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Home » Herbalism » Herbal Bath and Skincare Recipes » Lotion Bars » How to Make Skin Soothing Rose Lotion Bars

How to Make Skin Soothing Rose Lotion Bars

May contain affiliate links or sponsored content. Please see my privacy policy and affiliate disclosure.

Originally published on April 16, 2020. Last updated on February 28, 2022

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Rose infused oil in a jar, and a homemade rose lotion bars on a wood background.

Learn how to make rose lotion bars! These lovely lotion bars use rose infused oil and are great for the skin. They are easy to make and a wonderful addition to your homemade bath and beauty projects.

Homemade rose lotion bars on a wood background.

Using Garden Roses for Skin Care

We have a huge rose bush in the front yard of our house that we just kind of let go.

We haven’t really had the chance to do much to the front of the house yet as we’ve been so focused on getting the backyard where we want it, so I figured having a gigantic unruly rose bush covered in pink flowers wasn’t that much of a bad thing. At least it sort of covers up all of the ugly parts of the yard!

I knew I had to do something with all those roses, though, besides feeding them to my chickens (they go nuts for the petals). Lotion bars was the first thing to come to mind!

Rose petals are naturally good for the skin, being cooling and soothing to dry, inflamed, and itchy skin. They are perfect for use in lotion, creams, and lotion bars.

The first step if you are using fresh roses from your yard is to dry them. I like to use my homemade herb and flower drying screens for this.

fresh pink roses on a drying screen

The Big Book of Homemade Products for Your Skin, Health & Home

This recipe is adapted from the Cocoa Rose Lotion Bars in Jan Berry’s (of The Nerdy Farm Wife blog) newly updated and expanded book, The Big Book of Homemade Products for Your Skin, Health & Home.

You might remember Jan from my How to Make Soap for Beginners post, as it was her lovely Natural Soap Making eBook that has been so helpful to me in my soap making adventure!

Her new book is amazing and full of wonderful homemade bath, beauty, and health recipes using herbs and flowers!

the big book of homemade products for you skin, health and home

Rose Lotion Bars Recipe

You will need a few things before you start this recipe.

It is nice to have a silicone mold to make your lotion bars. I used this flower and leaf one, but this round one is nice too. You could also try to improvise by pouring it into something you already have or can make at home (like a wooden soap mold, for example) and then cut into bars once it has solidified.

Pure rose essential oil can be very expensive, which is why geranium oil is listed as an alternative. I used this relatively inexpensive rose absolute oil blend and was happy with the results.

I did not use the alkanet root for coloring, but I did have some rose mica on hand so I added a pinch of that. To be honest it didn’t really do much for color as you can see from my photos below, so if you go that route you may want to use a bit more than small pinch.

rose infused oil

The first step is to make an infused oil with dried rose petals. There are many methods for doing this, see my post on how to make infused herbal oils for more information.

I used equal parts olive, sweet almond, and rose hip seed oils, but many different carrier oils would work just as well.

Once the oil is fully infused, strain out the rose petals using a fine mesh sieve.

straining rose infused oil

Use a double boiler, or make one yourself by using a stainless steel bowl or a smaller pot over a larger pot with about an inch of water in it.

Bring the water to a simmer and gently heat the oil, beeswax, shea butter, and optional alkanet root powder until everything has dissolved together.

If you are using beeswax bars instead of pastilles, cut them into smaller chunks and let them start to melt first before adding the shea butter. They will take longer to dissolve and overheated shea butter can become grainy.

melt beeswax in rose oil

Once everything has completely dissolved, let it cool for a minute or two before stirring in the rose essential oil.

Then pour the mixture into your mold of choice, and wait a few hours for them to completely harden before removing.

pour lotion bar into mold

They popped right out of the mold very easily! I am really pleased with how these lotion bars turned out, and they were incredibly simple to make.

fresh rose lotion bars

You could easily use other flowers instead of the roses as well, such as calendula or lavender. It’s an extremely adaptable recipe!

Here is my recipe for calendula lotion bars.

I really love this rose version, though. Jan Berry’s The Big Book of Homemade products for Your Skin, Health & Home is full of awesome ideas like this!

The Honey & Chamomile Cream sounds divine and might be what I make next, or maybe the Dandelion Body Butter. Really, every recipe sounds so enticing, I highly recommend checking it out!

rose lotion bars on a wooden board

If you have a lot of roses to use up, here are 10 things to make with roses!

