Once upon an evening, I walked into my bathroom, picked up the can of shaving cream and was appalled. If you’ve taken a look at the ingredients on the side of the can, you probably were too. It is amazing what some of those words are; words that I wouldn’t even attempt to pronounce being put on our bodies with no after thought as to how they may affect us. It was 2015 when I looked at the side of that can and made the decision to stop buying as much as possible and make them homemade. This homemade shave cream with shea butter was one of the first things that I made myself. It’s been three years now and the list of things I stopped buying and make has jumped from the initial 30 to well over 200 things to make homemade. Some are things that I only need to make occasionally, but others are weekly tasks in my home.
I’ll be honest and say that when I first started thinking of making homemade shave cream, I was a bit leery as to what it would turn out like. No one wants to try and shave with a watery homemade shave cream that doesn’t later and leaves your skin dry. I even made my homemade lotion for dry skin to go along side of it just in case I would need it. As it turns out, I was worrying for nothing! This shea butter shave cream is perfect! It works up to a rich lather as long as you follow the instructions to a T and leaves both my legs and Steve’s face perfectly soft and moisturized!
Homemade Shave Cream {Shea Butter Shave Cream}
When you make your own batch of this homemade shave cream, you can use any essential oil that you like. I personally prefer to use lavender essential oil since it has amazing properties that I love my shave cream to have, but it really is a personal decision. Also, don’t be too focused on the brand of your essential oil. These days, I prefer to use Plant Therapy Essential Oils, but any oil that is 100% pure essential oil will work. Contrary to popular belief, there is no federal grading system for essential oils so anyone can slap a “therapeutic grade” label on a bottle of oil and call it so. What matters is that your oil is 100% pure and isn’t cut with anything. With Plant Therapy, I know I’m getting pure oil for a fraction of the price of other, more well-known brands.
If you want to save a bit of money on your homemade shave cream ingredients, head over HERE and sign up for a Grove account. You will either score a FREE $10.00 credit or a FREE 5-piece Mrs. Meyers Cleaning Set depending on what the current offer is. Their prices are far better on some of these ingredients than I have seen elsewhere too which makes signing up worth it.
This shea butter shave cream also makes for an amazing homemade gift idea and works well in homemade gift baskets too. I’ve even done entire gift baskets where I’ve made several different scents using different essential oils, added a piece of burlap or twine to each jar and gave that as a gift. It really is one of the best homemade beauty products that I’ve made and most people absolutely adore it when I gift it to them!
You Will Need:
- ⅓ cup coconut oil
- ⅓ cup shea butter
- 1 Tbsp. unscented castile soap (or make homemade Castile soap)
- 10-15 drops Essential oil of your choice.
To start making your homemade shave cream, freeze a medium sized metal mixing bowl for around 15 minutes. I realize that might seem odd, but coconut oil has a melting point of around 76°F which means it will most likely melt and liquefy on your if you don’t keep it cold. Using a metal bowl and freezing it will help keep that from happening.
Once you’ve got your mixing bowl cold, combine the shea butter and coconut oil using a hand mixer. When I originally published this DIY, I had mentioned using a stand mixer. I’ve since changed my mind on that for one reason; stand mixers often run slowly. When you make this homemade shave cream, you need something that will beat the ingredients quickly so they fluff up. A hand mixer will do that. I personally use THIS Black and Decker hand mixer for most of my homemade beauty products since it runs a bit faster than most I’ve seen.
Anyhow, using a hand mixer, beat the shea butter and coconut oil until it triples in size. This should only take around 5 minutes but it could take a bit longer if your mixer runs slowly. If your home is warm and the coconut oil begins to melt, pop the bowl and all back in the freezer for a few minutes to cool it down and solidify it again.
Once you have the shea butter and coconut oil whipped up, add the castile soap and whichever essential oil you’re using and whip it all up together. Again, if your oil starts to melt a bit, just pop it back in the freezer for a bit longer. Once you have everything combined well, your homemade shave cream is finished!
You can store your homemade shave cream in a 4 oz jelly jar or if you’re like me and you like to reuse things to save money, minced garlic jars that have been cleaned with white vinegar and Dawn dish soap to remove the smell work really well too. Just be sure that all of the garlic smell has been removed so your homemade shave cream doesn’t smell like garlic.
“Honey, your legs smell so…so…delicious! What is that scent?”
“Oh, it’s a new fragrance I’m trying out. Eau de Dracula.”
I digress. To use your homemade shave cream, wet the skin down and smooth on your homemade shave cream generously. Shave like normal and be sure to rinse the skin well after. Store your shea butter shave cream in an airtight container in the fridge for best results. As I’ve already said, the coconut oil will melt pretty easily so storing it in a warm and humid bathroom can cause it to melt. If this happens, simply pop it in the freezer again and re-whip it all together once more.
You shouldn’t, but if you feel as if your skin needs a bit of soothing after using this homemade shave cream, try applying my homemade lotion for dry skin or if you made it for a man, our homemade aftershave recipe works very well too. I’ve never once had an issue such as dry skin with this homemade shave cream, but everyone has different skin types.
If you find that your homemade shave cream just isn’t turning out like you see in the photo or like it is supposed to, chances are good that your coconut oil is too warm. Try fixing that issue and it should help. Like I said in the beginning of this post, I have been making this for three years now and have never once had a batch fail.
*Originally Published Oct. 2015/Updated July 2018
