Experiments in the workshop: Facial cleanser with a ton of extracts - modified

I know I'm always going on about only switching one ingredient when you make a product, but when I'm in the workshop, I get a little ingredient happy and tend to change a whole lot of things at once! This is kinda what happened here with this somewhat unappealing looking facial cleanser. But seriously, try it out if you have oily skin - I'm loving this hideous abomination!

FACIAL WASH WITH A TON OF EXTRACTS IN A FOAMER BOTTLE
HEATED PHASE
28% water
10% aloe vera
10% rosemary hydrosol
10% chamomile hydrosol
3% glycerin
2% Phytokeratin (or any other hydrolyzed protein)
0.5% polyquat 44 (or another cationic polymer)
15% LSB or other gentle surfactant of choice
10% cocamidopropyl betaine

COOL DOWN PHASE
0.5% grapeseed extract
2.5% liquid green tea extract (water soluble)
0.5% chamomile extract
2% panthenol
0.5% to 1% preservative of choice (I'm using Germaben II here)

Weigh the heated phase of the product and heat and hold in your double boiler for 20 minutes at 70˚C. Remove from the heat and let cool to 45˚C to 50˚C, then add the cool down phase. To dissolve the powdered extracts, put them into a little container, like a shot glass, and add a little warm water - 3 to 5 grams or so - and stir until the mixture is uniform.

I love this facial wash! I've been using it for almost a year and I never get that tight feeling that comes from the surfactants not rinsing off, and my oily skin doesn't feel too stripped after using it.

So why these ingredients? I like to include aloe vera for its anti-inflammatory and soothing abilities. I'm using rosemary hydrosol because it's great for oily skin, and chamomile hydrosol for the anti-inflammatory properties, as well as the reduction in irritation and reduction in transepidermal water loss for up to 48 hours. I'm using grapeseed extract - which offers that weird brown-red colour - for the anti-oxidant properties, but I also like the resveratrol, which behaves as anti-inflammatory as well. Green tea extract is always a good choice for aging skin - and we all have aging skin - and I've chosen liquid green tea extract because I'm feeling like I have too many powders in the product and I am worried about getting precipitate on the bottom.

Powders are about solubility, so if we have too much powder, we can end up with that gunge on the bottom of the container, which is the precipitate or stuff that didn't dissolve. You can see it showing up on the bottom of toner two. It's not necessarily a bad thing - shake it up and you're good to go - but it doesn't look all that pretty, and it can clog up the tube or nozzle/pump of a dispenser. 

Glycerin is always my first choice as a humectant for a rinse off product for two reasons. I don't need a really fancy or expensive humectant if I'm just rinsing it off, and glycerin actually resists wash off better than something like sodium lactate or sodium PCA. (Click here for a list of humectants.) I like to add a hydrolyzed protein - this time I've chosen Phytokeratin - as it offers film forming and hygroscopic properties, and I'm adding a cationic polymer - in this case, polyquat 44 because it's new, but you can use any cationic polymer at the suggested rate. I like to include panthenol for its proven wound healing and hygroscopic abilities.

As for the surfactants, I'm using LSB (INCI: Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate and Disodium Laureth Sulfosuccinate) and cocamidopropyl betaine. I like the sulfosuccinates for my oily hair and skin because they're considered very mild, with good foaming and detergent properties. Sulfosuccinates are recommended for oily hair as they can remove oil and sebum gently without stripping hair too much, but all hair and skin types can use them without fear of harshness. I like SLSa because it has excellent foaming, bubbling, and lathering properties, as well as great cleaning properties. As for the cocamidopropyl betaine, I always include this surfactant as a secondary surfactant to increase mildness/reduce irritation and it can behave as a humectant, which is a great thing. (It can also help thicken our products, but that isn't an issue with the foamy bottles!)

So there you have this incredibly ugly coloured but pretty awesome facial cleanser! If you don't have a foamy bottle, feel free to increase the surfactants to 40% to 50% of the water phase, remove the same amount of water, and add some Crothix or salt at the end to thicken! (Click here and scroll down for a version I've thickened with Amaze XT.) If you want to alter this recipe, feel free to alter the surfactants (click here), the extracts (click here), or pretty much anything else.

