My failed attempt at making breast milk lotion

Well, my youngest daughter is now 17 months old and it has been several months since she took a bottle of milk.  She also has no desire to drink milk from a sippy cup.  So, I have about 25 oz of left over breast milk in my freezer that is getting a little bit old.  It's from a few months ago and before throwing it away, I googled what I could do with it.  I decided the most fun thing would be to make my own breast milk lotion! (Breast milk ice cream was a close second).

 

So I found a recipe here.

The recipe looked easy enough:

BREAST MILK LOTION

 

3 ounces of breastmilk

3 ounces oil (grapeseed oil for sensitive skin)

1 tablespoon of beeswax

a few drops of Vitamin E oil

optional: add essential oils for therapy/scent

 

Microwave the oil and beeswax slowly just until the beeswax melts, approximately 3 minutes.

Add the Vitamin E oil and slowly pour in the room temperature breastmilk while whisking rapidly until it thickens

(you can use an immersion blender to mix if preferred)

Pour into shallow jars or lotion tubs. It will continue to thicken as it cools. Refrigerate and use for up to 3 months.

recipe from: http://www.justbreastfeeding.com/benefits-to-breastfeeding/breast-milk-lotion-recipe/

So off I went to Whole Foods to find all the ingredients.  Turns out Whole Food didn't have beeswax so I was told I could substitute shea butter for beeswax.  So, here is how I made my first batch of breast milk lotion.  (disclaimer- it didn't turn out too well.  I think I used too much shea butter and it was really watery and kind of gross).

1. Buy the grapeseed oil, shea butter, vitamin E oil, eucalyptus essential oil.

It cost me exactly $34.73.  The most expensive things were the tiny vial of essential oils and the shea butter.  I picked eucalyptus. 

2. Defrost the breast milk if needed. I usually immerse a bag in a glass bowl within a pot of boiling water, then when the milk gets slushy I pour it directly into the glass bowl.

3. Melt the shea butter and grapeseed oil.  Here is where I was confused.  Since I was substituting  shea butter for beeswax, I was only supposed to use one tablespoon of shea butter but it really didn't look like enough.  So I used a few more tablespoons.  Still, the mixture was not hard but I figured it would harden later. 

Here is just the shea butter.  Alone it looks powdery but it if you rub it on your skin it turns oily right away. 



To measure 3 oz of grapeseed oil I just used an old breast milk container I had laying around.

mixed together it really just looked like oil.

4. Now you're supposed to add a few drops of Vitamin E oil and add the eucalyptus drops. I think I used way too much eucalyptus because the stuff in that vial is really concentrated. I imagine if you used essential oils you would know this, but I never had.









Eucalyptus oil cost: $9.39

5. Now add the breast milk.  The recipe said the milk should be room temperature.  Since I only had cold milk recently defrosted I just used that.  Maybe that messed things up?



recently defrosted breast milk.

The mixture started to separate and didn't mix very well at first.



Finally after wisking it together for a while it turned creamy, but still not quite thick enough.

 

That was pretty much it, then I poured everything into a glass jar I had and let it sit in the fridge. 

After about a day the consistency is still not quite right.  It looks like curdled milk to me.  It smells of way too much eucalyptus but not of milk (thankfully).  I tried a little on my skin and it was very oily. 

 

I don't know what I did wrong but it's just not quite right.  I think I'll try again with beeswax this time.