I absolutely LOVE body butter. And now, I’m totally loving my homemade body butter without coconut oil. It’s such a luxurious treat after a long relaxing bath or even a quick shower, which is definitely what I have most of the time. My 2-year-old always thinks I’m secretly having an ice-cream cone (or one of her favorite snacks) when I’m out of her sight for more than 5 minutes and would insist on finding me. So long relaxing bath is but a distant memory.
I’ve made my share of body butter with coconut oil, including this one. But I recently decided to make a homemade body butter without coconut oil. Why? Because not everyone’s skin (including mine, sometimes) can tolerate coconut oil. According to a number of sources, coconut oil has a high comedogenic rating, meaning it can clog pores, causing skin irritation and breakouts. I know. I know. How can anyone say anything bad about coconut oil!? It’s a miracle oil for our skin and body, and can be used to make a ton of great bath, body and personal care items. I know the wonders of coconut oil and use it in my recipes. Search “coconut oil” on this site, and you will pull up quite a few of these recipes.
But . . . Like any amazing beauty products, it doesn’t work for everyone. I have received quite a few comments on this blog from people who say they are allergic to coconut oil. For them and people who worry about clogged pores, this homemade body butter without coconut oil works well, because its main ingredients are shea butter and sunflower oil, neither is comedogenic.
Homemade Body Butter without Coconut Oil
Prep Time: 1 and 1/2 hour (including 1 hour of freezing/waiting period)
Yields: approximately 12 oz of homemade body butter without coconut oil
Ingredients Needed to Make Homemade Body Butter without Coconut Oil
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- Shea Butter – 2/3 cup. I use Raw Unrefined Shea Butter. I’ve also used NOW Foods Shea Butter.
- Sunflower Oil – 1/3 cup. I use Whole Foods Organic Sunflower Oil. You can also try Life-Flo Organic Sunflower Oil, or La Tourangelle Organic Sunflower Oil. I infused my organic sunflower oil with dried Organic Calendula Flowers. Oil infusion is a totally optional step though.
- (Optional) Vitamin E – 10 drops. I use NOW Foods E-Oil. I have also used natural Vitamin E capsules.
- (Optional) Orange Essential Oil – 10 drops. I use NOW Foods Orange Essential Oil; OR
- (Optional) Lavender Essential Oil – 6 drops. I use NOW Foods Lavender Essential Oil, and Tea Tree Essential Oil – 4 drops. I use NOW Foods Tea Tree Essential Oil.
- (Optional) Empty Containers – Ball Jars. I got mine from Target for a few dollars.
As this body butter does not include any synthetic preservatives, I usually make small batches that I know I and/or my loved ones can finish within a month or so of creating it.
How to Make Homemade Body Butter without Coconut Oil
1. Place shea butter and sunflower oil in a container. Here, I used calendula infused sunflower oil.
2. Place container in a pot that has about 2 inches of water. You are creating a double boiler to melt the ingredients.
3. Melt butter and oil completely. It took me about 10 minutes at medium heat on the stove.
4. Place melted ingredients in the freezer for 1 hour. It’s OK to leave it in there longer.
5. Use an electric whisk to whip the frozen homemade body butter without coconut oil.
It took me about 10 minutes to turn the frozen body butter into fluffily whipped homemade body butter without coconut oil. You will notice that the color of the body butter becomes lighter after being whipped.
6. (Optional) Add vitamin E and orange essential oil, OR
7. (Optional) Add vitamin E, lavender essential oil and tea tree essential oil.
8. (Optional) Fold Vitamin E and essential oil into the body butter.
9. Spoon your homemade body butter without coconut oil into clean containers. This luxurious body treat is ready for your enjoyment and/or gifting to some of your lucky loved ones.
That’s it! This is a very simple and quick homemade body butter without coconut oil. It has only 2 main ingredients, shea butter and sunflower oil, both are classified as noncomedogenic and will not clog your pores. Like I mentioned above, you can use organic sunflower oil, or an infused sunflower oil, which was what I did. I’ve recently started to use infused oil in my recipes, and absolutely love it for the added medicinal and therapeutic properties that it has. Stay tuned, my next post will be on how to make your very own infused oil. UPDATE: here’s my post on how to make infused oil.
Will you be giving this homemade body butter without coconut oil recipe a try? I’d love to hear all about your creation and experience. If you like the recipe, be sure to share it and pin it! Feel free to ask me any questions about this homemade body butter recipe or anything else about making your own bath, body and personal care products. Reach out and let’s connect!
Can you add beeswax to the mix to help with melting in hot weather?
Can I substitute the sunflower oil for sweet almond oil for skin and can you provide the grams because my Shea Butter is in a rock . Thanks you have an amazing blog.
I love this. My sister has severe nut allergies so I am thrilled I found you. Can you use cocoa butter instead of sunflower oil? And can you use black current seed oil? I don’t make this to sell, just for personal use.