Join me tomorrow for more fun with products!

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Using oil soluble green tea extract in your products

I've recently discovered - and love - the oil soluble green tea extract at Brambleberry. I've tried it in quite a few things, and I think it makes for a lovely addition to my products. Because it's oil soluble, we can add it to things when we can't add water soluble extracts or powders, like lotion bars, lip balms, or any other anhydrous products at up to 6% in the cool down phase (when you add your fragrance or essential oil).

WHIPPED BUTTER WITH OIL SOLUBLE GREEN TEA EXTRACT
80% shea butter (I use ultra refined)
13% oil of choice
6% oil soluble green tea extract
1% fragrance or essential oil

Click here for more information on creating whipped butters.

LOTION BAR WITH OIL SOLUBLE GREEN TEA EXTRACT

28% beeswax
30% mango butter
20% rice bran oil
14% sunflower oil
6% oil soluble green tea extract
1% Vitamin E
1% fragrance or essential oil


This is my favourite lotion bar modified to include 6% oil soluble green tea extract (I've removed 6% of the sunflower oil to make way for it!).

As a note, I like to include 2% cyclomethicone, 2% dimethicone in this product for the winter - dimethicone is an approved barrier ingredient - and switch up to 20% of the mango butter for cocoa butter  - another approved barrier ingredient - to protect my trashed elbows!

Consider using it at up to 6% in an anhydrous facial serum or up to 6% in your favourite oil based body spray to get all the awesome goodness of green tea. Because it's a fractionated coconut oil (but not the fractionated coconut oil we all know), you can substitute it for any percentage of the oil in your product. Remember not to expose it to the temperatures of heating and holding - add it during the cool down phase.

Join me tomorrow for more fun with extracts when we make a foamy facial cleanser!

Disclaimer: Remember, I'm not affiliated with any company, and any post I write is because I like the product, not because I've been paid to say something nice. I buy all my ingredients myself, unless otherwise noted. I don't think Brambleberry even knows I'm writing about this ingredient - I hope they aren't mad about it! 

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Question: Can you use green tea powder in lotion bar recipes?

In this post, Aicha asks: I love matcha green tea powder! Can this be used in lotion bar recipes?

The short answer...no. The long answer...yes, but not the powder.

Green tea powder is a fantastic addition to our products (click here for the PDF on the topic!). It's full of catechins, anti-oxidants, caffeine, proanthocyanidins, and more, which are great for our skin! Green tea powder can be used at up to 0.5% in the cool down phase of our products - it's heat sensitive - and I like to keep a little warm water from the heated water phase to help it dissolve before adding (it's also water soluble). In our emulsified products, though, it can cause a redox reaction, which can cause all kinds of weird things to happen in our lotions, the main annoying one being separation. This doesn't always happen, but it can, and that's annoying.

This is when we turn to liquid green tea extract, which won't cause some of those problems. (Here's where I found it at The Personal Formulator, and here's an Ecocert version at Lotioncrafter.) Liquid green tea extract is water soluble - as is green tea powder - so it's a great addition to any product in which you might like to include green tea. I tend to use it at 5% in my cool down phase in place of the 0.5% powdered extract. Although the Personal Formulator picture shows a brown coloured liquid, the version I have is clear, so I like to use this in things like facial cleansers or toners, where clarity is an issue. (In this cleanser - which I've only just realized I haven't posted, so look for that in the next few days - I'm using a bunch of extracts that are very dark coloured. I don't mind, but your friends and family or customers might!)

But you can't include that in a lotion bar, facial serum, body oil spray, or in any other oil based product without an emulsifier. For that we need an oil soluble green tea extract, something I found at Brambleberry recently! The INCI is Capric Triglycerides, Camellia Sinesnsis Leaf Extract. We know the latter is green tea extract, but what the heck is capric triglycerides? It's a fraction of coconut oil (fractionated coconut oil has an INCI of caprylic/capric triglycerides), so it's a very light emollient, like fractionated coconut oil without the caprylic triglycerides. So what we have here is a very light oil with green tea extract in it. Brambleberry recommends its use at up to 6% and I'm going to suggest we reserve it for the cool down phase because green tea extract is heat sensitive.

