Learning to formulate: Modifying creams!

The recipe I posted yesterday for a foot cream can be modified in so many different ways, it would take us weeks just to get through those variations we could make using soybean oil as the main oil! It's all about your preferences and supplies - what you see here reflects what I have in my workshop, what's available to me locally, and the skin feel I prefer in my products.

What I made yesterday was a humectant heavy foot cream with greasier feeling oils and occlusive ingredients. I know my best friend isn't a fan of the humectant heavy foot cream - she says her feet feel cold with all that moisture on it - and I know she likes the drier feeling oils in her products. She's also a fan of the menthol-eucalpytus-camphor blend (I call it her Vicks blend) and likes to have something that slips and glides more easily (so cetyl alcohol is my first choice here). So this is a version I made for her for her poor trashed feet (she dances and has had two operations on them, so you know she has to take care of them well) and another version. The key difference here is that I took into consideration her preferred skin feel - fewer humectants, less greasy oils - and her fragrance preferences - the Vicks Blend. (Both of these versions contain break downs of each ingredient I've used for this product, so I encourage you to click on the links for more formulating fun!)

So let's say you want a less greasy version of this product - what can you substitute? I'll post the recipe again and let you think about it because after all, the point of this series is to help you learn to formulate! (I did mention there'd be a quiz, right?)

FOOT CREAM WITH MENTHOL

HEATED WATER PHASE

35% water

10% aloe vera

10% peppermint hydrosol

3% glycerin

3% sodium lactate

HEATED OIL PHASE

3% menthol

10% soybean oil

10% cocoa butter

7% emulsifier

3% stearic acid

COOL DOWN PHASE

2% panthenol

2% dimethicone

0.5% preservative

Time's up! Pencils down! 

How could we modify this to be a less greasy cream?

• We could alter our oils and butters. Check out the emollient posts or the comparison charts for some ideas. 
• We could add some IPM or IPP to the mix (usually 2% but you can go as high as 5%). 
• We could use esters instead of oils. They tend to feel drier than our oils. 
• We could switch emulsifiers. BTMS-50 feels drier than Polawax. 
• We could add cyclomethicone to the cool down phase for a powdery after feel. 
• We could try another fatty alcohol - like cetearyl alcohol - which feels a little waxier. And as we've seen in the past (just one example), we can make the product "oil free" by removing all the just use fatty alcohols and acids to behave as emollients. These will feel less greasy than our oils and butters. 
• We could look at adding astringent ingredients like witch hazel, grapeseed extract, rosemary extracts, alcohol, and other astringent ingredients in the water or cool down phases. (I wouldn't go with alcohol as it is very drying, but the others are good choices. Plus witch hazel offers a cooling sensation, which is good for foot care products.) 

So what did you come up with? What combinations of oils and butters and other ingredients do you think would make a drier feeling product? Post your ideas and comments and we'll do some tweaking based on what you think would make a drier feeling cream tomorrow!