Have you ever made anything fun with roses? I’d love to hear about it!


DIY Botanical Skin Care Recipes

  • Calendula Salve
  • Calendula Cream
  • Rose Hip Lip Balm
  • Vanilla Lavender Lip Balm
  • Dandelion Salve

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4.22 from 14 votes

Rose Lotion Bars

Learn how to make rose lotion bars! These lovely lotion bars use rose infused oil and are great for the skin. They are easy to make and a wonderful addition to your homemade bath and beauty projects.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Active Time 30 minutes
Total Time 40 minutes
Yield 4 one ounce bars
Cost $16.75
Author Colleen @ Grow Forage Cook Ferment

Equipment

  • Pint Mason Jar
  • Stainless Steel Bowl
  • Small Saucepan
  • Wooden or Bamboo Skewer
  • Decorative Mold

Ingredients

US Customary - Metric

Rose Infused Oil

  • ¼ cup dried rose petals
  • ½ cup carrier oil approximately; I used equal parts olive, sweet almond, and rose hip seed oils

Rose Lotion Bars

  • ¼ cup rose infused oil (52 g)
  • ¼ cup beeswax (28 g)
  • ¼ cup shea butter (44 g); you could also use mango or cocoa butter
  • few drops geranium essential oil or rose absolute oil
  • pinch alkanet root optional for color

Instructions

Rose Infused Oil

  • Place the rose petals in a mason jar and cover completely with carrier oil. 
  • Cover and place in a sunny window for a few weeks. 
  • Once the oil is fully infused, strain out the rose petals, reserving the oil to make your lotion bars. 

Rose Lotion Bars

  • Use a double boiler, or make one yourself by using a stainless steel bowl or a smaller pot over a larger pot with about an inch of water in it.
  •  Bring the water to a simmer and gently heat the oil, beeswax, shea butter, and optional alkanet root powder until everything has dissolved together.
  • If you are using beeswax bars instead of pastilles, cut them into smaller chunks and let them start to melt first before adding the shea butter, as they will take longer to dissolve and overheated shea butter can become grainy.
  • Once everything has completely dissolved, let it cool for a minute or two before stirring in the rose essential oil. 
  • Pour the mixture into your mold of choice, and wait a few hours for them to completely harden before removing.

Notes

To use lotion bars, just rub them on any areas where you have dry skin!
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Nenad says

    June 6, 2021 at 8:09 am

    Thanks for the wonderful recipe. I have never used rose petal macerate. It will come in handy for dry skin on my elbows. Nenad – Croatia.

    Reply
    • Grow Forage Cook Ferment says

      June 7, 2021 at 9:46 am

      You’re welcome!!

      Reply
  2. Lois says

    June 12, 2019 at 5:25 pm

    Hi.
    I regularly make WildRose Jelly or jam and also make regular Rose Jelly or Jam when my neighbors with rose bushes will share. So yummy and pretty as well.

    Reply
    • Susan says

      September 25, 2019 at 5:11 am

      Sounds Lovely

      Reply
  3. Micha says

    June 5, 2019 at 12:58 am

    Hi,
    i have tried this reciepe several times, but everytime in pour in the essential oil it evaporates and once cooled out it smells only of wax. I even tried with other essential oils and i try to pour in the essential oil in last moment before wax starts hardening, bit even then it has a temperature of around 60 °C and i heard that the essential oil should not be used beyong 40°C.
    Please help!
    Thank you so much for your answer.

    Reply
  4. Heidi Dages says

    May 27, 2019 at 2:56 pm

    5 stars
    These are amazing!!! If you like rose you will love these! Thank you so much! :)

    Reply
  5. Wanda says

    May 24, 2019 at 1:42 am

    This will be my first fresh rose petals so do I let them air dry out bake them dry or just pick them off the stem and put them in carrier oil

    Reply
    • Grow Forage Cook Ferment says

      May 29, 2019 at 9:53 am

      It’s better to dry them first as fresh petals could cause the oil to go rancid faster.

      Reply
  6. Faith says

    May 9, 2019 at 7:36 pm

    Hi Colleen, thank you for posting this recipe. I would like to know if any type of rose petal can be used, whether it’s from a knockout rose bush or wild rose bush? By the way, I want to let you know I’m really enjoying your book Healing Herbal Infusions. Gathering from plants outside is something my 3 year old son and I really enjoy doing together. Being able to use what we have picked and make something out of it is quality time I cherish. Except when he is on the baseball field picking dandelions instead of chasing after the baseball lol.

