Best Homemade Moisturizer For Dry Sensitive Skin – Face & Hands

Learn how to make the best homemade moisturizer for dry skin (or sensitive skin) great for face and hands, with only natural, healing, organic ingredients. It will give your face skin a soft, moisturized feeling without clogging your pores. This DIY face moisturizer can be used as a nightly repair cream or a daily moisturizer for the driest skin including aging skin. Watch the how-to video and tips for this DIY face moisturizer below!

The Best DIY Face Moisturizer For Dry Skin And Sensitive Skin

No matter how nourishing a natural face moisturizer is, it’s useless, if it contains toxic ingredients that will irritate or harm your skin. The best way to keep your dry / sensitive skin healthy and beautiful, and your bank account pretty happy too, is to make a DIY face moisturizer.

My face and hands have a much more sensitive skin than the rest of my body, so I decided to make a different homemade face moisturizer for dry skin that can make keep my skin soft and supple but without leaving a heavy greasy layer. For the rest of my body, I’m using this skin healing whipped body butter recipe. It’s easier and cheaper to make and it does a really wonderful job at giving my dry, flaky skin an adequate amount of nourishment.

DIY Face Moisturizer For Dry and Sensitive Skin

I have super sensitive dry skin (and I light skin tone), especially during winter. I live in north-eastern part of United States, the cold winter season is really long and harsh. My skin gets even drier, flakier and tighter than usual. Besides that, if I get off my diet, or forget about juices or drinking water and indulge with processed foods, I get dry red patches all over my face that looks like eczema. Food allergies are not “helping” either.

So for me those over-the-counter moisturizers are a big no-no, I react pretty badly to all of them! This made me resort to natural, gentle, non-toxic DIY skincare products in the last few years. I’m even using my simple DIY makeup remover which I think works better than commercial ones.

When I need a lot of moisture for my skin, the first thing I do, is increase the water intake. Then I take care of the skin by using this DIY face moisturizer.

Why Make This DIY Face Moisturizer

• It’s super skin-soothing and non-irritating;
• It’s not too heavy to wear under makeup, and has a good weight for night;
• It is safe for all skin types, including sensitive skin, dry skin or combination skin;
• Acne-friendly (doesn’t clog pores, there’s no coconut oil);
• This DIY face moisturizer is infused with healing plant based ingredients;
• Organic, vegan (no beeswax or dairy);
• Affordable, a little goes a long way and you can adjust the quantity you want to use.
• It’s a mango butter based face moisturizer – since the plant butters contain no water in them, they moisturize to a much deeper level and the skin feels much more softer than water based lotions and creams.

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DIY Face Moisturizer Ingredients

1. Mango butter – the base for this homemade face cream.
2. Grape seed oil – as carrier oil for herb infusion.
3. Dry herbs (calendula flowers, yarrow flowers, plantain leaves) – for infusion;
4. German chamomile essential oil (optional);
5. Rose essential oil (optional);

Related: 18 Ways To Use Essential Oils And How to Choose Them

What You Need To Know Before You Make A Natural DIY Face Moisturizer For Dry Sensitive Skin

When you create your own homemade face moisturizer, you can play with many types of ingredients.

But before diving into the actual recipe for this DIY face moisturizer, here are a few words about choosing the ingredients:

Choose The Base For Your Homemade Face Moisturizer

I’m sensitive to cocoa and shea is too greasy for me, so using their butters is out of options. Mango butter has similar properties as shea butter and cocoa butter –  its rich fatty acid profile differs slightly and it has more vitamins and antioxidants.

The emollient acids help to smooth the skin by filling in the spaces between skin cells. They basically re-hydrate the top layer of skin cells and seal in the moisture.

That’s why I chose 100% pure, raw mango butter as base in this homemade face cream for sensitive and dry skin. Mango butter provides a more lasting type of moisturization, it’s gentle, and perfectly suitable for sensitive skin. 

Mango butter (made from it’s seed) has a soft, creamy texture that absorbs easily into the skin plus its non-comedogenic – which means great for acne prone skin too!

Most people use coconut oil in their DIY face moisturizer but I don’t think my skin likes it, it’s actually drying for me and I brake out.

Therefore I made my homemade moisturizer for dry skin without coconut oil.

Choose The Carrier Oil For Your DIY Face Moisturizer

There are many options to choose from. Personally I prefer to stay away from any oil that has been extracted using solvents like hexane.

I prefer cold pressed minimally processed oils.

Good options are olive oil, almond oil, avocado oil, jojoba oil, but I like to use a light, heat resistant oil like organic cold pressed grape seed oil. 

