I've never been very good at remembering to moisturize, in winter it's too cold to be standing in my bathroom naked, and in summer it's too warm for me to enjoy feeling any sort of sticky body cream on my skin. And for many years, I got away with it, I could shave my legs and have soft skin, I could wash my face with just soap and not feel dry, but all that changed when I moved to a big city, my face started to feel parched even when it was oily, and my arms and legs felt dry at all times.
At this point, I started buying body creams left and right, some were too thick, some too liquidy, some gave me rashes, some made me even drier, a first world problem at its' finest! When I got into making my own products, mostly deodorant and lip balm, I knew this was something I had to tackle, I was tired of wasting my money, ruining my skin and all the while, using up lots and lots of plastic containers.
And so enters Dans Le Sac's Whipped Body Butter, when I saw their recipe I knew I had to try it, and the idea of it being quick, easy and adjustable seemed very attractive. Their recipe calls for only three ingredients, which can be switched up depending on what you have or can find where you live, and I think it could be a great gift for your loved ones for the Christmas Season. By clicking the previous link you can find the original post, but I'll share how I did mine.
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup cocoa butter
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup coconut oil
Method
- Mix all your ingredients in a large bowl that can go in a bain-marie;
- Melt everything while stirring to avoid burning your ingredients;
- Once melted, refrigerate until you can see it begin to set;
- Remove from the fridge and whisk with an electric mixer for a few minutes until it reaches an airy texture and white colour, I did this a few times, as it melted quite quickly in my kitchen, so I whisked maybe three times, refrigerating in between whisks, which resulted in a body butter that resembled whipped cream, yummy;
- Pour into a clean jar!
Review
Instead of the original Shea butter, I used cocoa butter, which I always have at hand, and used olive oil as I had just run out of sweet almond oil, although I'll be using it next time. I also skipped the essential oils, if I had had them I would have loved to try them, but I find the cocoa butter and coconut oil scent to be quite pleasant, and the olive oil goes completely unnoticed, which I enjoy.
At first, I was a bit sceptical, even though the cream looked and felt light and airy, I was a bit scared my skin wouldn't absorb the oils properly, as is usually the case. Unfortunately, I had to keep it in the fridge - October was a warm month - so it completely lost the light and airy feel it started out with, and then it was too hard to use. I found that I had to rub it in really hard to help it melt, and I ended up using more than necessary.
Now that the weather is a bit cooler, I keep it off the fridge, the consistency is still not as light as originally, but also not as rock hard as it was before, it falls somewhere in between which feels perfect, not so soft it melts as soon as I touch it, not so hard I have to break it up in pieces to use it.
Even though I don't think this will be my go-to body butter forever, I do like it. If I use it right as I get out of the shower, it melts super easily on my skin, and it absorbs quite fast, although it takes quite a bit of time to feel fully absorbed, I even use it on my t-zone, which gets super dry in winter.
All in all, this gets a 7 out of 10 for me, good but not perfect, it will do for winter, but not for the whole year, so I'll still be on the hunt for a better alternative, although if you ask my mum, this is the perfect body butter, it really depends on your skin type, so make sure to give it a try.
If you do, let me know how it goes, and if you've already found your perfect DIY moisturizer, please share it!
If there's something I associate with Christmas time is oranges. I remember piercing oranges with cloves to decorate my aunt's house before Christmas and sitting in front of our fireplace peeling oranges and eating them as soon as the months got colder, throwing the peels in the fire and making the whole living room smell delicious. So when I thought about making a Christmas cocktail I knew it had to have orange in it somehow.
And so, I decided on my base cocktail and from there I made two different ones, the base one for my mum, with her favourite gin, one for me, with my beloved limoncello, and another one for Christmas day, with ginger ale instead of tonic water.
For the base cocktail, you will need:
- 2 teaspoons honey
- 1 shot (45 ml) freshly squeezed orange juice
- 1 shot gin (I make it double for my mum)
- Tonic water
And the method couldn't be simpler, shake your orange juice with the honey until the honey sort of melts with the juice, place it in your favourite glass, add the gin and top with tonic water to taste, making sure to stir it. Add some orange peels for decoration and you're done. I don't use ice on this one because I really don't want to water it down, just make sure your tonic water is really cold and you won't miss any ice. You can obviously use whichever brands you like the most, but if you'd like to try a new one my mum would like to recommend this Portuguese gin, the Sharish Blue Magic with strawberry, raspberry, cinnamon, cardamom, lemon, angelica root, ginger, liquorice, coriander seed and juniper berries. It also has this flower called clitoria ternatea which is what makes the gin blue but, when you add tonic water to it, you get a purple-pink drink, how cool is that?
