Easy 3-Ingredient Beeswax Lotion Bar Recipe (Non Greasy)
This post may contain affiliate links. Read my full disclosure here.
Most homemade lotion recipes involve quite a few ingredients, blenders, and more mess than I’d prefer to clean up. These lotion bars are the opposite of that. All you need for these hard lotion bars is three ingredients – plus a pot and molds. That’s it!
You can even use muffin tins if you don’t have other molds, since the bars use all-natural ingredients. We have troubleshooting tips, packaging ideas, printable labels, and substitutions to help you customize your bars.
Table of Contents
What is a Lotion Bar?
A lotion bar is simply lotion in solid form. At room temperature, it stays firm. When you hold it in your hands or rub it on your skin, your body heat softens it just enough to glide on smoothly.
They coat and protect the skin, and are especially helpful for:
- Hands
- Heels
- Elbows
- Dry patches
The basic formula includes:
- Wax (beeswax) – gives structure and creates a protective barrier
- Butter (cocoa butter or shea butter) – deeply nourishing
- Oil (coconut oil or olive oil) – helps soften and spread easily
Together, they create a barrier that helps reduce moisture loss without feeling overly heavy.
You can also add vitamin E for longer shelf life and essential oils if you’d like a light scent or added skin support. If you enjoy working with herbs, you can infuse herbs into oil and then make the lotion bar with the infused oil.
How to Use a Lotion Bar
Using a lotion bar is simple. Hold the bar in your hands for a few seconds to warm it slightly. If your hands are cold, you may need to rub it a bit to get it started.
Then:
- Rub the bar directly on dry areas, or
- Rub it on your hands first, then apply where needed
It works especially well right after washing your hands or getting out of the shower.
Do homemade lotion bars really work?
These lotion bars have been wonderful for my winter dry skin.
I used to coat my hands at night with petroleum jelly because it was the only thing that helped. Regular lotions didn’t seem to make much difference. Plus, many of them have fragrances or ingredients I’d rather avoid.
Since I do a lot of dishes and wash my hands frequently, dry skin used to be a constant issue. These bars have been a simple fix. My only regret is that I didn’t try them sooner. The scent is light and pleasant (especially with cocoa butter), and they absorb fairly quickly.
How to Make Lotion Bars at Home – Step by Step
It helps to start with small chunks or shavings so everything melts more quickly.
Place butter, oil and wax in a heavy bottom pot or double boiler. You may also use an Instant Pot on the “keep warm” setting. Gently heat until everything is fully melted.
Remove from heat. Add optional ingredients:
- 1 teaspoon vitamin E per 12 ounces
- ~10 drops essential oils per 12 ounces
Pour the liquid into molds and let cool completely (several hours) until firm. If you have lip balm tubes, pour the tubes half full and allow the hard lotion to set up slightly, and then finish filling the tubes. I like to set my molds on a baking sheet to keep them level and easy to move around.
12 ounces of product fills one of the pink rectangular bar molds, making six bars. In the photo below I also filled small containers with lids to use as lip balms.
After several hours, the lotion will be firm and hard and should release easily from the mold.
Using Essential Oils (Optional)
Adding essential oils is optional. I skip them because we are sensitive to them. Start small—about 10 drops per 12 ounces.
Some potential combinations:
- Orange + cocoa butter (smells like chocolate orange)
- Peppermint + cocoa butter
- Lavender + shea butter
Keep in mind that cocoa butter already has a natural scent, so choose oils that pair well with it.
Non Greasy Lotion Bars – Troubleshooting Tips
Sometimes lotion bars have a greasy or slippery feel, especially in warm weather. Other times the bars may feel a little tacky or sticky.
- If your bars come out too slippery:
- Remelt and add more beeswax and/or cocoa butter.
- If they are too sticky/tacky:
- Remelt and add more oil.
Warm weather will naturally soften the bars, while cooler temperatures make them firmer. Don’t be afraid to remelt and adjust—this recipe is very forgiving.