Join me tomorrow for a few ideas on how to use oil soluble green tea in our products!

And note: I'm not affiliated with any supplier or manufacturer, so my links are suggestions for where I found the product. I pay for all my ingredients myself, unless otherwise noted! 

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Question: Can we create our own botanical extract systems?

Anonymous wrote in the pineapple extract post: Your blog is great and you are super smart so I figured you would know the answer to this question: I really want to start incorporating extracts into my lotions. I was wondering if I could make my own botanical extract system by mixing together, for example, pineapple extract mixed with water and glycerin and preserve it with, lets say, liquid germall plus? I have noticed at many lotion supplier websites such as the herbarie and lotion crafters have these kinds of botanical extract systems for purchase. Thanks in advance!

I think you could do this, but I don't know if you should do this (although I'm happy to see you're including a preservative!). A big part of using the 0.5% in the cool down phase of our products has to do not only with the extracts not really liking heat, but also because of the solubility of the powders and figuring out how much you're using in a product. 

Let's say we have an extract that has a solubility of 0.2 grams in 100 ml of water (generally water at 20˚C to 25˚C). If we put 0.2 grams of our extract in 25˚C water, it'll dissolve really nicely. If we put 0.3 grams into 25˚C water, we'll have some precipitate or powder that doesn't dissolve.

You can see this with the toners to the left. Number 2 has too much dissolved in it, and the extracts eventually sunk to the bottom and formed a gooey precipitate!

Let's say pineapple extract has a solubility of 0.5 grams in 100 ml of water at 25˚C*. You dissolve 0.5 grams into water, glycerin, and preservative (total 99.5 grams of solvent) and have a lovely botanical extract system. You can't add more than 0.5 grams to this 99.5 gram bottle of liquid because the extract will precipitate. So what we have is a bottle with 0.5 grams of pineapple extract in it.

*I can't find the solubility of pineapple extract so this is just an example amount. 

If you wanted to use 0.5% pineapple extract in a product, you'd have to use the entire bottle to get that amount. If you wanted to use less, you'd have to do the math on it (0.25 grams in the product would mean I have to use 50 grams from the bottle, 0.125 grams in the product means 25 grams from the bottle, and so on). This simply isn't doable because you'd need to add a ton of the liquid to get a small amount of the extract.

If we did this with an ingredient that had a higher solubility than our pretend amount for pineapple extract, this might be doable. For instance, let's pretend green tea extract has a solubility of 5 grams in 100 ml of water. Weigh out 5 grams of green tea extract, 0.5 grams of liquid Germall Plus, and 94.5 grams of water, and you've got yourself a liquid green tea extract. How do you figure out how to use it in your products? We can guess that using 10% of this liquid would give us 0.5 grams of green tea extract in our products. It's not completely accurate, but good enough.

If you preserve it well, you could make a liquid extract, but it will always depend upon the solubility of that ingredient in water, so consider using alcohol as your solvent. An ingredient with low water solubility could have a higher alcohol solubility, and that might be a better choice for your solvent. For instance, salicylic acid is soluble at 0.2 grams in 100grams of water but about 25.4 grams in 100 grams of ethanol (my math might be off here, but you get the general idea), which means alcohol is probably the better solvent in this situation...but then you have to ask yourself if you want alcohol in your product!

I don't know much about the topic of making tinctures, but here is a link at at New Directions Aromatics that might be helpful. 

I guess the bigger question is why make a liquid extract?

There are good reasons for using a liquid extract. I like to use my liquid green tea extract in lotions when I don't have to worry about dissolving it in the cool down phase and I don't have to worry about having a browny-greeny coloured lotion, but I wouldn't get away from the colour and the heat sensitivity if I made my own.

I think it's do-able, but I don't think it's necessarily wise and I don't think you're going to get what you want if you do make it (although I love to be proved wrong!!!). The extracts you're buying from the suppliers aren't powdered extracts dissolved in water - they're manufactured to be mostly colourless liquid extracts that will keep for quite some time on your shelves. 

