Infused with a sweet blend of dried florals and enriched with skin nourishing sunflower and sweet almond oils, this DIY body oil is perfect for moisturizing your skin and is the perfect addition to add to your pregnancy safe skin care routine.
Floral DIY Body Oil For Hydrated Pregnancy Safe Skin Care
When I first started diving into herbalism years ago, one of the first places that I was drawn to was learning how to create homemade non-toxic skincare products that I could use to support my own health and wellness and that I could make to share with my friends and family. Then when I got pregnant, I started looking into pregnancy safe skin care that I could use to keep my skin hydrated and hopefully prevent stretch marks.
While I think my lack of stretch marks during pregnancy had more to do with genetics then my DIY body oil, the practice of putting my floral infused DIY body oil on as part of my pregnancy safe skin care routine was so relaxing and a really nice way that I learned to better care for myself during pregnancy.
How To Make A Floral DIY Body Oil At Home
Ready to make your first floral DIY body oil for your skin? For this process we will be using the solar infusion method which utilizes the solar energy of the sun to gently warm the oil and help infuse the beneficial properties of the herbs and flowers into your oil of choice.
Step One
- Using the folk herbalism method for making herb infused oil, fill a sanitized glass jar of your choice half way with your dried herbs and flowers.
Step Two
- Next, cover your dried herbs and flowers with a carrier oil of your choice until the oil is roughly 1 inch above the herbs. This should bring the oil almost to the top of your jar, leaving about 1/2 inch to 1 inch of head space.
Step Three
- Place a small square of wax paper or cheese cloth over your jar and then cover with a tight fitting lid. The wax paper or cheese cloth will help protect the herb infused oil from coming in contact with any coating on the inside of the lid.
- Roll the jar back and forth until the dried herbs and flowers have been completely saturated and mixed into the oil.
Step Four
- Place the har with your oil and herbs infusing into a paper bag or cover with a cloth napkin or tea towel and place in a sunny window sill.
Step Five
- Every few days for 1-3 weeks roll the jar back and forth to mix the herb infused oil.
- On sunny days you can also move the oil outside directly into the sun, just be sure to keep the jar covered to protect the quality of the herbs and oils from denaturing.
Step Six
- Once your oil has infused, line a funnel with a few pieces of cheese cloth and place the funnel in a new sanitized glass jar.
- Pour all of the herb infused oil into the cheese cloth and using your hands strongly squeeze as much of the oil out through the cheese cloth as you can.
Step Seven
- Cover the jar and allow it to sit overnight. During this time any remaining herb sediment will have moved to the bottom of the jar which you can again strain using a coffee filter, or you can leave the oil as is if the small amount of sediment doesn’t bother you.
Step Eight
- At this point ideally pour your floral DIY body oil into an amber glass jar and add a few drops of vitamin E oil. If you would like your oil to have an even stronger scent you can also at this point add some essential oils. Just make sure not to exceed more than 20 drops of essential oil per every 6 teaspoons of carrier oil for a safe 2% dilution.
- Label your golden floral and herb infused oil and enjoy its nourishing and moisturizing benefits on your summer skin.
Tips For Making The Best Floral DIY Body Oil
While making your own floral DIY body oil is a pretty fool proof process, there are a few things you will want to keep in mind for making the healthiest, and highest quality infused oil possible. Like any recipe your end product will only be as good as the ingredients you started with and the care you take along the way.
- Always use high quality and sustainably sourced herbs and flowers for your diy body oil. Ideally you always want to opt for organic certified sources as well to ensure that no harmful pesticides or other chemicals came in contact with the herbs and flowers you are using for your infusions.
- On that note always source your herbs from a supplier that you trust and that has strong sustainability standards in place. I personally source all of my dried herbs and flowers from Mountain Rose Herbs whose quality and sustainability standards are incredible.
- Choose a carrier oil that feels good on your skin! We each are unique and some carrier oils will feel better on each persons individual skin than others. So pay attention to what oils feel the most moisturizing for your skin and focus on utilizing those in your herb oil infusions.
