Let's consider our questions about the lotion....
What kind of product do I want to make? Is it a moisturizer, body milk, lotion, cream, or butter? For which body part is this intended? What kind of skin feel do I want? Do I have a specific outcome in mind? For what skin type am I making this?
I think I'd like to make a lighter feeling body lotion for the upcoming spring months with some occlusive ingredients to protect me from the elements and some nice humectants. I would like a light to medium skin feel with some glide. I don't mind a little greasiness in my body lotions. And although I have oily skin on my face, on my body it tends to be normal - not too greasy, not too dry - and I'm not worried about comedogenic ingredients.
Okay, so I'm looking at making a basic lotion recipe, so I'll choose my basic 70% water recipe. (When I use the word "basic" I mean to be a base for where we start, not basic as in skin feel or ingredients. We can make this as elaborate as we want!)
BASIC LOTION RECIPE
HEATED WATER PHASE (69.5% of the lotion)
69.5% water
HEATED OIL PHASE (29% of the lotion)
15% oil
5% butter
3% thickener
6% emulsifier (BTMS or Polawax)
COOL DOWN PHASE (1.5% of the lotion)
1% fragrance or essential oil
0.5% preservative (I use liquid Germall Plus)
(This doesn't total 100% because of the difference in preservatives!)
How can I achieve the goals of the lotion? Where to start first?
Let's start with the water phase as that's the least complicated phase (in my humble opinion). I think I'll add some glycerin at 3% to act as my humectant, and I like to include 10% aloe vera for its film forming and soothing qualities. I think I'll include 0.5% allantoin to behave as my barrier ingredient. (I could go with cocoa butter or dimethicone, but if I'm making this a light lotion, cocoa butter isn't my first choice.)
So my water phase looks like this...
56% water
10% aloe vera
3% glycerin
0.5% allantoin
You'll notice the water phase still works out to 69.5% total.
Now on to the oil phase. I'm going to stick to our carrier oils and butters for the purposes of making this post less than 50 pages long, but you can use whatever emollients you like. And I normally like to mix my oils up to get different properties, but I'm going with one oil, one butter in this recipe.
If I don't mind a greasier lotion, then soybean oil (light, greasy), rice bran oil (medium weight, greasy), and sesame oil (medium, greasy) are all good choices thanks to the high levels of linoleic acid (which is great for increasing skin's barrier repair functions and reducing transepidermal water loss) and they're not expensive. If I wanted a drier lotion, then I could consider some of the drier oils like hazelnut (light, drier), avocado (medium to heavy, drier), or macadamia nut oil (light, drier), although they have less linoleic acid than the greasier feeling oils.
What butters could I use? I could use cocoa butter for the occlusion and barrier protection, shea butter for increased slip and glide, or mango butter for dryness. I think I'll use some mango butter for the simple reason that I just bought a ton of it and want to use it, plus it will be a little more astringent. I'm including allantoin as my barrier ingredient so I can forego cocoa butter, and I want it a little less greasy than shea butter might offer.
Then we come to thickeners. Since I want this to be for my body, light and glidy, I'm going with cetyl alcohol. (Stearic acid tends to form a cream type product with less slip and glide. As Sarah notes, "Cetyl is slick and stearic is thick!")
Finally, I'm going to throw in 2% IPM because I like the way it reduces greasiness without feeling powdery dry.
You need to make a decision here. If you're including 2% IPM do you reduce the amount of liquid oil from 15% to 13% or do you add the IPM without taking any of the oils out? If you include 2% IPM and remove the 2% from the oils, then you don't need to do anything. The oil phase is same the percentage of the lotion it was before - 29% - so your emulsifier amount remains the same. (We'll deal with the idea of adding to the oil phase on Sunday...so let's go with the idea that you're substituting 2% IPM for another oil today.)
HEATED OIL PHASE (rice bran oil + IPM = 15% oils)
13% rice bran oil
2% IPM
5% mango butter
3% cetyl alcohol
6% emulsifier
So let's take a look at the cool down phase. Right now we have 1.5% to 2% in our cool down phase - 1% for fragrance or essential oil and 0.5% for preservative. If you are using a different preservative at a different amount, you'll have to remove that amount from your water amount. And if we add a few things like 2% panthenol or an extract at 0.5%, we'll have to remove that amount from the water phase as well.
So let's say I'm going to add 2% panthenol and 0.5% chamomile extract to my lotion. This means I need to remove 2.5% from the water phase to compensate for the addition of these ingredients. This means my water goes from 56% to 53.5% to make up for the extra 2.5% in the water phase.
And we're done the lotion!
SPRING TIME BODY LOTION (IPM INCLUDED IN OIL PHASE)
HEATED WATER PHASE
53.5% water (reduced by 2.5% for the increased cool down phase)
10% aloe vera
3% glycerin
0.5% allantoin
HEATED OIL PHASE
13% rice bran oil
2% IPM
5% mango butter
3% cetyl alcohol
6% emulsifier
COOL DOWN PHASE
1% fragrance oil
0.5% preservative
2% panthenol
0.5% chamomile extract
Join me tomorrow as we take a look at another way we could have made this lotion, then on Sunday for how to increase the oil and emulsifiers!
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