Thank you 😊
This post is a few years old, but I still have to comment that I LOVE this! I can’t stand coconut oil. Even saying/typing/thinking “coconut oil” makes me break out. But it seems like every single DIY recipe, local soap shop, ETSY shop, natural beauty product, cult-following product, etc ALL have coconut oil.
Every time I turn around, I’m sadly putting that soap, face cream, lip balm, lotion bar, cuticle cream, or whatever back on the shelf because the first or second ingredient is stinkin’ coconut oil. Lots of lost dollars for the small businesses around here on account of coconut oil.
Enter this beauty of a recipe.
I have dry, sensitive, acne-prone skin. I have a holy grail mix of non-comedogenic oils I use in combination with shea for a ultra moisturizing, anti-aging, acne-free night whip. Or winter skin whip. Or what-the-heck-is-this-dry-patch-on-my-chin whip.
I use the recommended 2/3 cup of shea and then add up my combo of liquid oils to reach the recommended 1/3 cup of oil. I heat EXTREMELY gently and slowly so as not to destroy any of the nourishing properties of the oils. Then fridge for a few hours instead of freezer. Whip it up with a mixer. Perfect!
Thanks again — SO MUCH — for putting this out there.
Thanks for sharing your tips. Refrigeration sounds like the result will be easier on my mixer.
Hey Marti! Check out skinbymadi.com. I never use coconut oil in anything and all of my ingredients are non-comedogenic!
Is there a reason to use within a month? There is no water in the recipe and the shelf life of each ingredient individually is much longer. Thanks in advance.
Can a different butter be used… like mango butter or something like that? I don’t like the smell of shea butter so I’m thinking maybe mango butter and jojoba oil…?
What is the shelf life on this? I will be making this with jojoba oil and Shea. I’m really interested in how this turns out! Thank you for this recipe!
I love you for this! It’s really tough sometimes to find natural beauty recipes that are coconut-free. Seems like everything is slathered with coconut oil these days! I’m allergic and I’ve been looking for a recipe like this one. I’m so excited to try it out on my winter skin!
It’s great to know that you’ll be giving this coconut oil free body butter recipe a try! Please keep me posted on how you like it!
Hello Silvia! I just made my first batch of this tonight! So far I love it! I did substitute Avocado oil for the Sunflower oil. I really love the smell of Vanilla Bean or extract. I did put that in tonight but I’m not exactly sure how much I should use? What is your thought on that? The Shea Butter has a pretty distinctive smell but it is SO good for our skin! Thank you very much for sharing your body butter!!
I’m so glad you like this body butter recipe! I haven’t tried adding vanilla extract to my body butter. Vanilla extract usually contains alcohol. I’m not sure how it mixes with body butter. It sounds like it worked pretty well for you though. 🙂 I usually add homemade vanilla bean infused oil, and it does make the body butter smell heavenly. I use the infused oil in place of the sunflower oil. Please let me know if you have any more questions.
Thank you for this recipe without Coconut Oil. I have shell allergies and I was searching the web to see if the body butter could be made without Coconut Oil. I did notice that you used Sunflower seed oil. I am allergic to that as well. I cant eat any chips, popcorn, that have been processed with these shell foods.
Can I use this same recipe and leave out the sunflower seed oil as well I would want to replace it with Joboba oil, or Virgin Olive?
Kindly advise, thank you.
Thank you for reaching out, Betty! You can absolutely substitute sunflower seed oil with jojoba oil or olive oil. I prefer jojoba oil because its scent is not as overwhelming as olive oil. Please keep me posted on how your body butter turns out.
I’m new to the whole diy body butter craze, just having started at Christmas. I’ve gone through two batches of butter using shea butter and coconut oil, but it made my skin feel “picky”, not really itchy. It was almost like a stinging sensation. I finally figured out it could be the coconut oil. I searched for coconut oil free body butter and yours was the first to come up. I tried it today and, hooray! No more prickles! My skin feels fabulous. Thank you!
Yay! I’m so happy that you’ve tried this coconut oil-free body butter recipe and liked it! 🙂 Here’s another body butter made without coconut oil (mint chocolate body butter). Hope you’ll give that a try too.
Thank you so much! You are my DIY body butter hero! I’m one of those people allergic to coconut oil (can’t eat it or rub it on me), and every recipe on Pinterest is saturated in the stuff. So Google led me to you. I look forward to trying this recipe!~
Happy holidays! I’m so glad you found this coconut oil free body butter recipe on google. I’d love to know what you think about it once you’ve given it a try. Also, I’ve posted other coconut oil free body butter recipes, one is a mint chocolate body butter recipe, the other is a whipped shea butter recipe. Hope you’ll try them all.
I can testify that it is awesome!
Can you help me? I made my first batch of body butter and it wasn’t as “whipped creamy” as I thought it would be. It is still amazing and my skin is thrilled! I don’t even care that it’s oily – it’s cold in the midwest! I’m really interested in tips that will help me improve my butter. Thank you so much for sharing your recipe with us!