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Why did I buy that again? Pineapple extract

I write this post about how I'm back, then I forget to hit publish on yesterday's post! I guess I need more vacation time! 

Pineapple extract (INCI Ananas cosmosus fruit extract or powder) can be found in a powder form that is used at 0.5% in the cool down phase of your product. This extract can be used for skin conditioning and exfoliating, so you won't want to combine it with another exfoliating extract like white willow bark, salicylic acid, or papaya, for instance.

The main attraction in pineapple extract is bromelain, which is (to quote the University of Maryland website) "a mixture of protein-digesting (proteolytic) enzymes found in pineapples". This mixture has been shown to be good at debriding (removing dead skin) from third degree burns and can be used topically to reduce swelling from insect stings and bites (which I really need right now, stupid mosquitoes). Like the papain in papaya, bromelain can be used as an exfoliant in cosmetic products, which is why I suggest not using it with another exfoliant. It has some anti-bacterial benefits

In theory, bromelain would work reduce the adhesion between the dead skin cells on the surface of our skin and encourage them to slough off to reveal nice new skin cells, much like salicylic acid does. (Click here to learn more about desquamation!) Unfortunately, there has been very little study on how bromelain works with our skin (source) and the third degree burns study above appears to have used 35% bromelain as opposed to the 0.5% pineapple extract that we'd use in our products. There is no guarantee that there is enough bromelain in 0.5% pineapple extract to encourage desquamation.

Bromelain is used as a meat tenderizer because it breaks down proteins, and we can find it in a powdered form in grocery stores for this purpose. I was reading about a company that is using bromelain in their products as it "hydrolyses proteins into peptides and amino acids" (link to press release), although I'm not really sure why this would be a good thing in a product because our proteins are already hydrolyzed (like Cromoist) and I can get peptides and amino acids to put into my products. I guess I'm thinking more like a formulator and less like a consumer here, eh?

There are many reasons to take bromelain internally as it may be good at reducing pain, swelling, and water retention, but this isn't a blog about taking supplements, so we'll leave that topic alone. And there's some evidence that bromelain might be able to remove protein stains from laundry.

My mom's best friend used to put meat tenderizer on our bug bites and stings as a kid. I thought it was odd, but I trusted her because she was a nice adult. I guess she was right! 

There are other benefits to pineapple extract such as anti-oxidants that will retard rancidity in our products, anti-inflammatory properties to reduce redness, swelling, and inflammation, and possible anti-bacterial properties (but not enough to make it a preservative!). Pineapple extract can cause irritation to those with sensitive skin, so be wary before adding it to every facial product you own (in fact, if you want to use it, try it in one product - like a facial cleanser - before adding it to each product individually to avoid extreme exfoliation).

If you want to make a coconut oil and pineapple extract product and call it a pina colada lotion, have at it, but I don't think there's enough information yet that the amount of bromelain found in pineapple extract will benefit our skin.

When you're using fruit extracts - and, indeed, most extracts - you'll be adding them to the cool down phase at around 0.5%. For something like a shampoo, lotion, or other thick product, I like to pour a little heated water at 45˚C to 50˚C (the temperature of our cool down phase)  - not much, maybe 5 to 10 ml - into the powdered extract and mix until it dissolves. Then I add it to the product and mix well. If I'm adding it to something like a mister or toner - something that's pretty much all water - I don't bother dissolving it!

Join me tomorrow more fun with why did I buy that ingredients!

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Why did I buy that? Banana fruit extract

I love bananas! They feel like a very silly fruit, all yellow and bendy, and they taste great. With high levels of potassium and Vitamin A, I try to eat one every single day! I've been playing around with powdered banana fruit extract lately, so I thought I'd share my thoughts!

Banana fruit extract (INCI Musa sapientum (banana) fruit extract) comes in a powdered form that is water soluble, so we'll want to add it at up to 0.5% in the cool down phase of our product. (I like to dissolve my extract in a little warm water before adding it to most of my products!) I've seen the same write up at far too many different suppliers, so I think it's important to quote what they're saying.