You may also want to experiment with different combinations of oils and butters to see if you like those better. (See the Substituting Ingredients section below.)
What kind of beeswax do you use for lotion bars?
I prefer using unrefined beeswax for lotion bars. It has a light honey scent and a natural yellow color. We buy ours in bulk from a local apiary, and then chop off bits as needed for projects.
You can also use:
Would you like to save this?
We'll email this post to you, so you can come back to it later!
- Beeswax pellets (easier to measure and melt)
- Refined beeswax (white, with less scent)
If you need a beeswax-free option, substitutes include:
- Candelilla wax
- Carnauba wax
- Soy wax
Candelilla and carnauba amounts = roughly half or less than amount of beeswax. Substitute soy wax in equal amounts. Soy wax is hydrogenated, so it’s not my first choice for skin care.
Lotion Bar Molds
I prefer the basic oval bars or rectangular bars, but the boys liked other shapes when they were little. Any heat tolerant mold will work.
You can also use ice cube trays, muffin tins or candy molds. Stick to the basic recipe if you’re using molds that you plan to reuse for food. (Essential oils can leave a lingering scent and/or flavor in the molds.)
Another option is to pour the “bars” into a salve tin with a lid. You can also use a rectangular soap mold to create a bar that will fit into a rectangular tin.
I prefer to pour the bars separately and store them in the tin. It’s easier to apply the hard lotion if you can hold the bar in your hand.
If you use the rectangular bar mold, fill the cavities to about 1/8 inch below the top edge. That way they will fit in the rectangular tin and the lid will close snugly. The molds and tins are in the table below.
My friend, Casey, made up some simple printable labels that fit on the rectangular tins. (See more practical gift ideas here.)
Substituting Ingredients in Your Lotion Bars
One of the nice things about this recipe is how flexible it is. You can combine different butters and oils with good results.
Butters
- Cocoa butter
- Shea butter
- Mango butter (softer bar)
I find shea butter bars to be slightly tackier and slower to absorb. Cocoa butter gives a firmer bar and a scent I prefer.
Oils
- Coconut oil
- Olive oil
- Jojoba oil
- Fractionated coconut oil
I typically use coconut oil or olive oil, depending on what I have on hand.
Other Options
High-quality tallow or lard can also work well for skin care, though you may want to pair them with essential oils for scent.
See The Shelf Life of Oils for a listing of oil longevity. Note that many cooking oils labeled as “olive oil” are vegetable oil blends with olive oil. For best results, use real olive oil.
Packaging Your Lotion Bars
If you make several bars and don’t use them right away, keep the extra bars in a sealed container or bag. This will help preserve the lovely chocolate smell or any essential oils you choose to add.
As mentioned above, the bar molds fit neatly into the tins, which is great for gift giving or everyday use. To keep hard lotion in your purse during warm weather, a sealed container is best. Pour your lotion “bar” into a container with a screw top or other tight fitting lid. Apply it like a beauty cream.
For applying the hard lotion bar to heels or large areas of the body, use a deodorant style container. It makes the bars easier to hold.
It’s handy to make multiple smaller bars so each family member has their own. I learned this from experience when I first starting making hard lotion.
My younger son loved the cocoa smell so much he rubbed it all over himself after he got out of the shower. He even rubbed it in his armpits. I had been using the same bar as a lip balm, too…oops…
The next time I made a batch, I poured some into smaller containers to use as lip balm, and made my son his own special bar.
PrintLotion Bar Recipe (Non Greasy, with Beeswax)
With only three ingredients and one pot, this is the easiest way to make hard lotion bars and could not be more simple to clean as well. They repair your dry skin, smell great without being over powering, and are not greasy.
Ingredients
Use 1 part each, by weight.
- Cocoa Butter or Shea Butter
- Oil, such as Coconut Oil or Olive Oil
- Beeswax
For instance, 2 ounces of each ingredient. If using liquid oil, you can measure by volume. For instance, 2 ounces of olive oil to 2 ounces by weight each of cocoa butter and beeswax.
