Adventures in Lotion Making

Finally Blogger is getting more user friendly, a larger space to write and an easier way to add images, woohoo!!!!

One of my many new adventures is in lotion making.  I'm having so much fun with it.  I have been reading along from the swiftcraftmonkey blog and learning what I think are the most proper ways on creating my own lotions.

My first lotion I tried making was a light face lotion.  I was looking for something great for my dry skin that was unscented and had minimal ingredients.  Something that I knew what was in it and what I was putting on my skin.

It was a success!!!  And I had to make more today since I ran out of it this week.  So like I usually do and never get a chance to post I randomly photographed my adventure as I went and thought I would share it on the blog.  My first post here over at fernadele, as I'm moving away from moosieknits.

Hope you enjoy!

So here is the recipe I came up with using swift as a reference.  I made two different lotions today, one being my face lotion, and another a light winter hand lotion.

Recipe #1 face lotion

water phase
55% Water
20% Aloe vera gel
5% Glycerin

oil phase
12% Oils (Rice Bran, Apricot Kernal & Meadowfoam)
4% Ecomulse (emulsifier)
2% Cetyl Alcohol (thickener)

cool down phase
1% Vitamin E
1% Leucidal Liquid (preservative)

Recipe #2 Hand Lotion

water phase
40% Water
10% Aloe vera gel
4% Glycerin
10% Lavender Hydrosol

oil phase
20% Oil (chamomile infused sweet almond oil)
5% butter (mango)
3% Cetyl Alcohol
6% emulsifier

cool down phase
1% Vitamin E
1% preservative
15 drops each essential oils of rosemary, peppermint & Organic Lavender for a very light scent.

And here are my photos!

So here are some of the tools I use.

You'll see others as I go along.

I keep utensils for lotion making only and mark them.

 

You can mix small batches with a milk frother but

it does add a lot of air bubbles

 

For my larger batches today I used my immersion blender

with the whisk attachment

  

I'm in between scales, get a bigger better one than this

I also wash everything in the dishwasher and then wipe with alcohol

 

Use distilled water for your lotions

super cheap at the grocery store

  

Gloves!!! I wear them to keep out any extra bad stuff

 

Here is recipe #2 pre measured and ready to go

 

Here are the items for my water phase, measured and ready

 

Here is the emulsifier and cetyl alcohol pre measured and ready

to mix with the oils

 

Here are my oils measure out

 

Here is my cool down phase

Preservative and Vitamin E

 

This is recipe #1 heating up in a double boiler of sorts

A large pan with a water bath.  The glass is sitting on a heat pad

I crocheted.  

The big pyrex is my water phase

the little clear one is extra distilled water to make up 

for loss of weight in evaporation loss

and the little yellow one is my oils

  

Here is my preservative and Vitamin E hanging out waiting 

  

As my liquids heat up I measure them to reach 70C or 158F

I need to upgrade my thermometer too, this one only reads F

As you can see they are not there yet

 

Yay my ingredients have reached proper temperature and now I'm going to set the

oven timer and hold them at that temperature for 

20 minutes

 20 minutes are up and I've mixed my two ingredients.

I would normally just mix in the water container but my 

batch was too large for the pyrex container so I 

had to bring out another container.

This is how it looks shortly after combining my waters and oil

kinds milky and liquidy.  sorry crappy photo.

 

Here I have mixed for 5-10 minutes and I'm waiting for my lotion to 

cool down to 45C or 114F so I can add my preservative

and Vitamin E, and optionally I could

add a scent at that time too.

 

 

After 10 minutes or so it is now starting to thicken up and my lotion

has reached the cool down phase, I will now add my 

preservative and vitamin E.

 

I mix again for 5 minutes or so after adding my cool down phase

let it rest and then mix a little more

Then I bottle it up!

I used an icing bag and tip to get it into my containers

or you can use a ziploc and cut off one corner.

 

Now I just need to print my labels

my mom is gonna love me :)