"Banana fruit powder extract is rich in potassium and Vitamin A. In formulations it has proven to be great for dry skin, and contains no known substance to aggravate or irritate the skin. Some users have used banana fruit extract by itself as a rich, moisturizing facial mask. The recommended usage rate should not exceed 0.5% of the weight of the final product."

What does this mean? Potassium is found in our stratum corneum in our natural moisturizing factor and it has has been found to reduce irritation to our skin when studied in Dead Sea Salts, so it could help reduce irritation to our skin.

Vitamin A is an oil soluble molecule that can improve skin barrier function, increase cell proliferation, increase thickening of the skin, and increase collagen production. It can also help increase skin's water retention, and it may be effective in preventing, retarding, or restoring changes associated with the aging process. It is also effective in wound healing. It is the most abundant vitamin in our skin (in the form of ester retinyl palmitate), which is hydrolyzed to form Vitamin A, which is then oxidized to produce retinoic acid (the active form).

I'm not sure about the sentence about containing no known substance to aggravate or irritate the skin. This is a bizarre thing to say in a world in which people have reactions to water, and it seems like everyone has some kind of allergy, sensitivity, or aversion to one ingredient or another. We know that too much Vitamin A can irritate our skin, and there's no evidence that other ingredients in bananas won't aggravate skin. But let's not dwell on this aspect.

Bananas themselves contain inulin, a polysaccharide that can behave as an emulsifier, stabilizer, and surfactant. (It's also a source of fibre you can find in those powdered Crystal Light beverages I like so much!) I don't know if you'll find it in this extract, but you can find it in bananas!

I've been playing with banana extract in my toners and I think I like it. I've been adding it at 0.5% in the cool down phase (dissolved with a little warm water, then added, although you could just add it directly to a toner), and I think it's making the toner a little more moisturizing. I hate to be so non-specific about it, but I put so much stuff into my toners it's sometimes hard to figure out what is causing what sensation. (Which is why I say to start simple, then add things.) I should play with this in the future with just some aloe vera, hydrosols, witch hazel, and preservative to see how it feels. I don't have dry skin, but I want moisturizing in that product!

Join me tomorrow for more fun with fruit extracts!

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Why did I buy that fruit extract? Apple!

How many cliches do we have about apples and health? An apple a day can keep the doctor away. Powersauce helps you unleash the power of apples!* Umm, okay, that's all I can think of at the moment, but you have to admit, there are few things that seem as wholesome as apples.

We can find three different versions of apple extract for our cosmetic formulating - the powder, the distillate, and the oil. I've found very little about the oil, so we'll concentrate on the powder and the distillate (hydrosol) for now, both of which are water soluble.

Apples and their peels contain a ton of polyphenols - quercetin, epicatechin, procyanidin, chlorogenic acid, coumaric acid, gallic acid, malic acid, catechins - but it's hard to know what's in the extract without specific information from the manufacturers (click here for a great study).

Quercetin is an anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and (possible) anti-viral found in a number of different fruits and vegetables - apples, tea, onion, citrus, tomato, broccoli, cherry, raspberry, cranberry, sea buckthorn, gingko biloba, olive oil, St John's Wort, mango, and grapeseed oil.

Procyanidins are part of the proanthocyanidins group, and occur as esters of gallic acid in green and black tea, grapes, and apples. They are quite unstable, reacting chemically in acid or base solutions, reacting thermally, and oxidizing easily. They are considered to have anti-viral, anti-microbial, and anti-HIV properties, as well as anti-oxidizing through free radical scavenging.

Chlorogenic acid acts as a low level anti-viral and anti-fungal addition to our creations. It offers anti-bacterial properties, which is one of the reasons it is suggested for acne related products. It's a good anti-inflammatory. And, of course, it is a great anti-oxidant.

Catechins are a type of flavonoid, also called condensed tannins. They offer anti-oxidizing features - they have been shown to be more effective than BHT, which is incredibly effective - as well as anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties.

Apples contain Vitamin C, which is a great anti-oxidant, and it behaves as an free radical scavenger, astringent, and exfoliant. A 100 gram apple has about 6 grams, but I'm not sure how much would be found in the powder or the distillate. 

