Sulfur butter recipe

[branchandroot]

For all the users of Braunfel Labs Sulfur Butter cream 'n ointment, who are, like myself, devastated that they seem to be discontinuing the product and that no other like it exists, be comforted! It's dead easy to make yourself; takes about an hour, all told. Welcome to the product of my experimentation.

Ingredients
2oz shea butter (or 4oz for old recipe)
2oz vegetable glycerine (or none, for old recipe)
1 Tbs jojoba oil
1 Tbs hemp oil
1 Tbs avocado oil
.4oz sulfur powder (soil grade)

Materials
kitchen scale
small sauce pan
small metal or pyrex bowl
hot pad
whisk or egg beater
spatula
a spoon or two
4oz dark glass jar

Directions

Measure out your shea butter by weight.

Fill the sauce pan a quarter full with water and place the pyrex or metal bowl on top of it so you have a 'double boiler' arrangement.

Put the shea butter in the bowl and set the whole thing on the stove. Heat on medium until water simmers and the shea butter melts.

Measure out your glycerine by weight and add it (or, if you want to make the old-style recipe, don't and just use 4oz shea butter). Add the oils and stir a couple times.

Remove bowl from saucepan, place on hot pad. Weigh out and add the sulfur powder, and whisk or beat in until fully dissolved. This will take several minutes. Note: if you really want the full effect of the original product, do not use MSM. Use soil-grade, yellow sulfur powder. Yes it's more caustic, that's why the ultra moisturizing ingredients and also why you don't leave it on more than 24 hours. Bonus: soil grade powder is way easier to dissolve.

Place bowl in the fridge or freezer and chill until it starts to solidify (about 20 minutes in the fridge). Remove and whisk or beat until it fully solidifies and turns opaque. This will take several minutes. If it just isn't solidifying into a thick cream, chill it for a little longer and try again.

Spoon into the glass jar, scraping bowl with spatula to make sure you get it all, because hemp oil is not cheap.

Behold, you now have your very own Sulfur Butter cream and ointment. Enjoy!

When cleaning up, be sure you run the hot water for a little bit to make sure everything gets rinsed down without clogging your sink, and don't forget to wash the underside of your egg beater. It will have gotten a bit moisturized.

Comments

[niqaeli]

I'm curious, what is... sulphur butter FOR? A quick google suggested it might be an anti-dandruff thing, but it honestly didn't explicate much.

[branchandroot]

It was originally compounded and marketed for dandruff and mite treatment, from what I can tell, but the biggest segment of users these days are probably (like me) using it for rosacea or acne relief. The products marketed for rosacea usually only have 1% sulfur, and honestly that doesn't do much. 10% sulfur, on the other hand, especially in enough heavy-duty moisturizers that you can leave it on all day, now /that/ works. I actually have my real skin tone back most of the time and no longer look like a strawberry. \o/

[niqaeli]

hmmmmm! HMMMMMMMMMMM. I don’t have acne or rosacea but several people I love DO, sooooo. and I’m unafraid of making skincare products!

how long do you leave it on, then? do you wash it off after a certain point? what is your routine with it, basically?

[branchandroot]

First thing is always to test it on a wrist or similar, just in case the recipient is one of the ones with a sensitivity to sulfur. If they are, a rash will come up within a day or two.

I wash my face with a gentle soap every morning, spread the sulfur butter on, and leave it on for 24 hours, which is about my max before irritation sets in. Thanks to the sulfur, I don't need foundation, so this works for me. *pauses to sing a gloria* I've heard other people leave it on for 12 hours, during the day, and then nothing during the night, or wash morning and night, and re-apply each time. For people with less severe (or more responsive) symptoms, leaving it on a few hours before washing may be enough, but possibly awkward as a daily routine.

It does make the skin a little "wow, that's some oil, yep" feeling, as it melts in, but it doesn't go on shiny. I find that rubbing it in a little with my fingertips after an hour or two alleviates the oil-feeling. Makeup on top of this works best with liquid rather than powder, because the oils grab the powder so hard and you wind up streaky or caked. Advise them not to spread it too near their eyes, because sulfur, very stingy.

[sporky_rat]

This sounds dead useful.

Time to make up some sulfur cream.

[branchandroot]

I'm a big fan, especially seeing as /nothing/ else put a dent in my rosacea (or my stress acne, for that matter). Just be sure you test it for a day on your wrist or similar, to make sure it won't give you a rash. You might want to knock it down to 5%, if it does.

[sporky_rat]

My junior college's water supply was so highly sulfured (legal limits!) that it was yellowed-brown and nobody had acne. Nobody. My skin hasn't looked that good since. It was pretty awful for the people allergic to sulfur, but the rest of us were okay.

(I can't wait. So can't wait. Where do you get your sulfur, feed and seed?)

[branchandroot]

I got mine online from Greenway Biotech. I liked their honesty about the actually approved uses for that grade of sulfur.