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Pumpkin Spice Body Butter DIY + Pumpkin Spice Essential Oil Blends

This decadent pumpkin spice body butter recipe is whipped to fluffy perfection. Scented with a realistic pumpkin pie essential oil blend, it’s the perfect addition to your natural fall skincare routine. This homemade body butter’s silky, whipped texture easily melts into skin, while its aromatic fragrance is a treat for your senses!

Read on to learn how to make pumpkin spice body butter in 4 delicious scents, including pumpkin pie, cheesecake and pumpkin spice latte.

Pumpkin spice body butter

Does anything say “fall” more than pumpkin spice aroma? Once September rolls around, everything from lip gloss to body lotion is given the pumpkin spice treatment.

While we love this popular fall scent, we don’t love the toxic, low-quality fragrances often used to evoke its classic aroma in body butters and other body care products.

Unfortunately, scented products aren’t harmless. It may be fun to adorn your body with the aroma of pumpkin spice, but synthetic fragrances are linked to a number of health issues. And for those with fragrance sensitivity, most store-bought scented skincare products are off-limits anyway.

Luckily, if you want to smell like pumpkin spice without the chemicals, you can skip the bath and body store and make this all-natural homemade pumpkin spice body butter with essential oils instead! No artificial pumpkin spice fragrance oil necessary.

Homemade pumpkin spice body butter

All-natural pumpkin spice scented body butter

If you want to moisturize your dry skin in cooler autumn temperatures, but don’t enjoy the feeling of heavy, greasy body butters, this recipe is for you.

This whipped body butter recipe is non-greasy yet extremely nourishing for dry skin. It has a light and airy consistency thanks to a special combination of plant butters, giving it a unique texture similar to a body lotion (or silky pumpkin mousse).

We also created realistic pumpkin spice essential oil blends for this DIY body butter, in several all-natural fragrances that smell like your favorite fall treats. Choose from 4 delicious body butter scents: classic pumpkin spice, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, and pumpkin spice latte.

Update 2023: This recipe was originally published in 2019. In 2023, we reformulated the pumpkin spice fragrance to smell even better and more realistic while being more gentle on sensitive skin.

Pumpkin Spice Body Butter Ingredients

This recipe contains a luxurious combination of soft nilotica shea butter, rich bacuri butter, lightweight fractionated coconut oil, and creamy beeswax for a body butter that’s simultaneously rich yet non-greasy.

Its subtle pumpkin orange color comes from 100% natural cosmetic clay – no mica or artificial dyes necessary.

DIY pumpkin spice body butter

You can find more detailed information about each body butter ingredient below, or skip straight to the recipe if you’re not interested. Later, you’ll find instructions on how to make a pumpkin spice scent with essential oils to naturally fragrance your body lotion.

Nilotica shea butter

This body butter’s secret ingredient is nilotica shea butter. Unlike Western shea butter, which tends to be quite firm, nilotica shea butter is very soft due to its high oleic acid content. It’s also what gives this pumpkin spice body butter its silky, lotion-like texture.

Unlike heavier shea butters, nilotica shea butter melts quickly on contact with body heat. Once whipped, it becomes so light that it seems to almost disappear into skin.

Another benefit of using nilotica shea butter in body butter recipes: it won’t turn grainy like Western shea butter can. Often when shea butter is melted and re-solidified, the fatty acids cool at different rates, leading to granules in the final product.

But this won’t happen with nilotica – when melted down, it will be just as smooth and uniform as before, creating the most silky homemade body butter texture.

In terms of the best nilotica shea butter, we’ve used the Swanson, Shea Terra, and LXMI brands.

Bacuri butter

Bacuri butter is a rich, deeply colored butter that hails from the Brazilian rainforest. It’s incredibly emollient which makes it ideal for dry or mature skin types. But despite its rich, fudge-like texture and appearance, it absorbs readily into skin.

Adding bacuri butter to this whipped body butter recipe is not only for its moisturizing properties. It also adds a subtle natural color, helping to give this body butter a lovely warm tone that complements its pumpkin spice scent.

