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Author: Mary Helen Leonard· Making Natural Skincare Products
So you just whipped up a batch of gorgeous Shea Butter lip balm. It was tinted with beautiful beet-root infused Jojoba, and scented with a delicious Organic Peppermint Essential Oil. The recipe was carefully concocted, formulated for nothing short of perfection! After waiting what seems like a lifetime, the balms have hardened, and it's time to take one of those pretty little tubes for a test drive.
The balm smells delightful, so you put on your winning grin and glide the tube across your lips. That's when it all goes wrong. Instead of the light, creamy texture you're lips have been anticipating, you feel something rough and gritty. How can this be? You open another tube, then another, finding the same mysterious grit in every stick.
Has this happened to you? The culprit is very likely to be crystallization, a phenomena that can affect almost any Vegetable Butter, but is most commonly found in Shea Butter and Mango Butter. After a butter is melted, it can develop tiny crystals as it cools and sets. These crystals usually melt again on skin contact. While they don't detract from the butter's beneficial properties, the gritty texture they create is usually undesirable.
To avoid crystallization, butters need to be heated to 175 degrees (Fahrenheit) and held at that temperature for about twenty minutes. It's a good practice to treat your Shea or Mango Butter in this way prior to formulation. I usually heat the Shea Butter I'm working with for a recipe in the double boiler before adding the other ingredients in my recipe.
After being heated properly, it's important to cool the Butter as quickly as possible. If you have added the Butter to a product, keep that in mind. The butter or finished products must be cooled down right away. The longer the butter remains melted, the more likely it is that crystals will reform. If you can chill the butter or products in a refrigerator, definitely do so. If you don't have that option, there are a few things you can do to help speed the cooling process:
- Distribute the product/butter into small packages, and give each one plenty of room to cool off. Don't close lids or put caps on any packaging until the product/butter has cooled and set. Avoid stacking or grouping jars or packages close together.
- If you are cooling a large batch of butter or product, increase the surface area as much as you can. Pour the liquid into a wide, shallow baking pan or casserole dish.
- Cool the product/butter in the coolest area possible. If your kitchen is hot from being in use, consider moving the product to a cooler room. A close garage, bedroom, or office might be a better choice.
Be sure to protect the product/butter from dust, moisture, or debris as it cools. Once it has hardened, test a small portion to see if crystals have reformed.
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Comments
Nicole saysSo I have had the same problem using mango and cocoa butter. I will have to try again today. I will let you know how it came out. Great Article. I want to make a perfect recipe to sell at my Etsy shop.
Thanks for your feedback, Nicole!
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- Alyssa says
Ahhh this is wonderful, thank you! I read somewhere else that it needs to be heated for about 20 minutes as well. But then I saw on other, not as trust worthy websites that 5 or 10 mins is long enough. I trust what you say, and I’ll keep heating for 20 mins. Mine have never come out right away as grainy, but they become grainy in a month or so. I will try to get them cooled as quickly as possible! Thank you so much!
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- Tina butler says
Same here! I was so excited that my formul was perfect nd about 1 montb later little crystals appeared all throughout my hair grease I made. I was so devastated. I had made my labels and everything. Back to trying it out again.
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There are definitely some different techniques out there for tempering Shea Butter. Although we’ve found ours to work pretty consistently it never hurts to experiment. Cooling the butter quickly can help quite a bit in avoiding the butter recrystallizing, but sometimes it just seems to happen no matter what you do. Working with Shea can be a pain sometimes, but otherwise it is such a lovely ingredient!
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So if you temper it and cool it down, are you putting it in tubes or reheating after tempering it? I’m not sure I understand the process fully. My tubes crystallized and I wish there was a way to reheat. Are you heating all the ingredients to 175 or just the butters then adding to the remaining oils and placing them in the tubes?
