It can be expensive to buy scented lotion to match your perfume for layering. Here is a simple way to save a lot of money – make your own homemade scented lotion. It is so easy and you can get the exact strength you want. Also, it seems that the scent stays with you better when you apply it in the form of lotions or oils.
Homemade Scented Lotion Recipe
Favorite perfume, liquid scent or essential oils*
Lotion, unscented*
Pour lotion into a container with a lid. Add as much of your perfume or oils that you want to the lotion and stir. I add a little perfume and if it isn’t enough, I add a little more.
*Make sure when you buy essential oils that you buy the kind that you can use on skin.
*If I am going to go through all of this work I like to buy a nicer lotion that I love and that I know works well. I use either Gold Bond or the Wal-Mart copy of Gold Bond.
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Thanks for the recipe. I will look for that lotion to use as a base at Walmart.
Bea don’t forget you can use any unscented lotion you have and like. I have just tried a million lotions over the years and so far the kind I like best is the Gold Bond or the Wal Mart knock off of gold bond which is just as good.
Jill, I’ve tryed to find unscented lotion in many places and it’s hard. I once bought a bottle at a craft store, but that was the only place I’ve found unscented lotion. The next time I go to walmart I will check out the one you mentioned, unless you know of others. Thanks.
sigh disregard the last comment! silly me. I looked at the date on my computer and on the blog page and it said it was the 13th. Don’t know what happened, but it’s the SIXTEENTH! No WONDER it didn’t have a comment space.
Don’t feel bad Darlene I have had more then my share of duhhh moments this week – more then I would care to admit. : ) : )
I make the Dollar Store hand cream. For about $5.00 I can make enough hand cream for a year for my husband and I. I used to spend $350.00 a year on various creams. I use it on my face instead of the 2 forty dollar jars of cream. My husband likes it as well as the cracked heel cream and it’s good to keep my grandchildren’s faces chap free in the winter. Heat the bottles to get all the lotion out. I have emptied out all my lotion containers to make this cream. I save little glass containers to store this in.
I guess I missed something, what is Dollar Store Lotion ?
Thanks
Rita
If you have a Dollar Tree or a store like that they sell their lotion of a dollar so in other words you can use inexpensive unscented lotion to get what smells like expensive lotion with this recipe.
St. Ives makes a good unscented lotion also.
Yes, and it’s not expensive. WalMart sells it.
someone suggested using coconut oil as a base for lotion… what do you think? I buy at Walmart & it might be a good thing?
You can use coconut oil. You really can use most any kind of oil. In the past coconut oil has been a little more expensive although that may not be the case now. Other oils work just as good and in some cases even better.
I use coconut oil all the time.
I mean do you use Dollar Store Hand cream as the base or that you use Dollar Store products and make the hand cream. I am sorry that my earlier post wasn’t more clear
Thanks
Rita
You just use any kind of inexpensive lotion.
I love the idea of making your own lotion with just the scent you like, but my goal in 2012 is to use up all the partial bottles, jars, etc of lotion I have around the house. Everytime I travel or am in the hospital, I find I have a 1/2 bottle (small) of lotion and shampoo that I bring home. I have been using these items on my elbows,knees and feet if I don’t particularly like the scent for my hands. I don’t feel like I am wasting things and can recycle the empty plastic bottles. I am telling everyone not to give me hand lotions any more. And I am trying to remember to bring some from home when I travel so I don’t even have to use the ones in the hotels. One less thing to bring home.
One thing – those little bottles of lotion and shampoos you get from motels – save them to give to the kids. My mom brings a little sack of those to the grandkids with some candy when she comes to visit and the kids just love their own personal “little” items. They are great stocking stuffers and tucked into gifts for the kids too.
I know there are other uses for them like making them in to liquid soap or putting them into a wash mitt but I haven’t heard as often to use them for a little gift for kids.
I do use them as stocking stuffers but with just my husband and son here at Christmas, we seem to just circulate them. If they are not opened, I pass them along to the shelter for abused families or to the Salvation Army for gift bags but once I have opened them, not an option. Hence the idea to use them up. I like the idea of giving them to the grands though. Now that my youngest is 5, this will be a great to add to a little gift bag when we visit.
