How to Make Your Own Sunscreen Lotion

By garciamoss

The safest sunscreens are those with the same types of natural ingredients that you would want in any other type of skincare product. Nourishing oils like coconut, shea butter, jojoba, almond, etc. and potentially other ingredients like green tea extract or other antioxidants to protect the skin. Minerals (zinc oxide being the most common) provide the actual barrier between the sun and your skin.

The oils and zinc oxide powder came from a DIY kit from MadeOn Skincare. Use code "sunscreen" to take $5 off the cost of a DIY kit (if you bought one yesterday, just email and ask for the discounted amount back).

Ingredients

• 1/2 oz. beeswax granules/pastilles
• 1/4 cup shea butter (2 oz.)
• 1/4 cup coconut oil (2 oz.)
• 2 Tbsp. zinc oxide powder (1 oz.)

Details

Adapted from keeperofthehome.org

Preparation

Step 1

I added the two oils and then the beeswax to a glass bowl.

This is our makeshift double boiler, a glass bowl sitting on top of a pot with boiling water turned to a low simmer. It's a blurry picture, but I thought it may still be helpful to see how we did it. We just had to be very careful with the hot glass bowl when we lifted it off, but other than that, this worked fine.

Once the oils were melted, we removed the bowl (set it on a folded towel on the counter) and dumped in the zinc oxide powder.

The book had recommended a stick blender, but mine is broken and I couldn't find another one at the thrift store. So, I settled for using a regular hand mixer and it did the job just fine. The goal was to thoroughly blend in the zinc oxide until there were no clumps, and to whip the oils just a bit.

Once it was smooth, we poured it into glass mason jars.