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What Is Honey Body Butter?

By C. Mitchell
Updated: May 17, 2024
Views: 5,860
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Honey body butter is a cosmetic product designed to moisturize and protect the skin. In most cases, the term “body butter” is just a fancy way of saying “skin cream” or “rich lotion.” Products in this category include dense oils and emollients that penetrate the skin’s outer surface, leaving it feeling smooth and looking refreshed for longer than most standard lotions. Body butters made with honey are often among the most moisturizing, as honey usually carries great skin restorative properties.

Raw honey is a humectant, which means that its chemical composition helps it to retains moisture. It usually passes these benefits on to skin and other surfaces with which it comes into contact. Honey has long been prized as a cosmetic ingredient for this reason and has been used in beauty products like facial masks, hair treatments, and skin rubs for centuries. Usually, honey body butter contains only small amounts of honey, but the moisturizing properties usually carry over even with minimal exposure.

The primary difference between body butter and regular body lotion is moisture content. Most standard lotions contain a lot of water, which helps it smooth onto the skin and absorb quickly. Water moisture does not often last, however. A honey body butter usually takes longer to soak in, but the honey helps the skin hold onto moisture from the inside.

Many different manufacturers make honey body butter, and there are very few standards that govern exactly what a product labeled “honey body butter” must contain. It is usually understood that honey is a main ingredient, but this is not always the case. Luxury brands sometimes disclose how much honey is in their body butter cream, but this is usually uncommon, even at the top echelons.

In part, this silence is because not much honey is used, and manufacturers do not want to discourage purchasers. Honey is a sticky, tacky substance that can only be applied in small quantities if it is not intended to be washed off. Shampoos and facial rubs can often carry high concentrations of raw honey without incident because they are meant to be but temporary. In a body butter, too much honey would create an oily sheen to the skin that many would consider undesirable.

Most of the time, honey adds to the moisturizing capabilities of a body butter, but is not itself solely responsible for them. Honey body butter products that smell strongly of honey often do so because of scent enhancements. Extracts that contain no moisturizing capabilities are often added in to boost a product’s appeal. Honey is frequently blended with other scents and extracts as well, particularly almond, orange, and shea.

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Discussion Comments
By Ocelot60 — On Dec 26, 2014

@rundocuri- Yes, you can add as much honey as you would like to a homemade body butter recipe, but it is important that you keep in mind that too much will make the mixture sticky on your skin.

For the best results, I think that you should add a small amount of honey along with some aloe to the honey butter recipe. When you make your honey body butter this way, you will enjoy the healing benefits of both ingredients without giving the mixture a sticky texture.

By Rundocuri — On Dec 25, 2014

I'm glad that this article explains that many body lotions and butters that contain honey don't have much in them. However, I prefer to use a higher concentration of honey because of its healing benefits. Is it possible to make honey body butter at home and add as much honey as you want?

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