Hi, I saw a recipe for almond hand lotion on here, I am sure it was posted in the comments section by Jill. I made it and really liked it. I want to make more but can no longer find this recipe. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
Samantha I’m not sure if this is the one you are talking about but here is the one of the lotions from Dining on a Dime.
Almond Lotion
1/2 cup almond oil
1 Tbsp. beeswax
1/4 cup distilled water, boiling
1/8 tsp Borax
5-6 drops essential oil
Heat almond oil and beeswax together until melted. Combine water and borax. Slowly pour borax mix into heated oil while stirring with a wire whisk. Add essential oil. Cool completely and place in a bottle. Makes about 1 cup.
Thank you. This is the recipe I was looking for, I love it.
This I might try! I don’t like lotions. I like oil better. My favorite is so simple! It’s half vegetable glycerine and half Jojoba oil. Then add whatever essential oils you like. Glycerine is a humicant and draws moisture out of the air. Jojoba is a “dry” oil that soaks right in. No need for alcohol with this. I have a little bottle with me at work. It only takes 6 drops to moisturizer my hands or face. You do have to shake it up! They don’t stay mixed very well.
I work at a fabric store. On dry days when the polar fleece is on sale, I get zapped from a lot of static electricity building up from passing the polyester across the cut table. But… When I use my oil, I hardly ever get zapped! I looked it up. Dry hands are more prone to discharging static!
Thank you for the recipe! I might even whip it up to look creamy, if that helps.
my mother in law used to make a copy of unscented Nivea cream. Does anyone happen to have a recipe for this.
Even the unscented lotions seem to have something in it that irritates my skin.
She swore by it but now she is not available for me to ask for the recipe.
Since your site is encouraging to eating healthier, I would like to remind everyone to check the labels on these products. Your dollar store lotion may seem like a bargain, but consider what the chemicals and toxins in the cheap lotion are doing to your body. Sometimes you get what you pay for.
I am now in my 60’s, my mom in her 80’s and others I know who have used cheap lotion over the years and I can’t see a thing that it has done to my body at all. As a matter of fact people usually think I look younger for my age and I expected to be covered in skin cancer by now after spending the first 35 years of my life as a sun worshiper but thank goodness so far I am doing fine. You aren’t the only one but I am for ever having people saying look at what the chemicals and toxins are doing to you and I’m afraid I really can’t see what they are doing and often people are very vague in exactly what these things are and when someone does give me specifics I try to check into it and find 99% of the time the info is just as vague and once again they say “could, may or there is a chance” it could cause this.
I guess I use common sense. If I put a lotion on and it causes a rash it’s probably not what I should be using or when they have done years of research and studies on something and have proof positive that something can harm you (like smoking) then I will stay away from it.
I just want to thank you Jill for being such a voice of reason in this crazy world. All this talk about everything being bad for you, killing you, giving you or your kids cancer…It can make a person paranoid! And, it actually is…Just read yesterday about a new eating disorder that people are showing up with…I forget the actual “name” of it but people stop eating because they don’t feel like the food is pure enough! They worry about the chemicals, or the pesticides to the point where the foods they feel are pure gets smaller and smaller! And then they are starving themselves! And on the flip side there are those in say Africa and such who are literally starving for lack of food! This world is crazy!
I totally agree with you Melody. Once people start giving into fear and listening to what “they” say they seem to loose all rational reasoning and thinking. What many Christians don’t realize is that their food and what they eat or can’t eat has become a god to them. If they deny that, all I have to say is do you spend as much time studying your Bible as you do food labels and what is the latest no no in food.
Like I always say taking things to an extreme is wrong and we are doing that with our “healthy” eating now.
where can you find the oils that you need to make this lotion? I am on a very tight budget and am trying to start my own business, and would like to sell things like lotions, lip balms, bags, blankets, etc. With the money that I am already putting into everything, I cannot afford very expensive things. Please let me know where I can find these oils for a reasonable price, Thanks!!