It's hard to know how much of anything is in the powdered extract, so I suggest you ask your supplier for their data sheets as we can't get information from manufacturers easily any more. There are some claims that has some salicylic acid like properties for acne, and I've seen claims that it can help with stretch marks. I've been able to confirm that it is an exfoliating ingredient - thanks to the malic acid - which means you don't want to combine it with other exfoliating extracts like papaya or white willow bark - but I can't confirm the anti-stretch mark properties. We can see that any apple extract will be filled with anti-oxidant and free radical scavenging properties and will likely have some anti-inflammatory properties. 

I've been using the apple fruit distillate from Lotioncrafters for a while now, and I love the smell of it! It's a steam distilled water that can be used at 5% to 100% in your products (it's preserved, so you can use it in a spritzer for a lovely apple-y fragrance). There are no claims for this specific product, other than the wonderful fragrance of apples. It has a pH of 5.0.

I think this would be a great addition to a facial product for someone with oily skin. Combine it with something like honeysuckle extract at 0.5% and rosemary extract or hydrosol and you've got yourself an anti-oily party going on! (I'll be writing up more recipe ideas for these extracts when I reach the end of the series in about a week! Look for more ideas then!) As with other powdered extracts, you'll want to use apple extract in the cool down phase at 0.5%. I'd suggest dissolving it in a little warm (45˚C to 50˚C) water before adding it to your product.

As a side note, there is a cosmeceutical on the market called PhytoCellTec Malus Domestica, which is an anti-aging product derived from apples. "PhytoCellTec™ Malus Domestica is a liposomal active ingredient based on stem cells from the Uttwiler Spätlauber apple." To learn more, please click here or here. I understand you can buy it at LotionCrafter!

And finally, you can find out more information about the apple seed oil here (a short summary). Sounds interesting.

*I keep thinking about Homer's Powersauce bars and how they contain 6 types of apples! When you put the apples in bar form, you unleash their power! "Oh, this just in...Powersauce is amazing!" 

Join me tomorrow for an aside on malic acid before we take a look at banana extract!

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Why did I buy that fruit extract? Strawberry

Happy first day of summer! I guess there's no better way to celebrate summer than to talk about fruit! Fruit extracts offer so much to our products - phytosterols, polyphenols, vitamins, flavonoids, and anti-oxidants - and they sound lovely on a label! Just think about it for a moment. Peaches and cream, raspberries & apricot, strawberry kiwi - don't these sound just lovely! So I thought I'd take a look at some of the extracts - fruit and otherwise - you've suggested in the why did I buy that? post! 

When you're using fruit extracts - and, indeed, most extracts - you'll be adding them to the cool down phase at around 0.5%. For something like a shampoo, lotion, or other thick product, I like to pour a little heated water at 45˚C to 50˚C (the temperature of our cool down phase)  - not much, maybe 5 to 10 ml - into the powdered extract and mix until it dissolves. Then I add it to the product and mix well. If I'm adding it to something like a mister or toner - something that's pretty much all water - I don't bother dissolving it!

Here's a blast from the past (March 10, 2010) with a post on strawberries!

Strawberries are outstanding! We have local strawberries every year, and I can't help but buy a basket at the farm drive-throughs to be eaten the moment I get home (although not this year! SIGH!) And I love strawberry extract (INCI: Fragaria vesca (strawberry) fruit extract), which we can find in a powdered and liquid form (the liquid generally contains water or a humectant and the powder).

This extract is recommended for oily skin to help with sebum production and large pores. It is an astringent powder, thanks to the hydroxybenzoic acid gallic acid, a great wound and burn healer as well as an astringent. Chlorogenic acid is recommended for acne prone skin as it offers anti-bacterial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-oxidizing properties.

The phytosterol kaempferol offers amazing anti-oxidizing and free radical scavenging properties, as well as anti-inflammatory help for reddened skin, an increase in skin's barrier protection abilities, a reduction in transepidermal water loss (TEWL), a reduction in itching and dry skin, and help improving the quality of weather damaged skin.

Strawberry extract contains Vitamin C, a great anti-oxidizing and chelating ingredient.