- Opt for dried herbs over fresh herbs for making herb oil infusions, especially if you envision storing your herbal oils for extended periods of time. Using fresh herbs introduces moisture to your herbal infusions and can lead to mold growth, and a wasted oil.
- For long term storage, always store your diy body oil in dark amber jars that will limit the amount of light that reaches the oil and keep the herb infusion from denaturing.
- When making a solar herb infused oil with heat from the sun always cover your infusing jars with a paper bag or a cloth to keep the direct sun rays from impacting the quality of the herbs and oil.
Ingredients You Will Need For Making This Floral DIY Body Oil
Making homemade floral and herb infused oils is actually quite simple and requires only a few ingredients and materials to get started. For this summer solar herb infused body oil you will need the following below. You can also feel free to experiment with different skin nourishing oils like jojoba oil or other floral/herb blends to suit your specific preferences. Once you get the hang of making your own herb infused oils that sky really is the limit for what you can create.
- 2 Glass Mason Jars With Lid
- 1 Amber Glass Jar With Lid
- Paper Bag Or Cloth Napkin
- Wax Paper
- Cheese Cloth
- Funnel
- Sunflower Oil
- Sweet Almond Oil
- Vitamin E Oil
- Dried Calendula Flowers
- Dried Rose Petals
- Dried Lavender Flowers
- Optional: Lavender and Rose Essential Oil
Floral DIY Body Oil For Hydrated Skin
I prefer to use the “folk herbalism” method of making herb infused oils, which allows you to use your instincts when blending your herb infused oils rather than measuring out very specific quantities. When using the folk method of herb infused oil making you will fill a glass jar roughly 1/2 way will herbs and then cover the herbs with enough oil to cover the herbs completely by one inch.
A simple ratio for this method is to use about 1 ounce of dried herbs to 10 ounces of oil. So depending on how large your jar is and how much oil you wish to end up with you should adjust your herb/floral quantity accordingly.
Ingredients
- Dried Organic Rose Buds
- Dried Organic Lavender Flowers
- Dried Organic Calendula Flowers
- Sunflower Oil
- Sweet Almond Oil
- Organic Rose Essential Oil
- Organic Lavender Essential Oil
- Vitamin E Oil
Methods
- Using the folk herbalism method, fill a sanitized glass jar of your choice half way with your dried herbs and flowers.
- Next, pour a mixture of half sunflower oil and half sweet almond oil over your dried herbs and flowers until the oil is roughly 1 inch above the herbs. This should bring the oil almost to the top of your jar, leaving about 1/2 inch to 1 inch of head space.
- Next place a small square of wax paper or cheese cloth over your jar and then cover with a tight fitting lid. The wax paper or cheese cloth will help protect the herb infused oil from coming in contact with any coating on the inside of the lid.
- Roll the jar back and forth until the dried herbs and flowers have been completely saturated and mixed into the oil.
- Place in a paper bag or cover with a cloth napkin or tea towel and place in a sunny window sill.
- Every few days for 1-3 weeks roll the jar back and forth to mix the herb infused oil.
- On sunny days you can also move the oil outside directly into the sun, just be sure to keep the jar covered to protect the quality of the herbs and oils from denaturing.
- Once your oil has infused, line a funnel with a few pieces of cheese cloth and place the funnel in a new sanitized glass jar.
- Pour all of the herb infused oil into the cheese cloth and using your hands strongly squeeze as much of the oil out through the cheese cloth as you can.
- Cover the jar and allow it to sit overnight. During this time any remaining herb sediment will have moved to the bottom of the jar which you can again strain using a coffee filter, or you can leave the oil as is if the small amount of sediment doesn’t bother you.
- At this point ideally pour your floral and herb infused oil into an amber glass jar and add a few drops of vitamin E oil. If you would like your oil to have an even stronger scent you can also at this point add some essential oils. Just make sure not to exceed more than 20 drops of essential oil per every 6 teaspoons of carrier oil for a safe 2% dilution.
- Label your floral DIY body oil and enjoy its nourishing and moisturizing benefits as a part of your pregnancy safe skin care routine.