    Reply
    • Grow Forage Cook Ferment says

      May 15, 2019 at 10:54 am

      Hi Faith, any and all types of rose petals can be used! And I’m so glad to hear that you are enjoying my book!

      Reply
  7. Jessica Fuentes says

    February 26, 2019 at 10:20 am

    how many bars does it make

    Reply
    • Heidi Dages says

      May 27, 2019 at 2:58 pm

      Depending on the mold 3. I did not fill mine all the way through.

      Reply
  8. Debbie says

    March 26, 2018 at 5:48 pm

    When making the infused oil, what quantity of oil do you need?

    Reply
  9. Poet says

    January 27, 2018 at 3:19 pm

    Hello and thank you for sharing this yummy lotion recipe. What is the oil you infused the rose petals in?

    Reply
  10. Toni says

    January 2, 2018 at 4:50 pm

    I appreciate your comment about shea butter becoming grainy when overheated! Since it’s quite grainy to begin with it took me a few tries to figure out to add it last. ☺

    Reply
  11. Jen Swanson says

    December 8, 2017 at 9:04 am

    HI! I’m about to make these as Christmas gifts. I have my infused oil (made from roses from my 40th birthday) and all of the other ingredients, but I am not certain about your recipe. It looks like you use a 1/4 cup of the three items, but then there are different gram amounts – could you expand on this? I know 1 ounce equals 28 grams (the amount you show for the beeswax…..). Any help would be very appreciated!! Many thanks!

    Reply
    • Jen Swanson says

      December 8, 2017 at 9:31 am

      Actually I figured it out online – I forget that solids and liquids are measured differently ;-)

      Reply
  12. Radhia says

    September 29, 2017 at 12:26 pm

    Thank you for sharing but what about lye?

    Reply
    • Claudia says

      March 27, 2018 at 9:53 pm

      It’s not soap, it’s a lotion bar so no lye is necessary.

      Reply
  13. Jessica says

    February 26, 2017 at 7:45 am

    These look great!! I’m going to make a large quantity for a bridal shower. Since I only have 2 molds to make 12 at a time, can I put them in the freezer to speed up the drying time or will that damage them? I thought I would ask so I can try and do them all in one shot.

    Thanks!

    -Jessica

    Reply
    • Grow Forage Cook Ferment says

      March 1, 2017 at 8:19 am

      I think that will probably work just fine… I’ve never done it myself so I can’t say for sure, but I don’t see why it would be a problem!

      Reply
    • Heather says

      May 14, 2017 at 1:23 pm

      I always put mine in the freezer to speed the hardening process. I am much to impatient to wait. LOL

      Reply
  14. Erica says

    February 19, 2017 at 6:09 pm

    I made rose water and then used it in making facial toner with organic witch hazel , chamomile , lavender and tea tree oil! Awesome for after moisturizing and as a mineral makeup setter .

    Reply
    • Shari says

      July 15, 2020 at 5:23 pm

      Erica,
      How did you make the rose water? And what were your proportions for creating the facial toner. It sounds amazing, and I’d love to try it if you don’t mind sharing?!
      Thank you !
      Shari

      Reply
  15. Nicky Caplin says

    October 23, 2016 at 5:15 am

    Hi Colleen, here a small question from the other side of the globe (West of Europe)…
    This recipe sounds and looks great ánd easy, but I’m not familiar with the use of lotion bars in general… Do you use them as a soap or as a stick (like lip balm sticks) or do you melt them before use??

    Reply
    • Grow Forage Cook Ferment says

      October 23, 2016 at 9:25 am

      Hi Nicky, that’s a good question. No, they are not a soap and you don’t want to melt them before use. They are more of a stick like you say. Just rub them on any areas where you have dry skin!

      Reply
  16. Heidi Villegas says

    August 14, 2016 at 10:45 am

    I haven’t made lotion bars in awhile! I’m inspired! Your bars are beautiful!

    Reply
    • Grow Forage Cook Ferment says

      August 14, 2016 at 10:28 pm

      Thank you!

      Reply
  17. Emma Cooper says

    August 10, 2016 at 11:30 pm

    I haven’t made anything with roses yet (although I have used rose water and syrup in cooking), but it’s on my to do list. Thanks for sharing, these look lovely :)

    Reply
  18. Robin Jozovich says

    August 9, 2016 at 9:47 pm

    Beautiful!

    Reply

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