One of the main features of strawberry extract is the ellagic acid, which you might remember from pomegranate and borage oil and mango butter. It is being used as a post-sun exposure ingredient to prevent freckling and spots that might arise after UV exposure. It appears ellagic acid is a tyrosine inhibitor (tyrosine plays a role in melanin synthesis or melanogenesis). It can also reduce the destruction of collagen and act as an anti-inflammatory. One bonus is ellagic acid can help regenerate skin cells, which may lead to thickened skin, which can help reduce the look of aging.

Strawberries contain anthocyanidins and anthocyanins (not to be confused with proanthocyanidins and procyanadins from green tea extract), which are water soluble flavonoids that give colour and protection to plants. (They are anthocyanins when they contain a glucose molecule, anthocyanidins when they don't.) They are very good anti-oxidants, scavenging those free radicals that lead to rancidity and spoilage. The colour is dependent upon pH - when the solution is below ph 3 (very acidic), the colour is red. At neutral pH (7), they show violet, and above pH 11 (very basic) they show blue. (They can be used to determine pH level at home!) Strawberries contain between 15 to 20 mg of anthocyanidins and anthocyanins in 100 grams of fruit.

So what does this all mean for us when we use strawberry extract? We can use it at up to 0.5% in water containing creations when we dissolve it in warm water and add it to the cool down phase for some great anti-oxidant, astringent, and anti-bacterial features. A huge down side for strawberry extract - it is really hard to preserve.

POINT OF INTEREST! I'm a good preserver: I have had the odd batch of product go off after a long period of time, but strawberry extract is a mould magnet! I can make a toner with strawberry extract today and two weeks from now it will start to grow ick (and you know there's ick in there long before I can see it!), so I suggest that you use strawberry extract only in products you can refrigerate or use in a really short period of time. You can try using two preservatives together to keep it nicer longer (for instance 1% Germaben II and 0.5% Germall Plus) but it is an extract that doesn't play well with water. And don't even think about using it in a clay mask unless you make it every single time! Clay is a great breeding ground for ick, and combined with strawberry extract it will go bad very very quickly no matter how well you preserve it.

Is it worth it given all these problems? I say, yes! Strawberry extract not only has great label appeal - everyone loves strawberries! - but it's a great inclusion in facial cleansers or toners meant for oily, large pored, or acne prone skin. It's probably not the best ingredient for newbies who are unsure about their ability to preserve, but if you're a confident formulator, you can work with strawberry powder in your products. I personally wouldn't use it in a lotion as there are too many things that can go wrong. Stick to toners, sprays, cleansers, and surfactant mixtures with strawberry extract. Or consider using it in a gel toner just for a change from the liquid stuff!

Are you working with strawberry extract? What do you find works for you? Share your thoughts!

Join me tomorrow for more fun formulating with fruit extracts! 

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Using extracts, hydrosols, and other botanical ingredients

You'll see a lot of extracts, infusions, hydrosols, and botanical extracts in commercial products, and a question I'm asked all the time is "how do they do that?" (especially when it comes to Lush's claims of using "fresh" this or the other. Read parts one and part two of a post on Lush's claims).

The main ways to use botanicals are through powdered extracts, liquid extracts, and hydrosols. (Please don't make your own infusions or teas for your product unless you're a really experienced formulator with botanicals.)

Liquid extracts and hydrosols are easy to use. Just pop them into the right phase - compensating by removing some of the water - and you're done.

With powdered extracts, I suggest dissolving them in a little warm water (below 50˚C) before adding to the cool down phase. It'll mix in far better than just dumping the powder into your product, and you can remove that titch of water from the heated water phase if you're worried about having too much liquid.

Most solubility rates are determined at 25˚C, so we know it will dissolve well. We also know that the powdered extracts should be added in the cool down phase at 45˚C to 50˚C, so this is a fine temperature that won't ruin the extract.

Some extracts can mess with your products, so make sure you aren't making a big batch of lotion the first time you use something like green tea extract (it can cause redox reactions in a product, but that's for another day...) Try a titch in a 100 gram or 200 gram batch to see if you like it. And remember not to combine exfoliating extracts together (so papaya, apple, and AHAs together would be right out!)