Grapeseed oil is a good source of vitamin E, even more so than olive oil. It penetrates your skin quickly and doesn’t leave your skin feeling oily.

Choose The Herbs For Your Homemade Face Moisturizer

By adding in specific herbs can greatly boost the healing effectiveness of this homemade DIY face moisturizer. Here are the best healing herbs that can help a dry sensitive skin:

1. Calendula – has been used for centuries on the skin, most of its anti-inflammatory and anti-bacterial properties can be attributed to its high level of Carotenoids. Which makes a fantastic treatment for dry sensitive skin, skin prone to rashes and conditions such as eczema, dermatitis and psoriasis.
2. Yarrow – is one the world’s oldest medicinal plants. It is antiseptic, astringent, anti-inflammatory, an excellent antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, antihistamine, analgesic, wound healer. It is usually used for a large variety of ailments both internally and externally. This is the kind of medicinal plant you want to have always with you, especially if you are a woman.
3. Plantain – is known to help dry, damaged skin. It is a go-to herb for just about any kind of rash, irritation, bite, sting, or wound. It soothes, cools, disinfects, staunches bleeding, speeds tissue healing, and extracts toxins and foreign matter. Plantain is the best herb for inflammatory skin conditions and it’s safe even for babies.

I like to use a blend of herbs for this DIY face moisturizer recipe, 1 to 2 tablespoon each, but you could do more or less if you like.

Choose the essential oils:

Adding essential oils to this DIY face moisturizer for sensitive skin is totally optional, they are expensive but worth every dollar as they last for very long time and can be used for so many recipes. I’m using German chamomile essential oil and rose essential oil, but you could use your favorites. Their emollient and soothing effect will make your natural face moisturizer even more potent. The scent of these two (rose and chamomile) is so calming and relaxing, it smells like a blossomed garden!

How To Make Homemade Face Moisturizer For Sensitive Skin

First make the herbal infusion with oil:

• Place your herbs into a glass jar and pour the grapeseed oil over the herbs. Make sure the herbs are completely covered by oil and set it in a sunny location for 3-4 weeks. Shake or stir daily.

• After 3-4 weeks, strain the herbs using a cheesecloth. Another (faster) way to use gentle heat is with a double boiler. Or you can place the jar with herbs in a pot with water and heat gently. It’s okay to allow the jar to be immersed in water as long as you keep the water at a low temperature – between 95° and 110°F. Just make sure there is water between the jar bottom and the pot.
• Let the oil infusion simmer slowly for 30 minutes to an hour each day for 3 days, stirring it occasionally. Strain when ready through a strainer.

• Measure your infused oil and make sure you have 110-120 grams for the recipe, it’s ok if you have a little more than that. Actually if you increase it to 200 grams you will get a much softer and liquid-ish cream.

Step 2. Prepare the butter base:

• In a separate glass container melt the mango butter (aprox. 200 grams) over a pot filled with hot water. You should get 1 cup of liquid butter. Set aside for 20 minutes in a cold place. 
• When it starts to solidify and it looks like half way hardened take out your electric hand mixer and blend until it gets fluffy like whipped cream.

Step 3. Mix Everything Together To Form The Homemade Face Moisturizer:

• Over the whipped mango butter pour in the infused oil and the essential oils (optional) and blend for a minute more to mix them in.
• Store this homemade face moisturizer in a sterilized glass jar and keep it in a cool, dark place. It should keep for about 4-6 months. The essential oils will help keep it even longer as they act as antibacterial and anti-fungal agents.

Tips for Making A Homemade Facial Moisturizer If You Have A Very Dry Sensitive Skin

• For people with skin issues, particularly those with sensitivity, is best to make oil infusions than use very potent essential oils. This also applies for pregnant / breastfeeding women and very small babies.
• If you feel you can tolerate certain essential oils, make sure they are authentic, unadulterated, ideally organic, because you might think you are allergic to an essential oil, when in fact you are allergic to the ingredients it has been extracted or diluted with.
• And use in minimal amounts of essential oils – dilution is the ultimate key to tolerance.
• To make this DIY face moisturizer – thinner and silkier – increase the amount of herb infused oil from 1/3 cup to 1/2 cup (see picture below). To keep it thick and buttery keep the ratios as they are or slightly decrease the amount of infused oil.

How To Apply This Homemade Moisturizer For Dry Skin

It’s best to rub in a light layer of the face moisturizer just after a hot shower while the pores of your skin are still open and after you washed your face in the morning. It may feel a little greasy just after application, but within minutes it will soak into your skin. The result is soft and glowing skin.

Now that you know how to make your own DIY face moisturizer, I’d love to hear what you think of it in the comment section below. And please leave a star rating if you made it!

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