Iron Chemist: Floraesters IPJ

Welcome to Workshop Stadium. This week the Chairman, Raymond (my lovely husband), has chosen the fifth Iron Chemist ingredient - Floraesters IPJ!

Here are the rules. (Click here for the long version.) Raymond rolled an eight, which means he chose an ingredient from the sample box in my workshop. I have until next Saturday, January 29th, to make two to three recipes using this ingredient.

So what the heck are Floraesters IPJ and where can you get them? I'll answer the latter first - I have no idea. I received them as a sample, so I don't have a lot with which to play, maybe 100 ml or so. (If you have an idea of where to find these, please comment!) What are they? That I can answer!

IPJ is an ester derived from jojoba oil with an INCI isopropyl jojobate (35%), jojoba alcohol (35%), jojoba esters, (30%), and 0.1% tocopherols. Because it's an ester, this means it will be a better spreading and less greasy ingredient than a typical oil. It's a low viscosity ester with a light yellow appearance and no odour (although having said that, low viscosity is a relative term because it seems lighter than rice bran oil to me!). It's considered a silicone alternative because of its high spreadability and light, dry feeling, so you could use it in a conditioner or anywhere you might be using silicones. (I found some information indicating it could be used in a shampoo, but another data sheet said you couldn't and it isn't soluble in SLS or decyl glucoside, so I'm going with the you can't use it in shampoo without some kind of emulsifier camp). I would like to include a picture of it here, but I can't find one online and my bottle is covered in oils, so it looks just awful. I'll have to re-bottle it and put a picture up shortly.

Floraester IPJ is soluble in all our usual oils - vegetable and mineral - as well as other esters like IPM or IPP, as well as cyclomethicone and it isn't soluble in dimethicone, the glycols (butylene or propylene), glycerin, polysorbate 20, water, or surfactants, so you'll have to mix it with polysorbate 80 or another solubilize to use it in a water only product (it's definitely an oil soluble ingredient). I'd add it to the heated oil phase when making a lotion of some kind or melt it with the oils in an anhydrous product. It's recommended for lip sticks and balms at up to 30% because it forms an interesting matrix with the waxes (much like castor oil would) and for oil free type products (because it's not an oil!). The suggested usage is up to 20% in a cream or lotion in the heated oil phase or use it at up to 5% in a deodorant to increase glide and decrease white streaking or up to 5% in a bath or massage oil to increase glide.

It's supposed to be awesome for colour cosmetic products like foundations because it has a matte finish, so it's a great inclusion in cream or liquid products like blushes, concealers, lip sticks, and anything else you want to make that shouldn't be shiny. I'm thinking that it would be great for an oil free moisturizer or eye cream.

The melting point of Floraester IPJ is 6˚C to 12˚C, so you'll treat it like a normal oil at room temperature, although you can heat it before using to remove any crystals if you've had it in a cold workshop and find it's solidified a bit (this would be when the ester has reached its titer point.)

I'm going to start off by substituting it for cyclomethicone in one of my usual products so I can get an idea of the skin feel, then I'll have some fun playing. This is going to be a fun week indeed! 

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Iron Chemist results: LSB

Well, this was an interesting week and I didn't think I'd meet the challenge*, but I managed to pull it off by Saturday! This week's challenge was all about LSB, a surfactant blend of SLSa and DLS mild from Stepan (click here for more information and the rules of the challenge).

*I've been messing around with the shower jelly challenge I didn't complete last year, and the carageenan is driving me nuts. I spent so much time trying to powder it, sieve it, and so on that I didn't actually get to formulate anything that worked! But these mistakes have taught me that I need powdered carageenan - anyone know where to get that in small quantities? (I don't need a 225 kg drum, for instance! Perhaps 8 ounces max?)

So here's what I made this week - bubble bath bars and face wash!

BUBBLE BATH BARS
I've become slightly obsessed with figuring out to make these hard enough to store but soft enough to melt in the bathtub, and I think I've sussed it! (As I mentioned last week, I tried to make it with SCI as the main ingredient, but they were too hard. They bubbled really well and store very very well, but they don't completely melt without our intervention in the tub!)