Due to its deep, dark brown color, bacuri butter can also lend a lovely glow to the skin. Our blogging friend Rebecca of Soap Deli News has a lovely recipe for a DIY mineral bronzing butter with bacuri butter.

What do you do with the extra bacuri butter? Bacuri butter is also a key ingredient in our peppermint hot cocoa body butter and our chocolate cleansing balm.

But if bacuri butter is too hard to find or you don’t want to purchase an extra ingredient, you can also substitute mango butter or deodorized cocoa butter.

Homemade pumpkin spice body lotion with essential oils

Fractionated coconut oil or MCT oil

Fractionated coconut oil and MCT oil are interchangeable in this body butter recipe. Both carrier oils have undergone the process of fractionation. This not only makes them liquid at room temperature, but also gives them a light, silky skin feel for a non-greasy body butter recipe.

The benefit of using these oils is that they are comprised of saturated fatty acids, which are very resistant to oxidation. This makes them much more shelf stable than other liquid carrier oils like sweet almond oil. As a result, using fractionated coconut oil or MCT oil can help your pumpkin spice body butter stay fresh longer.

Fractionated coconut oil and MCT oil possess many of the same benefits as regular virgin coconut oil, including antibacterial and anti-fungal benefits. However, they’re far less comedogenic.

Those with acne-prone skin types may find that regular coconut oil can clog their pores and cause breakouts, which is why some people prefer to seek out body butter without coconut oil.

White beeswax

A small amount of natural white beeswax pellets add structure to this whipped body butter recipe, allowing it to stay fluffy and retain its airy whipped texture during storage. In fact, if stored properly in a cool place, your pumpkin body butter will not need to be re-whipped.

Beeswax also has skin-nourishing and moisturizing properties which are always a welcome addition to skincare recipes.

If you’re allergic to bee products or would prefer a pumpkin spice body lotion without beeswax, then you can use plant-based candelilla wax as a substitute. However, please keep in mind that it does not have the same silky smooth texture as white beeswax.

Red and yellow clay

Artificial colors, dyes, or mica are frequently used in store-bought body butters and other pumpkin spice scented products. Instead, we used natural cosmetic red clay and yellow clay powders to give this DIY body butter its characteristic pumpkin orange color.

Combined with bacuri butter, these clay powders can provide a subtle bronzing effect. As an added benefit, they also help tone down the shea butter’s richness for a silky, non-greasy body butter texture.

Vitamin E

If you’ve ever smelled stale or rancid oil, you know it’s not pleasant – and rancid oils aren’t good for your skin, either! This is why we always avoid sunflower oil, almond oil, and other oils with short expiry dates in all our homemade body butter recipes, and why we didn’t use pumpkin seed oil in this recipe, either.

It’s also why we added a small amount of vitamin E oil to the formulation for its potent antioxidant properties.

This body butter is comprised of mostly saturated and monounsaturated fatty acids (SFAs and MUFAs). The SFAs in coconut oil and MCT oil are very resistant to oxidation, but the MUFAs in shea butter and bacuri butter will oxidize somewhat faster. Vitamin E helps slow down this process, lengthening your body butter’s shelf life.

How to create a pumpkin spice scent with essential oils

How do you go about making a pumpkin spice scent without using fragrance oils? We’ll show you how to recreate this classic autumn fragrance with essential oils below.

If you’d prefer a pre-made blend’s convenience, you have a few options. You can combine Simply Earth’s Gingerbread Blend and Vanilla Woods Blend for a natural pumpkin spice aroma.

Plant Therapy also has a seasonal Pumpkin Spice Essential Oil Blend that’s perfect for adding a natural fragrance to your DIY body butter.