For selling things you need to go on line and google how to buy the different products wholesale and and compare all of the different prices not forgetting containers too. This will take some time but is what you have to do in starting your own business. Don’t forget to add shipping prices into things too because it can make a big different in prices.
This will help you to figure out the prices you will have to charge. Don’t forget your time, packaging, equipment you will need, office supplies, licenses,accounting expenses. Depending on what you make but some things you may need special masks, gloves, aprons and things like that. You can get by not doing some of these things on a small scale but official business gets a little tricky sometimes.
I hate to sound discouraging but we have so many people who want to write a book thinking as soon as they write that last period they will just sit back and collect the royalties from it. It’s not like that at all. You have to spend hours of marketing, dealing with printers finding the right prices, shipping, customers who don’t know how to order or don’t receive their books, book stores who get several boxes of books and decide they don’t want to sell them any more and shipping them back to you totally destroyed and you have to pay for it all. The list goes on. Just do a lot of detail researching and googling and go from there.
How do you go about getting a small business set up legally with taxes etc? Do you have to sell a certain amount before you are a “BUSINESS”?
It can be so complicated it will curl your hair Bea. Often one of the things that breaks small business owners is all the paper work that is involved with taxes can stress them out so bad they fall behind and give up on the whole thing. You can have what is called a hobby business and earn up to $400 a year without messing with any taxes or paper work.
After the 400 it doesn’t matter the amount of earnings you make you have to then do all of the tax things. You have to deal with sales tax, state tax, federal tax etc. Then there are things too like taking out for social security. You can’t just at the end of the year pay for all it and forget things the rest of the year. Some things you have to send them certain amounts on a quarterly basis and fill out quarterly forms and things.
It can get even more complicated on things like at one point Kansas counties each had their own taxes. Each time we got a book order we had to re figure and fill forms for that county if the book was on sale it at times didn’t even pay for the amount of time Mike spent figuring and filing things. Another thing too is you must save and save to make sure when you have to pay the taxes you have enough money because most people under estimate how much they will need and can have a horrible shock when they have to pay. I’m not positive but I think we are now having to pay about 35% of what we earn in taxes and when the Obama stuff gets put into place it will be getting closer to 50%. So in other words you need to plan on almost 1/3 or more of what you make in going to taxes.If you have employees that turns into a whole other can of worms.
This is why I always tell people that going into business is not as simple and easy as most people think and I always say you really have to have an accountant no matter how small the business is. So many times people think they will spend all day working and having fun making their wares but what ends up happening is they can spend 15 – 20 hours a week just on all kinds of paper work. Most people don’t like doing it so they put it off it, it piles up and then comes due and they have a big mess then. Even with an accountant Mike still spends at least 1/3 of his time or more on paper work.
This last post or two from Jill makes me think of homeschooling, or anything else that is worthwhile doing well, if you plan to do it at all. People often have a romantic view of things, and the lifestyle they think they would like to have. Not to discourage anyone from having a small business, etc., just do your homework. Also remember, even if something is your absolute dream, there will be days when there are tasks and downsides that you don’t really feel like participating in, but those things need to be dealt with anyway, if you are going to carry on. I homeschooled my four kids for a total of 18 years. Everyone thought we played “Little House on the Prairies” with about 3 to 4 hours of bookwork a day,(it was closer to 8 hours, once the kids were in high school) and the rest was all fun and games. No one (except other homeschoolers)would have guessed the countless hours in preparation, dealing with curriculum, authorities and outside testing facilities. It was and is a full time job, that costs money, but doesn’t pay in dollars. Well worth it, but lots of not-so-fun stuff involved, too.
Can anyone recommend an unscented lotion that is not sticky?
Baby lotion works for me. Tawra (posting under Mike)
Thanks for the post. It is so worth trying. It is good to add my favorite vanilla fragrance
Can I add manufactured scented lotion, perfume, etc. to my homemade lotion and be able to sell it?
That I don’t know Audrey. You probably could but may have to either list the ingredients or something.