A little history...A few years ago, I couldn't get SCI in Canada, so I turned to another powdered surfactant, Bioterge AS-90, a powdered form of C14-16 olefin sulfonate for my shampoo bars. It was a good idea because C14-16 olefin sulfonate is great for my very oily hair, but it made the bars far too soft. Combined with SLSa they foamed and cleaned very well, but they didn't stay hard after usage, so I ended up with shampoo bar goo in my shower!

Although this meltiness didn't work for a shampoo bar, it will work in my favour for a bubble bath because I want it to dissolve well and I don't care about using it for a second time! And I figured the SLSa was in the LSB I used, so I could use the powdered C14-16 olefin sulfonate as the binder for this product. Of course, I needed the SCI for the creaminess and bubbles, and I added some cocamide DEA as a foam booster and bubble stabilizer.

BUBBLE BAR WITH LSB, SCI, AND C14-16 OLEFIN SULFONATE
46% Bioterge AS-90
24% LSB
10% cocamide DEA
20% SCI without stearic acid

Weigh all the ingredients in a heatproof container and heat in a double boiler until all the ingredients have melted. Add fragrance at up 2% (if desired) and colour and mix well. Pop into moulds and put into the freezer. After about 30 minutes, remove from the fridge or freezer and pop out of the mould. Leave to set. Use and rejoice.

As a note, I made mine in 10 gram batches and they bubbled amazingly well in the kitchen sink, holding their bubbles for quite some time. I haven't had time to see how they cure over time as I only made them yesterday and we haven't tried them in the bath yet (haven't had time to soak!), so I'll update the information when we receive it!

I know there are tons of bubble bar recipes out there, but I wanted to try my own version from scratch. I know a lot of bars use glycerin or propylene glycol for the plasticity those ingredients offer, but as humectants, I find they draw water from the atmosphere over time to the bars and make them gooey. So I'm trying different things to get the hardness we want before we bathe and the softness we want during the bath! It's quite interesting.

Note on this: It's a very soft bar...too soft, I think! I'm going to re-work this one with more SCI or bar hardener (sodium lactate, for instance). The way it is now, it's holding its shape, but it's very very soft. I wouldn't consider this a "bar" so much as something that's holding its shape until you poke it!

FACIAL WASH 
LSB is a natural inclusion in a facial wash for my skin type - oily - because the disodium laureth sulfosuccinate is great for removing sebum but not leaving that stripped feeling on your skin. So I thought I'd play around with another type of face wash using Amaze XT as my thickener! (I've been playing around with thickeners for future blog posts, so this is my thing of the week as well!)

I started with LSB as my starting point - that's the challenge after all - and added cocamidopropyl betaine to increase the mildness and thickening. I wanted a humectant in there, so I chose glycerin because it won't wash off, and I added aloe vera for the thickening and soothing properties and rosemary hydrosol because I wanted something good for oily skin. I included Phytokeratin, a blend of proteins, because I just bought it and like it (you can substitute any protein you like) and I added panthenol as a humectant and possible wound healer. Finally, I included polyquat 7 to act as a skin conditioner.

I decided to add a few powdered extracts to this because I was feeling in an extract-y mood, so I chose to add green tea extract for the anti-oxiding properties and chamomile extract for the soothing properties. I also chose to add grapeseed extract because I purchased it again recently and haven't really used it much. Grapeseed extract contains tons of anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatories, and it's an astringent ingredient, which is always a bonus for oily skin.

If you want to make this recipe and don't have the Amaze XT, you can use Crothix to thicken it up at the end - I think 2% will work well. If you don't have the extracts or hydrosols or can't use aloe vera, don't stress - just leave them out or substitute ones you like. But please make the recipe in proper order (that's tomorrow's post - why we do what we do!) because the Amaze XT is really picky about when it's added!