If you're duplicating a product and don't have the extract, try it without. It might be that your hair or skin likes the product just fine without it or it could be at such low levels in the commercial product that you don't miss it! Extracts are nice little bonuses in our products, but we can still make something awesome without them.

Botanical ingredients of any sort - our extracts and hydrosols, but also things like hydrolyzed proteins, clay, and aloe vera - can be hard to preserve, so I suggest using your favourite broad spectrum preservative at the maximum amount (I like liquid Germall Plus at 0.5% but occasionally I use Germaben II at 1%).

So what does it mean when we see something that says "honey water" or "green tea infusion" on a product? It means something was added to the water to make it more than water. Interestingly, water is not considered an organic ingredient for an organic certification, so putting an organic ingredient, like an extract, into the water makes it organic. (Yeah, I know. What's more natural than water?) Just a few drops of something like honey can make the water "honey water" or a few drops of vanilla can make it "vanilla water". (You have to love Aveda's "Aqueous (water/aqua/eau) Extract/Extrait Aqueux" instead of water. Water extract?)

If you want to make your own honey, glycerin, oat protein, or any other type of water, just add the ingredient to the water as you weigh it, and you're done! Pretty simple, eh?

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Marsh cudweed: What's in it?

There's been an ongoing debate about the everlasting flower absolute in the Lush Afterlife moisturizer. It's not helichrysum but this wonderful plant, the marsh cudweed. After quite a bit of research, I found some reasons why this plant might be found in a moisturizer.

It contains caffeic acid, which is a powerful anti-oxidant, a great anti-inflammatory, and it might help protect our skin after sun exposure. We can find it in horsetail, comfrey, honeysuckle, rosemary, and cucumber extracts as well as in coconut oil (which we're including in the duplicate recipe), pumpkin seed oil, and mango butter. So add 0.5% of those extracts or use those oils and you've got yourself some caffeic acid in the product! (And my husband has just found a breakdown of the phenolic components in the marsh cudweed, so I should have more information shortly!)

It contains chlorogenic acid, which is acts as anti-oxidant anti-inflammatory as well as a low-level anti-viral, anti-bacterial, and anti-fungal. You can find it in honeysuckle extract.

It contains coumarins, which can behave as an anti-inflammatory that reduces redness and oedema, as well as an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal. You can find these in liquorice extract.

And it contains tannins, which can make our products feel a little drier, and they can behave as very effective anti-oxidants and have anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties. They are often used as astringents, and you can tannins in many of our oils and extracts, including witch hazel, grapeseed oil, and green tea extract.

I'm starting to think that this might be part of the preservative system as well as an ingredient that can behave as an anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory. If you want to include this in your Lush Afterlife moisturizer duplicate, I would include 0.5% green tea extract or honeysuckle extract in the cool down phase. You'll get the feeling of a drier lotion from using evening primrose oil, and if you want it to feel drier still, increase that oil and decrease the others (or use BTMS-50 as your emulsifier).

So there are my thoughts on this ingredient!

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Learning to formulate: A note on extracts of all sorts

As you'll see in my recipes, I tend to use a lot of extracts. Most of them are powdered extracts (like this chamomile extract from Voyageur Soap & Candle), and I will indicate if they are liquid (like the liquid green tea extract I get from the Personal Formulator).

To use a powdered extract, I dissolve my powder in a titch of heated water (which you can remove from your heated water phase or just add at the cool down phase point) - about 10 ml for 0.5 grams of powder - and stir until dissolved. I add it to my cool down phase at the appropriate temperature (45˚C or less). You can add it as a powder into the cool down phase, but I really prefer to dissolve it then add it.

You can substitute some of the extracts with essential oils, but you will find the smell might be overpowering in some products, especially in leave on products for the face. It's up to you to try it and see what you think.

There are other types of extracts available, mainly as liquids or CO2 extracts. I have a few liquids - Mulitfruit BSC, acai biofunctional liquid, Vital Hair & Scalp Complex, and the aforementioned green tea extract - and I find them very easy to use. I haven't used the CO2 extracts because I can't get them locally. The liquids are easier to incorporate into the proper phase (mostly the cool down phase), but they tend to be more expensive than the powders.

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