Winter weather can be tough on the skin. Lower humidity levels, cold temperatures outside and dry air inside can leach out moisture and leave skin chapped, dry, cracked, itchy and painful.

We definitely struggle with it in our family. My son’s hands, especially his knuckles, get really dry and painful. My husband has one spot on his legs that is always dry, while the skin on my feet and legs is always moisture-starved in the winter.

I made this all-natural lotion stick to help heal and soothe our parched winter skin. It contains a mix of nourishing and moisturizing argan and coconut oils, shea butter and four therapeutic essential oils — lavender essential oil, frankincense essential oil, neroli essential oil and palmarosa essential oil.

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The handy push-up tubes make the dry skin treatment portable and easy to apply without getting your hands greasy — things you can’t do with traditional lotion bars. You could also make this dry skin treatment in regular or mini deodorant containers.

Here’s what you need to make these lotion sticks:

Dry Skin Treatment Ingredients

• 2 ounces beeswax
• 4 ounces shea butter
• 2 ounces coconut oil
• 2 ounces Argan oil
• 25 drops lavender essential oil
• 25 drops frankincense essential oil
• 15 drops neroli essential oil
• 15 drops palmarosa essential oil
  3 mini scoops (approximately 1/3 teaspoon) cellini blue mica (optional)
• 10 1-ounce pushup tubes or 20 mini deodorant containers
• small glass measuring cup
• digital scale

Dry Skin Treatment Tutorial

Use a digital scale to measure out ingredients.

Combine the beeswax and shea butter in a medium-sized glass measuring cup or bowl. Heat over a double boiler on in the microwave, using 30 second bursts, until the beeswax and shea butter are completely melted.

Once completely melted and blending, add argan oil and coconut oil. Stir to blend, making sure the coconut oil is completely liquified.

Here’s a neat trick for testing the final hardness and consistency of your lotion sticks. Place a spoon in the freezer an hour ahead of time. Once you’ve blended the carrier oils, beeswax and shea butter, dip the frozen spoon into the mixture. It will solidify. If you prefer a harder lotion stick, add more beeswax. For a softer lotion stick, add more coconut oil or argan oil.

If you like, you can add cellini blue mica to the mixture to tint your lotion bars. This small amount of colorant will not transfer to your skin when you use the lotion bars.

Stir well to disperse the color throughout the oil and butter mixture. The shea butter I used was very yellow in color, so my lotion bars turned out more green than blue. Your results will vary depending on the color of the shea butter you use. (You can use the frozen spoon trick again to test the color of your mixture.)

Finally, add the essential oils to the mixture. Stir to combine and incorporate. Then pour into push-up tubes or deodorant containers.

Allow to cool and harden for several hours before moving the lotion sticks or capping them.

In our family, we’ve had the (mis)fortune to test these lotion sticks out a lot this winter. And we love them!

I was sick with what I’m calling “the crud” for about two weeks, and my nose got painfully raw from blowing it. To heal the chapped skin, I rubbed this dry skin treatment on the tip of my nose and the raw area above my lip. It worked wonders, not just in moisturizing my chapped skin but in providing soothing relief.

My husband has been applying this balm daily to the dry patch on his leg, and it’s really made a difference. In fact, he’s almost used an entire tube! My son is also using it on his dry hands with good results.

If your skin could use a little extra TLC this winter, I definitely encourage you to try this recipe. I find that a balm works so much better than lotion for seriously dry skin.

Here are a few other homemade bath, body and beauty products you might enjoy making:

Homemade Citrus Mint Hand Salve

Chocolate-Covered Strawberry Homemade Lip Balm

Homemade Shaving Cream