I’ve learned how to make the best homemade lotion using violets! It’s naturally ultra-moisturizing and uses real organic ingredients instead of a chemical cocktail on my body’s largest organ, my skin. Let me show you how to make your own!
Years and years ago, I saw a recipe in a natural health & beauty book for a homemade lotion using violets. It sounded simply lovely to me! But it was an awful recipe! Instead of a pale lavender like I imagined it was seaweed green and instead of a creamy lotion, it was more like a salve.
Surely I had done something wrong! But there were no more violets to harvest that year and I waited all the way to the next to try it again. Still didn’t turn out. How frustrating!
I gave up though every year when the violets bloomed turning them into a lovely homemade lotion was in the back of my mind. Finally, this winter I read a tutorial on My Healthy Green Family about how to make a basic lotion recipe and I tried it (sans violets)… and it worked beautifully!
Between that lotion and switching to a real, all-natural milk soap I was able to bypass all of that awful winter skin dryness that plagues me each year and should have been especially bad now that we heat 100% with wood!
I played around with the recipe and experimented with different oils to see how they behaved. In the end, I think I like the olive oil the best for my skin. It was the first one I tried and though the consistency isn’t quite as firm, the grapeseed oil made my skin break out- which NEVER happens to me. The sweet almond oil worked really well, but I normally have dry skin and the olive oil was a tad more moisturizing. I’d like to try using meadowfoam seed oil next. It’s very close to human sebum and helps lock in moisture and nutrients. Experiment like I did and find out which works best for you!
Violet Lotion: Ingredients & Tools
Violet Infused Herbal Oil– Violets are vitamin rich and known to be effective at relieving diverse skin conditions. To make an herbal infused oil, simply place a handful of fresh or dried herbs (for this recipe use violet leaves and flowers) in a mason jar and cover them with the oil you’d like to use. Either set them in the sunshine for a few days or set the jar in a pan of water on the lowest setting on your stove for several hours. (I used the “warming” burner on a medium setting and left the pan there for a day.) Strain the herbs out through cheesecloth and store in a dark place until you’re ready to use it.
Rose Water– Wonderful especially for aging skin, rose water acts as a toner, helps reduce darkness under the eyes and minimizing fine lines.
Aloe Vera Juice– Not to be confused with aloe vera gel. Aloe vera juice is very hydrating and moisturizing without being at all greasy. Full of vitamins & antioxidants, it helps to combat aging and promote tighter skin.
Beeswax– Works to bring the the other 3 ingredients into a more solid state. But it also creates a breathable, protective layer that helps your skin retain moisture.
Essential Oils, Natural Purple Brazilian Clay, and Vitamin E– All optional ingredients, but they do have a way of making this lotion feel really special. Except the vitamin E. It has a way of helping the lotion last longer.
Recipe for Homemade Lotion using Beautiful Violets
Recipe for Homemade Lotion using Beautiful Violets
Ingredients
- 4 ounces violet infused oil- try sweet almond oil, olive oil, or grapeseed oil
- 3 ounces rose water
- 1 ounce aloe vera juice
- ½ ounce beeswax
- ½ teaspoon Purple Brazilian Clay, optional
- 20 drops essential oils of your choice (Try rose geranium, optional)
- ¼ teaspoon Vitamin E, optional
Instructions
- Measure out the violet infused oil and the beeswax into a quart-sized mason jar.
- Fill a saucepan with a few inches of water, put the jar in the water, and bring the water to a boil on the stovetop, melting the wax.
- Once the wax is melted, remove the jar from the heat, and whisk in the clay, vitamin E, and essential oil (if using them.)
- Allow the oil/wax mixture to cool down to room temperature while you measure out the remaining ingredients into a small jar.
- When the mixture is cooled enough, the hardening wax will cause the oil to become cloudy and the edges will start to harden.
- Stir the water and aloe vera juice together.
- Slowly add in a stream of aloe/water while using your stick blender to emulsify the mixture.
- Blend with the stick blender for a couple of minutes until the lotion is creamy and smooth and there aren't any streaks of oil or chunks of beeswax remaining.
- Store, covered, in a cool place. If you won't be using it very quickly, refrigeration will prolong the shelf-life.
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Quinn, I’m assuming you used wild violets for this? They are so abundant in our yard this year, I was wondering what I could do with them!
Yes ma’am, beautiful little wild violets. What a blessing to have so many 🙂 If you’re looking for something else to do with them, I saw this post on FB the other day you might be interested in (you should be able to see it even if you’re not on FB cause it’s a page account… I think.) http://www.facebook.com/TheNerdyFarmWife/posts/1014680635209091
LOTS of ideas there!
this sounds lovely, and my wild violets are in bloom, so voila, I'm going to try this. I'll use avocado oil, it's so nourishing for the skin, and also my OO is very yellow, and strong smelling, I prefer a clear oil. I'm going to try a bit of blueberry juice maybe to colour the cream, hope it won't make it go bad.
I have made this lotion every spring since I tried the recipe. I’ve given it to friends as gifts and everyone thinks it’s the most wonderful stuff out there. Thanks for such a wonderful recipe.
Great idea! If you strain it well, I wouldn't think it would go bad any more quickly than it would otherwise. If you're concerned you could always try Vitamin E oil as a preservative. That's the other great thing about this recipe- though it doesn't last long enough for me to test it to be sure, violets are loaded with Vitamin E so I wonder if that helps to naturally preserve the lotion while it also nourishes your skin?
Could you use coconut oil and skip the beeswax ?
Hmmm… with the water in the recipe I'm not sure it would firm up enough to be a lotion. You could always try though. I'm wondering if you might not be better off to try making a body butter. I made this one I'm linking to (I've used it every day this winter for myself) and often will leave out the beeswax altogether. You could also leave out the lanolin if you want and then substitute the violet infused olive oil for the sweet almond oil and rosemary infused oil. https://www.reformationacres.com/2015/01/natural-homemade-udder-butter.html
Hi there- very confused by the instructions. They only tell you what to do with the oil wax and “water”. Is that in reference to the rose water? When do we add all the other ingredients? Thank you!!! Yours looks great and I want to be sure and nail that consistency
Sorry about that! You can add them to the melted oil/wax before it cools or at the end. Neither will affect consistency, but you might find you like the way the clay gets mixed in better in one over the other. By water, it would be the rose water or just plain water. (Most of the time I use plain water.) You could also use witch hazel, magnesium oil, or hydrosol in place of water.