Pregnancy-Belly Balm!

Since I found out that my friend from Salt Spring Island, Freddie, was pregnant, I have been DYING to test out my own recipe for a pregnancy-belly balm!

Freddie got married on the 20th of March, and we headed out to BC to attend. Since they had a wedding registry, and I figured they'd be getting lots of things for their home, and we won't be there for their baby shower; I decided I wanted to make her baby-related stuff! So Adrian and I started brainstorming ideas that we could afford, and got talking about things that we had when we got pregnant, or really wanted to have. We came up with a fairly sizeable list and then from that, I picked a couple of things that I really wanted to give her. To be cost effective, and because I feel it really comes from the heart, I decided to make everything!

In my third trimester, I made myself (with the help of my wonderful mum) a nursing cover, and I decided to make Freddie one of those as well, because they're really quite easy. We used this pattern, with a couple changes: we made it a little bigger, and added in a second row of boning to keep the fabric off baby's precious face. My grandma, who was up for the weekend, even got excited about this and pitched in!

I also gave them a couple of my homemade lotion bars and some beeswax tea lights so they could have a romantic night to reconnect with each other. This is something that both Adrian and I really needed post delivery, because Jaxson took everything out of us and we started to neglect our relationship.

Homemade lotion bars, set in a muffin cup!

The last thing I made, and this is what I was most excited about it, was a pregnancy-belly balm of my own creation.

Naturally, I did some reading beforehand, but just to see what ingredients were safe for and beneficial during pregnancy. I already knew, from the little bit that i've dabbled with my raw ingredients, what consistency I wanted, and roughly how to get it. I had also bought myself a natural belly balm months ago and really liked the consistency of that, so I looked at the ingredients to get an idea of how they did it.

So I was confident that I could create a balm on my own, without following someone else's recipe. Every ingredient I used was well researched and used for a specific purpose in this balm.

This is what I came up with, and why:

60g Cocoa Butter
50g Shea Butter
20g Beeswax pellets
1 tbsp Coconut Oil
1 tbsp Grape Seed Oil
1 tsp Sweet Almond Oil
1 tbsp Vegetable Glycerin
1 tbsp Aloe
12 drops Tamanu Oil
1 tsp Vitamin E
30 drops Lavender Essential Oil
10 drops Lemon Essential Oil

I melted the butters, beeswax and coconut oil in a double boiler, then removed it from the heat and added the grape seed and almond oil, tamanu oil, aloe, glycerin and vitamin e. I found that the glycerin and aloe caused the oil to start solidifying immediately, because they were more watery and cooler than the rest of the balm. Because of this, I really had to mix it up before I added the essential oils. The essential oils I added bit by bit, and by smell - I added them slowly, smelling along the way, until I felt it was scented well enough (but not so much as to offend a pregnant lady's sensitive nose!).

I stuck it in the fridge, in a sanitized tin to solidify.

Benefits of the Ingredients:

Both Cocoa and Shea Butter are ultra hydrating and healing for the skin. Cocoa butter is supposed to be amazing for stretch marks and both help lock in moisture. Shea butter is ideal for damaged skin and it helps to retail moisture and improve skin elasticity - perfect for a rapidly growing belly! I love both of these butters - shea is much more malleable and liquifies better than cocoa butter. I also find that it absorbs quicker into the skin, but I love the feel of both of them!

Beeswax is also very healing for the skin and I really like it in the lotions i've made as I find it adds extra oomph to the lotion. It's super moisturizing and provides a protective barrier to the skin, locking in moisture. I like beeswax because it really thickens lotions up, helps them solidify faster (for all you impatient people out there, like me) and I can feel the protective barrier on my skin, locking in all the moisture-y goodness!

Coconut oil is also very hydrating, healing and softening, but on top of that, it is supposed to be great for preventing stretch marks during pregnancy. It is also antimicrobial and antibacterial. Coconut oil is a wonder oil in my opinion. It's good for everything, internally and externally. I use it straight as a hair mask and lotion, and I cook with it often. I couldn't even think of not adding it to this!

Grape Seed and Almond Oil I added to liquify the solution a bit and make it more malleable. Both are also super moisturizing. Almond oil in particular is quite viscous and greasy, but that's exactly why I wanted to add it - I wanted that texture in this balm.

Tamanu Oil is a miracle oil that i've just recently discovered and use on my face. It smells mildly of curry, but I found that it blended in very well with everything else, and you can't smell it at all! It's wonderful for dry skin, promotes the formation of new tissue (ultra-healing!) and fades scars. It is also antiviral/septic/bacterial/biotic and is apparently hypoallergenic! I'm obsessed with this oil right now. I love what it does to my face, and I knew right away that it was something I wanted in this balm for its healing powers.

Vegetable Glycerin helps to attract and lock in moisture to the skin. It's also great for dry and damaged skin as well. Glycerin is a wonderful additive to lotions to add a moisturizing boost and help with the itching of dry skin.

Aloe is ultra soothing to the skin, and I used it in this mostly to thin out the consistency and help to make it more spreadable.

Vitamin E helps heal and fade scars and it's also a natural preservative.

Lavender Essential Oil is antiseptic, analgesic, healing, relaxing, promotes cell renewal, and is also one of the safest essential oils - it's good for everything and everyone, including babies! This is my all-time favourite essential oil. I use it every day, directly on my face, in baking soda to freshen our bed, in my baths... everywhere. It's a wonderful, uplifting scent with a myriad of uses and benefits.

I read a lot of mixed reviews about the use of Lemon Essential Oil during pregnancy. Many people say it's safe, some say it isn't. However, the only thing I could find regarding it's safety is that some people may have a bit of skin sensitivity to it, and as it's a citrus oil, it's best not to apply it right before spending time in the sun. With that knowledge, I decided to add just a little bit to this balm. Lemon oil is uplifting. It's antiseptic/fungal/microbial/bacterial as well. It also boosts the immune system, improves circulation, relieves headaches and reduces blood pressure. In my opinion, especially in small quantities, it's a safe oil to use. I also wanted to use this, because Freddie wanted a citrus-y scent, and I know when I was pregnant, one of the only things that helped with my morning sickness was cutting a lemon in half and smelling it! It cut through all the other odours around me and helped block them out.

So there you have it: my well researched, home-made pregnancy-belly balm!

I was very excited that this batch made just a bit too much to fit in the container I was using for Freddie, so I got to keep some for myself! I love it - it's a little greasy, but perfect for a belly balm. It's still just a tiny bit harder than I wanted it to be, but it melts really nicely.

One thing I will say about this is I used aloe juice, and I won't use that in this kind of balm again. It's just too much of a different consistency, and as I used mine, I noticed the balm 'sweat' a bit and so by the time I got to the bottom of the jar, it was really hard and didn't even melt as nicely. I think as I used it, the aloe got pushed out of the butters and evaporated. If I do want to use aloe, I think i'll try experimenting with aloe gel instead. Another change I would make to it is to put in a bit more liquid oils to counteract the hardness of the cocoa butter, in particular.

It does smell amazing though - citrus-y, uplifting... Like liquidy sunshine!