As a note, this facial wash has a pH of about 5.16, which is a good range for skin. If you wanted to increase the pH, you could add 10% decyl glucoside in place of 10% of the water and increase it to 5.6 or so. Or you could use decyl glucoside instead of the LSB and make a milder product and have a higher pH.

FACIAL WASH WITH A TON OF EXTRACTS
HEATED WATER PHASE
33% water
3% glycerin
10% aloe vera
20% rosemary hydrosols

2% Phytokeratin

2% polyquat 7 or other cationic polymer

ADD WHEN THE MIXTURE REACHES 60˚C/140˚F

2% Amaze XT

ADD AFTER YOU REMOVE IT FROM THE HEAT

15% LSB

10% cocamidopropyl betaine

COOL DOWN PHASE
0.5% grapeseed extract
0.5% green tea extract
0.5% chamomile extract
2% panthenol
0.5% to 1% preservative

Weigh the heated water phase in a heatproof container and heat and hold at 60˚C for 20 minutes. (Hold back about 10 grams of water to dissolve your extracts.) When the mixture is at 60˚C/140˚F, add the Amaze XT and mix incredibly well with a mixer. Remove from the heat when you see it has become a gel, then add your surfactants and mix by hand until it is well incorporated. Please mix by hand because otherwise the surfactants will get too bubbly and it will take days for said bubbles to die down so you can bottle it!

In a separate container, heat or boil some distilled water and add that to the extracts to dissolve. If you can keep the water below 40˚C/104˚F, this is a good idea as these extracts can be heat sensitive. When the mixture reaches about 50˚C/122˚F, add the cool down phase, including the dissolved extracts.

Allow to cool, then bottle. (I wouldn't normally bottle mine immediately, but I wanted to take a picture of it for this post, and you can see the condensation on the sides of the bottle! I have removed the cap to allow it to cool properly.)

This feels nice and creamy on my skin and rinses off well. It's quite bubbly - a little more lather than I'm accustomed to using for a facial product, but it feels very nice after I've used it and it rinses off well, so it's not a massive issue.

I would have loved to include white willow bark in this at 1%, but I'm out, and I could have included salicylic acid at 1% to 2%, but I didn't want the hassles of dissolving it, and I would have had to include more humectant.

As a note, if you have something like Celquat H-100 in your workshop, it will work as double duty to thicken the mixture and offer conditioning. 0.5% will make a good gel, 1% might be too much.

Finally, as a note - LSB smells very soapy. It's the SLSa in it, so if you wanted to add a titch - say 0.5% essential oil that is skin friendly - to overcome the smell, that's not a bad idea.

Join me tomorrow for the interesting things that can happen when you don't make this recipe in the proper order and the new Iron Chemist challenge!

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Challenge: Six ingredient lotion with shea, soy bean & sesame oil

As I've mentioned in the past, my husband has vitiligo, and his legs get very itchy during the winter (too dry) and the summer (exposure), so I'm always thinking of ways to create products to stop him from scratching and to help heal the wounds. (Not making any claims here, just going on what the ingredients bring to the mix.)

SIX INGREDIENT LOTION WITH SHEA, SOY BEAN, AND SESAME OIL
HEATED WATER PHASE
39.5% water
20% aloe vera
3% glycerin

HEATED OIL PHASE
10% refined shea butter
10% soy bean oil
10% sesame oil
6% BTMS-50

COOL DOWN PHASE
0.5% liquid Germall Plus
1% fragrance oil (Clementine Cupcake)

Weigh the heated water phase in a heatproof container and put into a double boiler. Weigh the heated oil phase in a heatproof container and put into a double boiler. Heat both phases until both reach 70˚C and hold for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and mix. When the lotion reaches about 45˚C, add the liquid Germall Plus, and fragrance and mix well. Bottle, and rejoice!

For longer lotion making instructions, click here.