If you don’t have a scale, you can use a measuring cup to measure by volume. For instance, as one cup cocoa butter, one cup coconut oil and one cup beeswax. This will make a softer bar. For a firmer bar, use one cup butter, a half cup oil and a cup of wax (or similar proportions).
Instructions
- Place butter, oil and wax in a heavy bottom pot or double boiler. You may also use an Instant Pot on the “keep warm” setting. If you don’t have a double boiler, you can make one by placing a glass bowl or wide mouth Mason jar in a small saucepan of water.
- Heat gently, stirring regularly, until ingredients are melted.
- Pour into molds.
- Allow to cool completely before removing from molds. You can chill the bars in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to speed up the process. The finished bars do not require refrigeration.
Notes
Options: Add 1 teaspoon vitamin E per 12 ounces of bar for increased shelf life. Add essential oils of choice after lotion bar mix is removed from heat, before pouring into molds. Start with around 10 drops per 12 ounces of bar.
Remember, with essential oils, a small amount goes a long way. If you’re using cocoa butter, keep in mind how the EO you choose will pair with the scent of chocolate. Mint and orange essential oils are popular pairings with cocoa butter.
You may also make your bars with herb infused oils, such as plantain oil, which is great for skin issues, or dandelion oil, which is wonderful for muscle aches.
Buy Lotion Bars Online
If you’d like to purchase the bars ready made, you can visit the MadeOn Hard Lotion Store here. MadeOn Skin Care products is a family owned small business that creates non-toxic skin and hair care products for all ages.
You can find these ingredients (and containers and molds) at amazon.com (linked within the post), soaperschoice.com, and many other sites around the web.
Keep in mind that two ounces of each ingredient made three bars, so a bulk purchase would make a LOT of bars.
I hope you enjoy this great recipe as much as we do. This one’s a keeper in our house! Please pass the post along if you find it helpful, and leave a comment if you have any questions or ideas.
More Natural Products and Tips
You don’t need chemicals to smell clean. Try these articles instead.
- Easy Homemade Deodorant & The Best Natural Deodorants
- Make Your Own Perfume with Essential Oils
- 6 Ways to Get the Musty Smell Out of Clothes and Towels
This article is written by Laurie Neverman. Laurie is a lifelong learner with a passion for natural remedies and holistic healing. She’s successfully improved her eyesight, cleared her psoriasis, and gotten off of prescription medication.
Originally posted in 2012, last updated in 2026.
I have been using solid lotion bars for around six months now. I use bees wax (I’m very close to an amazing local bee supplier), coconut oil, grapeseed and apricot oils, vitamin E. (vit e is a mild preservative, too)
I have chronic severe eczema….. And my dermatologist is stunned. Steroid creams, chemicals, oral meds…. All failed to heal my itchy, scaly, bumpy, flaky skin… I always itched. Now I’m growing healthy, pink, pretty skin! I just changed lotions from the expensive chemical laden stuff, to my kitchen magic bar :). And by adding less grapeseed oil, and a bit of castor oil, I made lip balm. LOVE it!
I’m loving your blog! Thanks for posting such amazing things 🙂
Thanks, Monica, for sharing your story. I’ll bet that part of the “magic” of the lotion bars is that the essential fatty acids in the good quality oils are absorbed by the skin, provided needed nutrients.
WOW! I’m excited to try this! I have eczema and it is on my legs and can get on my feet. I think this will work great! All natural! Love it!
Hi, just wanted to say thankyou so much for this recipe. I used heart and straberry shaped ice cube trays and made them with sweet almond oil and the results are amazing. My husband has diabeties and gets really dry skin on his feet, we have tried all sorts, but by the end of the day his feet were dry and cracking, however your recipe keeps his feet fine all day. So no more worrying 🙂 . thx again for sharing.
Debbie – so glad that it has worked well for you. I know I use mine every day. It has been such a blessing for my hands when they are dried out from gardening and too much dish washing.