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- Adela says
Thank you for ths article. Please please please help me. When I cool my creams in a glass containers with shea butter too quickly a big hole will form in the middle from the top to the bottom. How can I prevent this please? Thank you very much. Adela
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Hi Adrianne! Generally, I like to temper the butter right before blending it with my other ingredients. I start by melting the butter, bringing it to temperature, holding it there, then quickly adding the other ingredients and getting the final product packaged and into the fridge to cool. That’s my preferred method, but some formulators prefer to temper their stock, cool it, and then use the tempered butter in formulations later. I’d recommend trying it both ways to see which works for you.
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Hi Adela! This is totally typical behavior for any kind of solid balm or butter. The heat from the melted product pulls inward as the product cools creating a cavity in the top of the product. One way to avoid this is to try and pour at a cooler temperature. That isn’t always possible, so some formulators use a different solution. They reserve a small amount of product, re-melt it after the balms have cooled, then pour it over the cooled balms – topping off the products!
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- Margy Hoskins says
Hi there
I have another list of oils and butters which talks about iodine content in the oil and suggests not to heat too high depending on that oil’s natural iodine content. The temperatures that you suggest heating to for shea or mango butter seem a bit high and would perhaps denature the oil ? or destroy the goodness in it anyway?
MReply
- Faby says
Thank you so much for the article. I have a problem with my face cream. It is so amazingly whipped and awesome but because of the hot weather it melts a little and normally once you pop it in the fridge it should go back to somewhat solid. But my let batch it just melted and in the fridge it stays solid but when it’s out and at room temperature it doesn’t pick up it’s solid state it just stays liquidy 🙁
The ingredients have sheabutter, coconut oil, vitamin e and grape seed oil …
I want to keep them as natural as possible and not sure maybe I need to change the process when I double boil melt the sheAbutter …? I only double boil the Shea butter the others are added later once shea is melted and no longer in the double boiler . Tks In advance for any suggestions 🙂Reply
- Kelly Owens says
Keeping whipped formulations solid and suspended in warmer weather can be tricky for sure! It may require you to adjust your formulation to include less liquid oils and more harder butters. The testing may take some time but will be worth the effort to get your perfect formulation!
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- Tanya says
This is really great help! I have been formulating body balms for months now and the majority of them have gone grainy after a few weeks or so! Not right away – but tend to just go this way over time. So i am really excited to try them out again using this method!
Another thing that seems to happen with my body balm is that the middle just goes really soft? Soft enough to put your finger through it whereas the outside is a better consistency. Is this because of the same reason you explained the lip balms getting a cavity in the middle?
Last question (hopefully) – when you say to melt the butters for 20 minutes before adding anything else – I use candelilla wax in my products which takes a really long time to melt alongside the butters. Should i raise the heat when I add the wax to the melted butter or just wait as long as it takes to melt?
Thanks for your help this is fabulous 🙂Reply
- Cameron van Rooyen says
Hey there i,m new to this website . I would like to know what can i add as coloring to lip stick I tried cocoa powder its grainy i tried apple food coloring but it dont seem to mix as it is water based i think . So can you tell me what the professionals use please.
Thank youReply
- Kelly Owens says
Hello Cameron, oil-based micas,oxides, FD&C colorants are commonly used in professional lipstick formulations. Here is the link to a blog post you may find helpful: https://naturalbeautyworkshop.com/my_weblog/2017/03/how-to-make-custom-lip-tints-using-natural-ingredients.html
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- Renee Gaudreau says
Thank your for the article! Do you know if there’s any type of stabilizer I can add to a salve that will stop the crystallization from happening? I want to be able to make a salve that stands up against temperature changes. Whenever we makes our salves, they come out lovely and smooth and over the next few weeks, they tend to get grainy. We are in southern California so we experience temperature differences quite often which is why I think this is happening. What do you think?
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- Kelly Owens says
Hello Renee, We believe there are stabilizers and/or additives available to help that you can find with an internet search. Though, we cannot say for certain how natural or effective they may be. Best of luck to you!
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- Sarah Koehler says
I have this problem with how the balm looks after you cool. It almost looks freezer burnt. A milky color on top. Any suggestions?
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