So why did I pick each ingredient? I started with soy bean oil because it's high in linoleic acid, tocopherols, and phytosterols that work for reducing inflammation and itching, and increase softening and moisturizing. I chose sesame seed oil because it's also high in linoleic acid, tocopherols, and phytosterols that help with reducing inflammation and itching, but it's a slightly more viscous oil than soybean oil, and I knew I didn't want to use a thickener in this lotion, so I thought it would help thicken it. Plus, it contains more oleic acid, which I wanted to help moisturize and regenerate his skin.

I chose shea butter because it's high in stearic acid, which will thicken the lotion well without adding another thickener (like cetyl alcohol and stearic acid) and because it can act as an occlusive in the product.

Because I'm choosing very greasy feeling oils and butters, I thought I'd use BTMS-50 as my emulsifier because it will give it a drier feeling. Plus, it'll offer some conditioning to his skin, which is always a bonus. (This is one of the reasons I'm not using 25% of oil phase as the emulsifier amount. That "rule" is for Polawax, not for BTMS-50.)

I chose glycerin because it's a fantastic humectant and it won't feel sticky at 3% in this product. I didn't want to use sodium lactate or sodium PCA because I wanted to use more than 2.5%. It has been shown to accelerate the recovery of skin's barrier functions after damage, and that's what his skin needs right now! (And the combination with linoleic acid will create - I hope - a super skin barrier recovery lotion!)

And I chose aloe vera (liquid, not gel) because it offers great moisturization qualities as well as anti-inflammatory properties.

And I chose Clementine Cupcake for a lotion for my husband because he loves the smell!

How does it feel? Raymond likes it. It's a medium weight lotion. He says it feels like it should be greasy, but it's not, and it's not too heavy for his legs (remembering that as a man he has hairy legs, and he doesn't want a feeling of greasy leg hair!) He's pleased with it, so I consider it a success. There is a little bit of whiteness as you apply it - from the stearic acid in the shea butter - but it goes away very quickly. The play time is about average - you have time to rub it in, but it's not like 2 minutes later you can keep rubbing it like yesterday's lotion. And there's not a lot of drag, which is a great thing!

What would I change? I really like this lotion, and Raymond is enjoying it, so I wouldn't necessarily change anything. But if you wanted, some evening primrose oil or borage oil would be fantastic in this recipe, but I didn't have either in the workshop so I chose the soy bean and sesame seed oil. (The cost of the product would increase quite a bit using those exotic oils, and I'm trying to be thrifty and use what I have in the workshop this year!) Using either of those oils will make it feel drier than the version I've made here. If you want to make it a lot drier, then you could switch out the shea butter for mango and go with drier oils.

You can add a thickener to this mixture - cetyl alcohol would make it quite glidy, which is really what you'd want in a lotion to put on a man's legs, but stearic acid would make it very thick and creamy.

If you're interested in making this for very dry skin, increase the glycerin to 5% and decrease the water by 2%. If don't want to use aloe vera, then you could leave it out or substitute another hydrosol that offers soothing and anti-inflammatory properties.

If I hadn't been limited by the six ingredients, I think a barrier ingredient - cocoa butter, dimethicone, or allantoin - would be a good choice if this were intended for the summer. Allantoin or dimethicone are my favourites for lotions for Raymond as the cocoa butter is a bit much for the summer time. And I'd throw in a hydrolyzed protein - he likes Phytokeratin - at 2%.

As a note, I've put "anti-itch lotion" on the label so I know what kind of lotion this is because it's kinda hard to tell by texture and fragrance (especially because I tend to use the same fragrances in everything!) - please do not consider this a medical claim or promise! If you were to make this and sell it, the last thing you'd want to do is call it anti-itch because that's a claim that you can't completely guarantee without testing. As I don't sell my products and I make them for family and friends, I can call them what I want and tell them that there's no guarantee. I also don't have the ingredient list on the label because they can ask me and I'll tell them what I put it it! 

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Challenge: Six ingredient lotion - hand lotion with cetearyl ethylhexanoate & cocoa butter

So here's my first entry into the six ingredient challenge. I debated many oils while making this first one...did I want something with loads of linoleic acid for the winter time or did I want something with occlusiveness? What did I want as a humectant? Did I want to spend an ingredient on an extract or hydrosol? In the end, I went with this recipe (rationale for each ingredient after the recipe!).

