Lotion Tute

Happy new year, y'all! I know I've been silent for a couple of weeks, and I have no excuse, not even a reason. Laziness perhaps. Actually, laziness most definitely.

I'm in the process, as it appears many in blogland are, of cleaning and purging. Along the way--in the first closet--I unearthed some plastic containers I bought last year to package homemade hand lotion in. Never got around to making it and then sorta misplaced the containers, then got distracted by something else, then totally forgot I'd even thought about it.

When I finished the closet--well, sorta kinda--I made some hand lotion, which isn't as procrastinatory  as it sounds since there are a few birthdays coming up, and I usually include a jar of lotion in each of those gifts. Anyway, I thought I'd share the lotion-making process with y'all. (This has been around blogland for quite some time, so y'all might have already see it. If so, never mind!)

First, the ingredients--these all came from my local dollar store--baby lotion, Vitamin E cream and petroleum jelly. Total expenditure for ingredients: $3. The biggest cost is containers. I've used plastic travel size from Walmart; I've saved empty jars from purchased lotions; and I recently bought some lovely glass jars from an Etsy seller Supplies For You.

Darling, aren't they? I bought a case of 12 of the small jars and think they'll make the lotion part of my gifts a bit more special.

Back to the lotion:

Dump ingredients into a bowl. I use a stainless bowl reserved specifically for crafts.

Mix thoroughly.

To aid in the mixing, I heat a pan of water and set the bowl in the pan. The water in the pan is below the level of the bowl. Makes mixing easy.

Fill the containers. A plastic bag with a small hole cut in one corner works great; funnels, not so much--believe me, I've tried. Be advised: when you're finished, your hands will be more lotion-covered than probably they ever have been!

 Clean outside of filled containers with alcohol.

And voila! Enough lotion to last all year--unless you share, which I generally do. Honest, this stuff is good. Very moisturizing. For gardeners, you can double the amount of petroleum jelly. You'll need to rub longer to get the lotion worked into the skin, but it's great for abused hands.

Unless you plan ahead, you're likely to wind up with more lotion than containers. As mentioned earlier, I save old jars, and I've been known to tell my friends they can have refills as often as they want so long as they return the container.

I'd love to hear if you try this, or already have done. (I can't stop feeling of my hands. They're like babies' bottoms!)