Liz’s Coat Conditioner

This is long overdue, given that I’ve had the little slip of paper with the recipe on it hanging out on my desk for many months now, but like many things from the before-times, it feels ageless and also brand new.

Turns out it was back in February that Liz first blogged about a DIY Coat Conditioner recipe. I was taken by it immediately, since it seemed achievable and also like something I’d been seeking for some time. Tristan’s coat often gets dry and dandruff-y in the winter, so I’m always pondering ways to work on that.

So, here are the ingredients that Liz suggested, along with my spray bottle, purchased for this occasion because I seem to be one of those people who never has a free spray bottle. The hardest thing to find was the distilled water, which I ended up locating at a drugstore. Everything else I got on Amazon for about $50 total.

While I was making this, I actually ended up putting everything on a scale and measuring it by weight instead of by volume. This meant I didn’t have to mess up my measuring cups and spoons for future batches.

So here’s the recipe by weight, in case you want to do it that way. You can easily double it to fill a 32oz bottle. I love doing things by weight – I bake by weight almost exclusively. It’s a way to do easy math to double, to

830 g water (this filled it up to the rest of the 16oz line)
40 g coconut oil
20 g vegetable glycerin
10 g witch hazel
1 g each essential oil (I used lavender and and eucalyptus, like Liz) (this ends up being a fair bit more than the 10 drops she used, but I liked the stronger smell)

I also chatted with Liz a bit about swapping out apple cider vinegar for some of the water; she

How does it work?

Really well! I didn’t necessarily get before & after photos or anything, but I was really pleased with the improvement in his coat when I used this consistently. I usually used it last in my grooming, brushing it in with the soft brush. I tried both before & after riding and found I preferred after. I also really like to spray & soak it into the base of his mane & tail, which get quite dry, and then rub it into the crest and dock with my fingertips.

If you’re looking for a coat conditioner but don’t want to spend a ton of money, want control over your ingredients, and want something you can make at home without running to the store regularly, this is a really terrific thing to have on hand. One purchase of the ingredients will last you many, many iterations of mixing it up. I just keep it in a box with my other extra horse stuff in the basement and bring it up when I need to make more, which takes maybe 5-10 minutes when I get everything out.