For my own take on this G&T, and because I just can't get along with gin, I used my favourite drink, limoncello. The one I have is a bit stronger than it normally is so I used just a little bit under a shot, but the recipe is still the same, simply switch the gin for the limoncello and you're ready to go.
Lastly, for a more Christmas-y take on this Cocktail, you will need exactly the same ingredients as in the base cocktail, but this time switch the tonic water for ginger ale, which I think really makes it a step better. The ginger ale along with the honey and orange juice really scream Christmas to me, and if you want to go even further you can also add a few spices like a cinnamon stick and cloves, you do you. Also, if like me you don't like gin and feel as though the limoncello takes away from the ginger ale's subtle taste, maybe use something cleaner, like vodka, which can be a really great substitute for gin in any kind of cocktail.
And there we go, one cocktail three ways, all delicious in their own way. Which one would you try for Christmas? Let me know in the comments below.
I've noticed that the older I get, the smaller my wishlists are, and they tend to focus more on one thing rather than several. For instance, this year my list for my boyfriend consisted of cosy things, for my brothers it was books and tea, and for my mum it was plants and planters, what more does a girl need?
I thought I'd share my list not with the intention of getting any of these from you, whoever you are, but rather as a sort of inspiration when buying for other people.
This is one of the many Nigella recipes I love to bake again and again, and although I stick to the recipe religiously, I have substituted the butter for a vegan alternative, as I can't have dairy. This is one of the easiest recipes to make and really the biggest job is to sieve everything, just to make sure the batter is as smooth as possible.
You'll need:
- 250 grams of soft unsalted butter (or your favourite substitute)
- 150 grams of sugar
- 40 grams of cocoa powder
- 300 grams of plain flour
- 1/2 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon of baking powder
Set your oven to 170ºC (150ºC if it's a fan oven) and let it preheat while you prepare your mixture. While you're at it, line your baking tray with parchment paper. Cream together the butter and sugar until it feels soft, you shouldn't feel any sugar granulates, and it should look pale. Once that's done, sieve your cocoa powder and add it to the sugar and butter mixture, when that's thoroughly mixed in, sieve all the other dry ingredients and add them to the bowl, beating them in well.
Nigella likes to use gloves to shape the cookies, but I find it doesn't stick too much to my hands so I rather skip the gloves and then have a reason to lick my fingers, but you do you. Roll small pieces of batter between your hands, I'm not very fussed about the correct size, I usually just go according to what looks right to me, but Nigella claims they must be around the size of a large walnut. Place them in the previously lined tray and flatten them a bit so they can rise somewhat evenly. They don't tend to spread too much but do space them well, you should be able to fit 12, but I always do 9 just to be safe.
Bake each batch for 15 minutes, once they're out of the oven let them cool slightly before removing from the tray and placing them in a cooling rack, they'll still look and feel a bit soft, but they do continue to cook as they cool so don't worry. I actually underbaked my last batch, obviously for research and not because I set my timer for 10 minutes instead of 15, and they still turned out great, they feel softer but thoroughly baked, almost like a soft brownie, so if you rather have them like that, feel free to underbake them as well. If you do this and feel they're too soft for you, you can just pop them back in the oven for a minute or two, and if someone comments on this, just call the cookies biscotti, we all know how much Nigella loves an Italian reference.
This is where my cookies differ from Nigella's again. You're now supposed to make a topping, whisking 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, 175 grams of icing sugar, 60 ml of boiling water, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract in a saucepan over a low heat and then let it cool a bit and drizzle on top of the cooled cookies and then top with Christmas sprinkles, you could maybe even crumble some candy canes and use them as sprinkles. I instead prefer to simply dust them with a bit of icing sugar or let them be on their own, the first time I baked them I did feel they were a bit heavy because of the icing on top, but you do you, icing or no icing, these are the best chocolate cookies out there and I'm prepared to fight you on this. They fall somewhere between a crispy and crumbly shortbread and a soft biscuit, the best of both worlds. And as my mum doesn't like chocolate cookies, I'm bound to eat all 24 of them by myself, what a task...