Whipped non greasy body butter recipe with pumpkin spice essential oil

Essential oils that smell like pumpkin spice include:

  • Copaiba: Sweet, rich, and subtly spicy, copaiba oleoresin is integral to a natural pumpkin spice fragrance. It’s also more gentle on the skin than spicier essential oils such as cinnamon, nutmeg, clove bud and cardamom. As s a bonus, it can also help reduce muscle pain.
  • Vanilla: Vanilla essential oil‘s delicious aroma helps balance and sweeten spicy scents, giving your pumpkin spice scent a sweeter, more dessert-like quality.
  • Tonka bean: A staple in natural perfumery, tonka bean absolute smells like caramel and burnt sugar, adding incredibly realistic notes to this pumpkin spice aroma.
  • Ginger: Sweet and spicy ginger root oil is a must for any pumpkin spice blend, and its subtle fruity scent adds hints of pumpkin fruit.
  • Cassia: Cinnamon is the classic way to put the “spice” in pumpkin pie spice mix, but too much cinnamon oil can irritate sensitive skin. We replaced cinnamon with cassia essential oil, which has a sweeter scent and more subtle spiciness. It’s also far more gentle on the skin.
  • Blood orange: How do you put the “pumpkin” in pumpkin spice? There’s no pumpkin essential oil, so we used blood orange oil instead. Its subtle fruity scent adds the finishing touch to this pumpkin spice blend, adding notes that evoke fresh pumpkin puree.

What about spicier autumn essential oils such as cinnamon leaf, cinnamon bark, clove bud, cardamom, and nutmeg? We included some of these in the first version of our pumpkin spice body butter recipe. However, we decided to reformulate the essential oil blend to reduce the risk of skin irritation.

Pumpkin Spice Essential Oil Blend

Below you’ll find a selection of body butter essential oil blends for a natural pumpkin spice scent. You’ll find a few fragrance variations depending on what variety of pumpkin spice you prefer, including pumpkin pie and pumpkin spice latte.

Not just for body butter, you could easily use each blend to naturally fragrance other skincare recipes, or even make a pumpkin spice perfume!

Whipped pumpkin spice body butter in jar

Pumpkin Spice

26 drops vanilla essential oil
26 drops tonka bean absolute
18 drops blood orange essential oil
12 drops copaiba oleoresin
10 drops ginger essential oil
8 drops cassia essential oil

This classic pumpkin spice blend is the perfect blend of sweet, creamy pumpkin and spice.

Pumpkin Pie

26 drops vanilla oleoresin
26 drops tonka bean absolute
26 drops butter co2 extract
18 drops blood orange essential oil
12 drops copaiba oleoresin
10 drops ginger essential oil
8 drops cassia essential oil

This dessert blend contains real butter essential oil (butter co2 extract) for a rich and buttery scent that smells like real pumpkin pie.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

22 drops coffee essential oil
15 drops vanilla essential oil
15 drops tonka bean essential oil
12 drops blood orange essential oil
10 drops copaiba oleoresin
8 drops ginger essential oil
8 drops cassia essential oil

If you look forward to a PSL every autumn, this coffee-infused blend lets you enjoy the smell of pumpkin spice latte in your skincare routine, too.

Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake

50 drops butter essential oil
26 drops vanilla oleoresin
26 drops tonka bean absolute
12 drops copaiba oleoresin
12 drops blood orange essential oil
8 drops ginger essential oil
8 drops cassia essential oil

If you love decadent gourmand scents, you’ll love this ultra realistic pumpkin cheesecake blend! Butter co2 extract creates the rich, sumptuous scent of real cheesecake.

Pumpkin Spice Essential Oil Blend Graphic

Essential oil safety notes

Our pumpkin spice body butter blends do not exceed the recommended safe amounts for each essential oil.

However, it’s important to be cautious when using potentially irritating, spicy essential oils such as cinnamon, nutmeg, clove bud and cardamom, which carry a higher risk of skin irritation.

Therefore, if you’re using premade blends such as Plant Therapy Pumpkin Spice or Simply Earth Gingerbread, it’s important to not exceed the manufacturer’s recommended usage rate. These blends contain cinnamon and other potentially irritating essential oils which require a special dilution rate.

