I finally made my own sunscreen!

And I’m pretty darn excited about it

I’ve been reading posts on other blogs about making sunscreen (this one was really helpful), and I decided to make my own.  I now have this lovely little jar of whipped sunscreen in the fridge:

Storing it in the fridge keeps it nice and fresh, but it also solidifies it, so I scoop out a little bit and wait a few seconds for it to warm in my hand before I can use it.  It’s got a very earthy scent and the main ingredients are coconut oil and shea butter, which I’ve been using on my skin for years.

The whole process was pretty simple.  It did involve a hand blender, which we just purchased a few months ago.  And now I use it all the time.  But if you don’t have one, you could probably just stir this up by hand instead.  It wouldn’t get the frothy consistency, but since you’re going to keep it in the fridge anyway, it’s not going to feel fluffy when you get it out of the jar.

Here’s what I used to make my sunscreen:

The Coconut oil and carrot seed oil are from Vitacost (love that store, and if you’ve never shopped there, you can sign up through that link and we’ll each get a $10 credit!).  The shea butter (jar on the back right) is from Etsy – unrefined, fair trade, awesome stuff.  I bought a pound of it two years ago and I still have a little bit left (it looks like it’s currently being offered in half pound chunks – this is the seller I purchased from).  The red raspberry oil is from Amazon.  Oh, and I also added in a little bit of organic cocoa butter that I purchased at the local health food store but forgot to add into my picture.

I used a double boiler and melted 1/4 cup coconut oil, 1/4 cup shea butter, and 2 Tbsp cocoa butter.

Then I chilled the bowl of melted oil in the freezer until it started to turn white.  At that point, I put it into a jar, added 1 tsp raspberry oil and about 30 drops of carrot seed oil, and whipped it up with the hand blender.  I transferred it to the little storage jar and that was it.  Well, except for the clean-up process… somehow I had carrot seed oil all over the counters, and that stuff has a pretty potent aroma!  Thankfully, the finished product does not smell overwhelming the way the plain carrot seed oil does.

This morning, instead of my usual plain shea butter on my face, I used my new sunscreen.  We shall see how it goes!  (obviously, do your own research before you try this, and test it before you rely on it.  If you normally burn in 10 minutes, don’t slather this stuff all over yourself and head to the beach for the day!)

I haven’t used commercial drugstore sunscreen in many years.  We do have some titanium dioxide sunscreen that we use on rare occasions (at the pool or when we can’t really cover up with clothing).  But for the most part, we just use hats and long sleeves to keep from burning.  And we enjoy plenty of good sunshine to get our Vitamin D.  I used to burn very easily, but I don’t anymore, even if I do forget to put on my trusty arm coolers and hat.  Maybe it’s all the greens and healthy fats in our diet?  I don’t know, but I do know that we don’t use much in the way of sunscreen. 

I do however, rely heavily on hats.  My hats are pretty dorky too.  They have flaps and cover my whole face, but that’s ok – that means they’re working, right?  My new sunscreen might mean that I can take off the dorky hat when I’m hanging out with other people, and yet still protect my face.  Win-win!