A nurturing cream that will leave your hand soft and smooth.

A lovely herbal hand cream that will leave your hand feeling soft and smooth. It is light and airy with a delicious herbal scent and is ever so easy to make. Because our hands deserve a whole lot of love for all that hard work they do all day.

The herbs that make the herbal hand cream

I wanted a hand cream that would not just keep my hands from feeling dry but would actually benefit my skin. So I went through my herbal books to find a combination of herbs that I could use for that purpose.

One of the herbs I wanted in there was thyme. Which with its antiseptic properties, is a great one for daily life. Cause who doesn’t like to inhibit the growth of all the small little beasties. Because of those properties, it will also help against any skin issues like impurities, eczema and psoriasis, and the like.

Like thyme, sage also has antiseptic properties and therefore helps support the thyme with maintaining healthy skin. The sage is also quite good at balancing the skin’s production of oils, thereby preventing overly oily or dry skin.

Lastly, bay leaf, partly because it would complement the scent of the thyme and sage but also because it helps with muscle pains and rheumatism. And some days when you’ve been hard at work, kneading bread, repotting plants, and doing general housework, you can use some help for your muscles. Also, rheumatism runs in my family, and I have some mornings (mainly the cold winter ones) where I notice my hands being stiff and painful. So if the bay leaves can help, that would be wonderful.

Aloe and honey for some extra hydration

Of course, no hydrating hand cream would be complete without some aloe and honey added to it. Aloe is famous for its help when it comes to burns and hydrating the skin. Years ago, I bought a single aloe plant, and by now, there are 3 of them. They are virtually indestructible since I regularly don’t water them for an entire month. But they are still growing, slowly, since I don’t take good care of them, but growing nonetheless.

Then in case you haven’t noticed it yet, I love honey. I’m not kidding, I regularly use honey as a face mask and love putting it in my tea. I even brew my own mead with honey. Mead, for those who don’t know, is basically honey wine. It is delicious and if you want to know how to make some yourself, just pop over to my post mead brewing.

Honey is hygroscopic, which is just a fancy term to say that honey takes the moisture from the air and captures it. That way, it helps to moisturise your skin and keep it looking plump and glowing.

How to make the herbal hand cream

To make this cream, you will need a submersion/stick blender, as well as some digital scales. It is really easy to make and usually only takes me about half an hour, of which most of that time is waiting for the infusion to steep.

This recipe makes about 220 grams of luxurious herbal hand cream, which is completely toxin-free. So that when the kids want some on their hands too, you don’t have to worry when they then lick it off. Just don’t ask me why my youngest thinks this is a good idea cause I have no clue.

Ingredients:

Herbal infusion:

50 ml water
3 tsp dried thyme
3 tsp dried sage
2 bay leaves

Solids:

30 gr shea butter
25 gr coconut oil
10 gr beeswax (pellets or grated)

Liquids:

80 gr olive oil
10 gr aloe vera juice
10 gr honey

Preparation:

I like to start with preparing the herbal infusion, so that can steep while I gather and prepare the rest.

Herbal infusion:

Bring the 50 ml of water to the boil and pour over the herbs in a heat-proof dish.
Let steep for about 20 minutes, then strain and reserve the infusion for the cream.

Solids:

Put the shea butter, coconut oil, and grated beeswax into a heat-proof bowl.
Then heat the solids au bain-marie, which just means you put your bowl on top of a pan with boiling water. But without the bowl touching the boiling water, thereby ensuring the solids melt gradually and without burning.
Stir from time to time to help the melting process, once molten, keep it on top of the pan until needed.

Making the cream:

Pour the liquids and infusion into your stick blender jug, or a narrow measuring jug.
While blitzing the mixture, pour in the molten solids.
Keep on blitzing in bursts until the mixture has cooled and the solids have set.

If you’ve kept blitzing the mixture with the stick blender, it should be light and airy and look smooth.

If it separates, you should blitz it again and allow it to cool while doing so.

If you’ve liked making this and want to make more body care products then why not try my homemade deodorant.

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