I've never used a magic butter machine but I have made quite a few batches of topicals. Everything from lotion to ointment, massage oil to cream, and even lip balm. The hardest part is getting the consistency right.
Cocoa butter will melt just below skin temp so depending on how it's carried it can make a great replacement for beeswax, although I find they work best together in the right ratios, and makes for a great moisturizer which can help with healing scars. A vitamin E gel capsule poked open and poured in can seriously help with scar tissue healing as well as help the finished product have a longer shelf life. Grape seed oil will help with overall penetration of the oil. Olive oil makes a greasy coating that sits on top of things which is good if you're looking for locking in moisture but bad for, say, a hand cream.
As for essential oils I'd be careful mixing too much too stoutly at first until your family member has had them exposed to their skin. Skin sensitivities come out full bore when you use pure essential oils. Always start on the lesser side of things when using essential oils. If you're not happy you can always remelt it and add more.
I tend to use lemonbalm essential oil to help with both relaxation and skin penetration of all substances involved, smells good too. A small amount of menthol can help with some pain kind of like icy hot. If you're a pro and can do some math so you don't kill anybody by poisoning them you can use oil of wintergreen as well but the person must be healthy and not already using something with methylsalisilicate in it or it can build up and become toxic in the system. Other than being a little dangerous for some people it makes a great pain killer by itself. It's what made the old bengay smell like wintergreen. Cayenne pepper steeped in the oil and filtered is great for arthritic pain over time but obviously bad for use near tender areas.
In the end, unless you want to spend a bloody fortune like I did to craft the perfect substance, go simple.
Use coconut oil for your extraction, you can decarb before or after extraction depending on your methods. A complete decarb is not required for topicals because of the effects that THCa has topically as well. Many places I've come across they don't decarb at all but I always have. Throw in the contents of one or two vitamin e gel capsules to help heal the scar tissue.
This oil, strained and placed in an empty roll on perfume bottle (ebay), can be dispensed as is as a roll on oil that can simply be rubbed in.
One step up from that, use coconut oil and mix with beeswax as suggested above. At the right consistency it will keep solid carried in the pocket in almost and vessel until disturbed and spread.
After lots of trial and error my go to simple recipe for a good spreadable but solid ointment for pain is just mixing cocoa butter, beeswax, and my medicated coconut oil until it hits a consistency I'm happy with. I only tweak that if I'm using it for something specific. Mango butter and grapeseed oil along with lanolin makes for the best lip balm you'll ever use added to that. Take out the mango butter and lanolin and add emu oil for some of the best hand cream you will ever use.
One last tip...As soon as the mixture sets at room temp that is the consistency it will have at that temp. However, if you mix it around and break up the solid nature of it it will become more like a loose and chunky cream. My advice? Pour into final container and don't touch it once it sets. Test consistency by dropping a couple drops of it on the back of a cold spoon.
Just realized how old OP was. So in reply to h4ppyf4rmer. I would just make your oil in your machine then mix it to what consistency you want in a double boiler. Much easier to get consistency right without just blindly guessing. You can test as you go!
And finally. Sorry for the long post.