To use a pre-made blend to fragrance your body butter, we recommend either of the following combinations:

Pumpkin Spice Body Butter Recipe

3/4 cup nilotica shea butter
1/4 cup fractionated coconut oil or MCT oil
1 tbsp bacuri butter
1.5 tbsp beeswax pellets (or 3/4 tbsp candelilla wax)
1.5 tsp red clay powder (for color)
1.5 tsp yellow clay powder (for color)
1 tsp vitamin E oil
Pumpkin spice essential oil blend (blends above)

Supplies

Stainless steel mixing bowl (or double boiler)
Handheld mixer
Silicone spatula
Glass jar with lid

How to make pumpkin spice body butter

  1. Combine the beeswax (or candelilla wax) with the fractionated coconut oil (or MCT oil) in a stainless steel mixing bowl.
  2. Place the mixing bowl over a pot of water on medium heat to create a makeshift double boiler. If desired, you can also use a real double boiler for this step.
  3. Maintain medium heat while stirring the mixture frequently. (Since fractionated coconut oil and MCT oil are mostly saturated fats, they won’t be damaged by high heat.) Once the oil is hot and the wax has liquified, reduce the heat to low and proceed to the next step.
  4. Add the bacuri butter and stir until completely liquified. You may need to increase the heat slightly to get it to incorporate.
  5. Reduce the heat to low before adding the nilotica shea butter, red and yellow clay powders, and vitamin E oil. The nilotica will melt easily, but be sure to stir to make sure everything is thoroughly combined. If any lumps begin to form, you can turn up the heat slightly once more to get rid of them.
  6. Once the mixture is completely uniform and liquified, turn off the stove and remove the bowl from heat. (Take caution and use oven mitts.)
  7. Place the bowl of body butter into the fridge for at least an hour until cold and firm.
  8. Once the body butter has solidified, take it out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature before whipping. (This is important, otherwise your body butter could turn grainy.) Don’t be alarmed if it’s a very deep color, as it will lighten significantly once whipped.
  9. Right before whipping, add the pumpkin spice essential oil blend.
  10. Whip the body butter with a handheld mixer for 3-5 minutes. You want to use the highest setting to ensure maximum fluffiness. Once it’s sufficiently whipped, the body butter will turn a light orange color and should have the texture of whipped cream or pumpkin mousse.
  11. Transfer your whipped pumpkin spice body butter to a glass or stainless steel container for storage.

How to use your DIY body butter

Apply this nourishing body butter to slightly damp skin to lock in moisture. Massage gently until its silky texture sinks into your skin.

Use it after exfoliating for especially soft, smooth, pumpkin spice-scented skin. (Extra points if you already bathed in pumpkin spice bath salts or used a pumpkin spice shower bomb.)

Please don’t use pumpkin spice body butter on your face. Warm spice oils such as the ones in this body butter recipe aren’t suitable for facial skincare.

Please note that if skin irritation occurs at any point, you should immediately discontinue use.

Pumpkin spice body lotion with cloves, cinnamon sticks and pumpkins

Shelf life and storage

As with any homemade recipe, store this pumpkin spice body butter in an airtight jar and keep it in a cool, dark cupboard.

To package your body butter, use a container made of glass or stainless steel, not plastic. Essential oils are potent and can erode plastic containers, releasing toxic compounds.

This body butter recipe should last up to 2 years, but you’ll most likely have used it up before the season is over!  For a more specific expiration date, please check the expiry date of your oldest ingredient.

Pumpkin spice body butter
Yield: 10oz

Pumpkin Spice Body Butter

Cook Time: 15 minutes
Additional Time: 1 hour
Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes

Learn how to make pumpkin spice body butter in 4 decadent varieties, including pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin spice latte. Whipped to fluffy perfection, this homemade body butter's silky, whipped texture easily melts into skin, while its aromatic fragrance is a treat for your senses!