Can I use rose oil for the oil part of the recipe?
What do you mean by “rose oil”? You can add essential oil to the lotion bar, but the base oils should be fairly neutral.
This looks wonderful! I did want to mention.. there are tons of Etsy sellers selling raw beeswax that would be amazing for this project.. and much cheaper than the granules that Frontier sells!
It’s always nice to buy from an individual 🙂
These were what I had on hand, but I agree that if you can get raw beeswax it’s great, if a bit more messy.
Can these be tinted? I do melt and pour soap crafting and am making soaps for favors for a baby shower. I would like to make these lotion bars as part of the favors but would like to tint them to “match” the soaps. Could I do that or would that leave a residue of color on the user? Let me know what you think, please, or if anyone else has tried it, how did it work out?
zeliasgrand – Do you have time to do a small test batch? That would probably be the best way to tell if you get the effect you want. I haven’t tried it, but I think it would work and not tint as long as you didn’t use too much coloring.
helllow im asher, its been amazing to knw about lotion bar…..
philippines
I made this today, thank you for the easy to follow instructions. I did a very small batch to test it out and it came out great! Cannot wait to make it again, what a great idea for gifts.
Jenn – I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. It has been such a help with my rough gardening hands, and it’s safe enough to eat.
That must be it! Should have read more carefully :). I’ll try again, Thanks !!
Hello,
I just came across your blog and this wonderful idea of making your own lotion bars. I made the recipe and used the bar last night. While I liked the way my skin felt, by the morning it was smelling of rancid oil. I used extra virgin cold pressed olive oil, coconut butter and beeswax, and I did heat the mixture very gently in a double boiler. What went wrong? Thank you. Nata
Did you say “coconut butter”? The recipe calls for cocoa butter or shea butter, not coconut, although you could use coconut oil in place of the olive oil.
I recently bought lotion bars while traveling and love them they are made by Habersham Candle Company. The oil in these is soy bean. They don’t sell directly to the public so I will have to find another retail location or learn how to make my own. A couple of guys my husband works with are bee keepers and supply me with the most wonderful raw honey. My husband is considering joining them. I wonder if I could get some wax from them and what I would have to do to “clean” it?
Cleaning raw beeswax is fairly straightforward. You can view instructions here – http://candles.lovetoknow.com/cleaning-raw-beeswax-make-candles
Are the molds that you used glass or plastic. Just wondering if old plastic candy molds would work.
My molds are plastic. As long as you don’t overheat your oil mix, candy molds should be fine.
Both shea and cocoa butter will block my pores. Is there a non-comedogenic version of this?? Thanks!!
You really need some sort of fat that is solid at room temp to make the bars hard. Plain coconut oil will work as a moisturizer, and I do use that over larger areas that are less dry.
I use cold-pressed coconut oil directly on my face after washing it. It has antibacterial properties and it never clogs my pores. I use Made-On hard lotion on my hands, elbows, feet, etc. Just like the recipe above.
I’ve started cleaning my face with straight coconut oil. Working pretty well so far, nice and soft and smooth.
Hi, I really wanted to watch your video because I’m generally pretty interested in the content and i think you were doing a good job of explaining. However I didn’t make it through even 2 minutes because of ad interruption. I understand the is of ads however you didn’t plan for the ad break and they interrupted your content literally every other sentence. It’s very frustrating and distracting. I think I mis a few rh int the beginning trying to deal with the ads.
Sorry for the complaint. I hope you will consider it though.
Hmmm…the ads shouldn’t be launching that frequently. I’m watching right now and am six and a half minutes in without an ad yet. I will check with the ad provider and see where the setting are at.
The video is also on youtube at https://youtu.be/YIuBkNrgJc4.
I had to tell you that I made these and they are *awesome*. My son developed a really strange rash-like dry scaly skin on his hands. It turned out to be a virus so it had to run its course but these lotion bars helped relieve the burning and itching he was experiencing. Thank you for that.
I’m glad that you were able to treat his condition and that the lotion bars were able to help with the symptoms. We use ours daily.