HAND LOTION WITH CETEARYL ETHYLHEXANOATE & COCOA BUTTER
HEATED WATER PHASE
39% water
20% lavender hydrosol

HEATED OIL PHASE
20% cetearyl ethylhexanoate
6% cocoa butter
3% cetyl alcohol
7.5% Polawax

COOL DOWN PHASE
3% honeyquat
0.5% liquid Germall Plus
1% fragrance oil - Clementine Cupcake from Brambleberry

Weigh the heated water phase in a heatproof container and put into a double boiler. Weigh the heated oil phase in a heatproof container and put into a double boiler. Heat both phases until both reach 70˚C and hold for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and mix. When the lotion reaches about 45˚C, add the honeyquat, liquid Germall Plus, and fragrance and mix well. Bottle, and rejoice!

(For longer instructions on lotion making, click here.)

So why these ingredients? I had planned to use chamomile hydrosol for the soothing qualities, but I'm out of it, so I chose lavender hydrosol as it has similar properties.

I chose the cetearyl ethylhexanoate because I wanted to include a very light, non-greasy ester to compensate for the cocoa butter that I wanted to use because it's a barrier and occlusive ingredient. Normally, I'd use IPM to reduce the greasiness, but I didn't want to spend an ingredient on that, hence the use of another ester. I chose cetyl alcohol to make it feel glidy and to thicken it up, and I used honeyquat as my humectant because it would act as both a humectant and skin conditioner.

How does it feel? It's got a lot of play time (meaning it has loads of time to rub it into your skin) and I didn't feel any drag or see any white streaks putting it on. It's a bit waxy feeling, which is what I was going for, but only at first. A few minutes after application, it feels dryish on my palms, which is a good thing.

I think using stearic acid instead of cetyl alcohol would make this a more tenacious lotion but would make it more draggy.

Update: After more than two weeks of using this lotion, I'd have to say I'm loving it. It's just occlusive enough for the winter and it feels great going on my hands! 

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Challenge: Six ingredient lotions

Welcome to the six ingredient lotion challenge! The rules are simple - make a lotion using only six ingredients. Water, preservative, fragrance or essential oils do not count towards the six ingredients, but everything else does (including hydrosols or aloe vera that you might substitute for the water portion). You can make type of lotion you wish - body butter, creams, hand lotions, moisturizers, and so on - but you may only use six ingredients. Use any ingredients you like, just make sure you have an emulsifier in there.

As a note - if you're making your own emulsifier using the HLB system, those two ingredients would count as the emulsifier, and would only count as one ingredient.

As a suggestion, set out a goal for your lotion. What viscosity would you like? Do you need a thickener or will the emulsifier be enough? Do you want a dry feeling or greasy feeling lotion? For which part of your body are you intending this lotion? What kinds of oils or butters will give you all the benefits you want? Is there room for an extract?

Here's my link to some basic lotion making concepts for those of you who are new or need a refresher!

And links to my basic lotion templates...
Basic lotion
Basic lotion with humectants
Basic body butter
Basic cream recipe
Basic moisturizer
Basic oil free moisturizer

And you can find all my free downloadable PDFs at the right hand side of the blog to help you choose ingredients, as well as the links to lists section.

As I mentioned previously, there are no fabulous prizes to be had for undertaking this challenge, but it will give you a sense of satisfaction that you've made an awesome product. Send your recipes to me at sjbarclay@telus.net and I'll post them for all to see! (Please don't put them in the comments as they are too long and people will miss them if they don't read the full post! And make sure you let me know what name you want your recipe posted under or I'll make one up for you!) Include a picture if you wish and your comments about the skin feel, ease of creation, and so on.

There is no time limit on this challenge - I think it would be fun to do it all year long because there are so many variations we could come up with just changing out the oils!

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