Ingredients

Pumpkin Spice Body Butter

Pumpkin Spice

Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Pumpkin Spice Cheesecake

Instructions

    1. Combine the beeswax (or candelilla wax) with the fractionated coconut oil (or MCT oil) in a stainless steel mixing bowl.
    2. Place the mixing bowl over a pot of water on medium heat to create a makeshift double boiler. If desired, you can also use a real double boiler for this step.
    3. Maintain medium heat while stirring the mixture frequently. (Since fractionated coconut oil and MCT oil are mostly saturated fats, they won't be damaged by high heat.) Once the oil is hot and the wax has liquified, reduce the heat to low and proceed to the next step.
    4. Add the bacuri butter and stir until completely liquified. You may need to increase the heat slightly to get it to incorporate.
    5. Reduce the heat to low before adding the nilotica shea butter, red and yellow clay powders, and vitamin E oil. The nilotica will melt easily, but be sure to stir to make sure everything is thoroughly combined. If any lumps begin to form, you can turn up the heat slightly once more to get rid of them.
    6. Once the mixture is completely uniform and liquified, turn off the stove and remove the bowl from heat. (Take caution and use oven mitts.)
    7. Place the bowl of body butter into the fridge for at least an hour until cold and firm.
    8. Once the body butter has solidified, take it out of the fridge and allow it to come to room temperature before whipping. (This is important, otherwise your body butter could turn grainy.) Don't be alarmed if it's a very deep color, as it will lighten significantly once whipped.
    9. Right before whipping, add the pumpkin spice essential oil blend.
    10. Whip the body butter with a handheld mixer for 3-5 minutes. You want to use the highest setting to ensure maximum fluffiness. Once it's sufficiently whipped, the body butter will turn a light orange color and should have the texture of whipped cream or pumpkin mousse.
    11. Transfer your whipped pumpkin spice body butter to a glass or stainless steel container for storage.

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Did you make this recipe?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Pinterest

More fall skincare recipes

If you simply can’t get enough pumpkin spice scented skincare in your fall beauty routine, then check out this roundup of pumpkin spice beauty recipes from Cari of Everything Pretty. And to enjoy the aroma in the shower, be sure to try our pumpkin spice shower bombs!

We hope you enjoyed our fall body butter recipe. If you did, you may like some of our other homemade bath and body recipes:

For even more natural DIY bath and body recipes, follow us on Pinterest! You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

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Homemade Pumpkin Spice Body Butter

Alison

Friday 12th of January 2024

I absolutely love your site and all your recipes look amazing! I am wondering though if this body butter can be stored in plastic containers or if it has to be stainless steel or glass.

Kyla

Sunday 14th of January 2024

Hi Alison, thanks for those kind words! I'm so happy to hear you're enjoying our site. 😊 You can technically store the body butter in plastic if you'd like. We just always recommend storing products that contain essential oils in glass or stainless steel containers if you can, especially long term. Since essential oils are so potent, they can erode certain plastics over time, and you don't want that ending up in your body products. But for short term use, plastic should be fine. I hope this helps!

Katie

Sunday 10th of September 2023

Hello, so I found the bacuri butter aroma very overpowering. Could you suggest an alternative? It literally overpowered the essential oils and ruined the whole batch so much I could not use the butter. On the bright side I absolutely love the militia Shea butter and will use it again!

Kyla

Monday 11th of September 2023

Hi Katie, oh no! It sounds like your bacuri butter was rancid. Usually bacuri butter has a subtle earthy scent, but it's not unpleasant, and it definitely shouldn't be so potent that a small amount spoils your batch. I'm sorry to hear this happened.

The bacuri butter is mostly for color, so you can easily replace it with more nilotica shea butter. Or, you could also use regular shea butter, mango butter, or deodorized cocoa butter to give the body butter a bit more richness. I hope this helps!

Jordyn

Tuesday 15th of December 2020

Where did you get the rose gold jar!?

Kim

Tuesday 15th of December 2020

Hi Jordyn! We got it from HomeSense here in Canada. It's owned by the same company as HomeGoods in the USA. Hope that helps!

Karen Cotron

Friday 4th of September 2020

Can you explain what is a western shea butter? Never heard of it. Where is the origin of this WSB, or did you make it up?

Kyla

Friday 4th of September 2020

Hi Karen. Western shea butter is native to the West African savanna region, which is why it’s sometimes called Western shea butter. A quick Google search of “Western shea butter” will provide further information. Thanks for reading and commenting!

Michelle

Saturday 28th of September 2019

I bet this smells amazing! I love the look of it, too. You can tell by the picture how light and airy it is. It would make a great gift idea, too!

Kim

Saturday 28th of September 2019

Thanks, Michelle! It really does have a nice light texture and we have enjoyed using it!

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