Want to know what is really amazing?? I used 2 of the bars in a barter situation and was able to trade them for a service that would have probably cost me $100 or more. Crazy huh?
Wow! That’s great!
I am totally going to try this, but I need to buy some cocoa or shea butter first. 🙂 I imagine it might be similar to what I do when my skin gets super industrial dried out – I have a tin of burt’s bees lip balm and instead of putting it on my lips, I put it on my hands. It feels great!
That’s exactly it! Extra heavy duty protection and soothing. 🙂
Το κείμενο σας είναι ΚΑΤΑΠΛΗΚΤΙΚΌ.Η διατύπωση του,οι συμβουλές,οι περιγραφές,όλα.Θα συμβάλω με μία συμβουλή.Όταν φτιάξετε την επόμενη ποσότητα σας από μπάρες,προσθέστε & μια κουταλιά της σούπας άμυλο από άνθος καλαμποκιού όταν είναι ΑΚΌΜΑ το μίγμα βουτυρων & ελαίων ζεστό & υγρό. “Τραβάει” το τυχόν τάγγισμα & λειτουργεί παράλληλα και ως φυσικό συντηρητικό.
(From google translate: “Your text is AMAZING. Its wording, tips, descriptions, everything. I will contribute with a tip. When you make your next amount of bars, add & a tablespoon of cornflower starch when the butter mixture is STILL oils hot & liquid. “Pulls” any tangling & works at the same time as a natural preservative.”)
Hi there,
I really want to try these. Do these require the use of a double boiler pan as I have seen in other recipes for hard lotion bars?
I just use a heavy bottom pan and heat gently.
Thanks!
use a canned goods can, if you want to do small batches. just put it in the pot of boiling water with your ingredients! you can even, with some metal cutters, cut a “spout” on the can so it makes it easier to pour!
Please share with us where you bought the charming moon and star mold on the first page.
Carol – I wish I could, but I can’t remember! I bought them many years ago, and now I can’t find any similar. I think I may have purchased them at the local Hobby Lobby.
Try wholesalesuppliesplus.com. You want to look in the soap making supplies, soap molds.
Hi Carol, you can purchase a lot of different types of molds at Amazon.com, and you can google Soap molds and find many types of stores that well them on the web.
Hope that helps!
I’m sorry, I guess I don’t understand fully what the lotion bars are for. Do you put it on your wet skin? I’ve never heard of this before! Thanks for any answers!
No problem, Sarah. You use them like you would a normal lotion or cream for dry skin. While the bars are firm at normal room temps (for most people – low to mid 70’s or cooler), they soften at body temperature. To use a lotion bar, you simply rub it over the area of dry skin you want to apply it to, or rub the bar with your hands to coat your hands, and then use your hands to apply to the desired area. The warmth of your body softens the bar. The natural oils absorb within minutes, leaving the skin soft and supple, and the wax protects the skin and firms up the bar. Good quality ingredients also nourish the skin and promote healing, as opposed to many synthetic formulas that clog the pores and/or make your skin more dependent on the product. One of my goals this year is to try and keep everything I put on my skin safe enough to eat, as the skin is very absorbent (think trans-dermal medications).
Thank you for your answers! I completely agree about the funny ingredients in lotions. I have been looking into things I can make myself so I’m not spending a fortune! Much of what I have found comes from the kitchen. Sunflower and coconut oil etc. I have enough skin issues especially in the winter without adding alcohol type ingredients. Some of them are preservatives so it doesn’t go bad but they make dryness and irritation worse. I am probably preaching to the choir on this!
lol – maybe we can sing in the choir together. 😉
I’ve been using coconut oil to clean my face, and it’s smoother and softer than it has been in years. So nice to find simple solutions. 🙂
I shared your lotion bar with my friends. It has been a big hit. Thank you for making it available.
Thanks, Donna. Glad that it working well for you.
hhhmmmm sorry about that I switched over to Internet Explorer and I can see it now :o)