn’t actually smell like mangos. It’s made from mango seeds, so it does smell sweet and fatty, but not fruity or flavorful.
Use coconut oil for a fairly high melting point and a moisturizer. Coconut oil has a melting point of 78 °F (26 °C), meaning it can stay solid for a long time before turning to liquid. If you can, substitute your main body butter ingredient for coconut oil to have a better chance of keeping your body butter solid. Look for the solid form of coconut oil, not the liquified form, as that has a lower melting point.
Pick beeswax to make your body butter more solid. Beeswax is a great ingredient to use in body butter since it dries as a solid. It’s considered a “hard butter,” not a soft butter, since it doesn’t melt until it reaches 144 °F (62 °C). If you are going to put beeswax in your body butter, you may need to melt it down first and then put it in your recipe.
Shipping Body Butter
Keep the body butter cold until it’s time to ship. To give yourself the most time before your body butter melts, place them in the fridge until it’s time to package them up. If you have the space, you can even put the packages in your fridge until you have to send them out. Keeping the body butter as cold as you can before you ship it will give it more time to solidify so that it doesn’t melt during transit. Whipped body butter may loose some of its texture in the fridge. You may be able to re-whip it with an electric beater.
Wrap the body butter in bubble wrap for extra insulation. Before putting your body butter in the package, wrap a layer of bubble wrap around it and seal it with packing tape. Not only will this keep the shipment safe during transit, it will also insulate the body butter and keep it colder for longer as it ships. You can find bubble wrap at most packing supply or home goods stores. You can also try a thermal insulating bag for even more insulation.
Add ice packs to the packaging. Grab a couple of gel ice packs and activate them by cracking the gel inside. Place 2 to 3 ice packs around your body butter inside of the package before you seal it up to keep the butter cool during transit. Adding ice packs can make your package heavier, so be sure to adjust your shipping prices in case they increase. Gel ice packs can stay cold for 1 to 2 days, but they won’t stand up to high heat or direct sunlight. Try purchasing ice packs that are made for shipping food. You can find these online for around $3 per ice pack.
Drop your packages off when the mail gets sent out. Depending on what company you are shipping through, they may have different time periods when mail gets sent out. Try to track those time periods and drop off your packages right before the mail gets sent out of the processing facility to keep your body butter from sitting around for longer than it needs to. You can check the website of the shipping company to see when they actually send out their packages. Some shipping companies don’t send out packages or mail on Sundays.
Storing Body Butter
Open your package of body butter right away. If you ordered some body butter in the mail, keep an eye on the tracking number so you know when it’s being delivered. The sooner you get to your body butter and open it up, the better the chances are that you can prevent it from melting in the hot sun. No matter what kind of packaging the company used to ship your body butter, if it’s left sitting outside in the hot sun all day, it will melt. If you are shipping your body butter out to customers, consider telling them to take their package in right away to avoid letting it sit in the sun.
Put your body butter in the fridge if it’s melted. If you open up your body butter and it’s all melted inside, pop it in the fridge for about 1 hour until it gets hard again. If the body butter is whipped, it may shrink down to about half the size in its container, but it’s still all there! If you’d like to re-whip your body butter, scoop it out once it’s hard and use an electric mixer to make it fluffy and light again. You can keep your body butter in the fridge for a cooling, soothing effect as you put it on.
Store your body butter in a cool, dry place. To prevent your body butter from melting once it’s in your home, store it in a cabinet or pantry that isn’t too hot or humid. The bathroom isn’t a great place because of all the humidity from baths and showers, so consider keeping your body butter in the kitchen or a closet. Try not to store anything that can be affected by humidity in the bathroom.
Keep your body butter out of direct sunlight. Even if your body butter ingredients have a high melting point, they probably can’t stand up to the heat from the sun. No matter what, try to keep your body butter out of direct sunlight for long periods of time to avoid a messy, melted situation. Even if you melt your body butter multiple times, you can keep putting it back in the fridge to harden it up again.
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