Absolutely! What’s the issue? If the body butter is too hard, then add a little liquid oil. If the body butter is too soft, then add a little butter (shea butter or cocoa butter). If you want the body butter to be creamier, then keep whipping it with the electric whisk. The longer you whip the body butter, the fluffier it becomes. Please keep me posted on how these tips work out for you.
I just made a different recipe that had 1/2c Shae butter and 2tbsp liquid oil (I used avocado). I really like it but I wasn’t expecting it to be as firm as it is. So my question is, does your ratio make it a little less firm, more like a cream, or does yours also get pretty stiff? Thanks!
Thank you for reaching out! I did some fancy math conversion, and it appears that my body butter recipe uses 2x as much liquid oil as the recipe you used. So if you follow my recipe, your body butter should definitely be creamier, less stiff. But there’s an easy fix for your firm body butter, just add a little more liquid oil, maybe a tablespoon at a time, and whip it again. That will soften your body butter. Also, room temperature can affect the stiffness of your body butter. If you like your home warm and toasty, your body butter will be softer than if your home is on the cooler side. Feel free to reach out with any other questions!
Thank you so much for this recipe! I’ve been searching for a recipe for body lotion/butter that doesn’t contain water or coconut oil for a few weeks now, but was losing hope. I’ve found that for me, lotions with water in them just aren’t as hydrating, and I have several friends who have nut allergies in the home, whether it’s they themselves or a child. This will be perfect to try on myself and then to gift to friends!
I’m so glad you like the recipe! I agree, lotion with water isn’t as hydrating as water-free body butter. Also, lotion with water doesn’t stay fresh for as long as body butter. Here’s another recipe for body butter made without coconut oil, it’s a delicious smelling mint chocolate body butter. You might like it too.
Have you ever tried almond, jojoba or hemp oil instead of sunflower in your body butter without coconut oil?
Yep, I’ve tried both sweet almond oil and jojoba oil. When making a homemade body butter without coconut oil, any liquid oil will work in place of sunflower oil. This includes sweet almond oil, jojoba oil, and hemp oil. What about you? I’d love to know your thoughts on the recipe and how your body butter turned out using oil other than sunflower oil. Let me know! 🙂
Thanks for posting this question and responding! I was about to ask the same question. I don’t have any sunflower oil and really like using sweet almond oil when making my DIY products.
Thank you for reaching out! Sweet almond oil is a super nourishing oil, it’ll make a great body butter. I’d love to know how your body butter made with sweet almond oil turns out. Keep me posted please!
Question: Is there any other oil besides sunflower oil that you would recommend? Avocado perhaps? And is there a specific reason you chose sunflower over other oils?
Great question! I use organic sunflower oil because it’s easy to find. Most health food stores carry organic sunflower oil. Also, I like sunflower oil because it has a low comedogenic rating (between 0 to 2). It doesn’t clog pores like oil with a high comedogenic rating does. Instead of sunflower oil you can also use Argan Oil, or Neem Oil. Both are great for skin and have a low comedogenic rating too (between 0 to 1). Avocado oil also works. Avocado oil’s comedogenic rating is 2. Many people use avocado oil without any issues. If you use avocado oil instead of sunflower oil to make this homemade body butter without coconut oil, I’d love to know how it turns out!
My daughter is allergic to coconut as well. She is allergic to peanuts and tree nuts as well and my grandson is allergic to almonds.
I’ve made a body butter they can all use. But I will try your recipes too and see what they think!
I’m learning from many people who read this blog that they or their loved ones are allergic to coconut oil. They also share with me that it’s nearly impossible to find DIY beauty recipes without coconut oil. I’m going to keep this in mind when I’m working on new recipes. I hope to post more coconut-free recipes soon. I’d love to know what you think about this body butter without coconut oil recipe. Recently, I also posted a second coconut oil-free body butter recipe: Mint Chocolate Body Butter without Coconut Oil. I’d love to know what you think about either or both of these recipes.
Thank you so much! I am sensitive to coconut and finding DIY beauty products without it has been challenging. Going to get shears butter now.
Shea, not shears. Dang Autocorrect!
You are totally right. Many DIY beauty products use coconut oil. I’m glad that you like this body butter that doesn’t use coconut oil. I’ve found that you can often substitute shea butter for coconut oil. So if you see a DIY skincare recipe you like, instead of using coconut oil, you can try using 75% shea butter. For example, if the recipe calls for 4 tablespoons of coconut oil, then substitute it with 3 tablespoons of shea butter. Give it a try!
This turned out beautifully. Coconut oil has a definite dehydrating effect on my skin, so these ingredients work very well for me. And a little goes a long way, so it should last for quite a while. Thanks so much for sharing 🙂
Great to hear you like the recipe! This is definitely a good body butter for people who don’t like or are allergic to coconut oil.
I will be making this.
That’s great to hear! I’d love to know how you like this recipe. Keep us posted please!