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Anyone make solid perfumes/colognes? Stumped about mystery patches.


NaughtyNancy

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I make solid perfumes/colognes, mostly for myself, friends, family, neighbors and other people I encounter under social circumstances. I try to sell here and there, but have never branded or anything. I have also never had any sort of relevant type of education/training before; when I decide to make something new (for me), I just browse a page of online how-to-make-X search results and then basically wing it from there. So that is how it went with solid perfumes/colognes for me, so I might be missing a big DUH thing, but I don't know.

 

For the most part, I really like how my solid perfumes/colognes turn out. I like the way they look (at first), the way they smell, the way they feel / treat my skin and so on. But there is one issue that I can't figure out, and it's holding me back from trying to brand a little business of my own, like to offer to local shops and such.

 

Basically, within a month after making the solid perfumes/colognes, some of them start getting patches on them. Now while I am almost positive that these patches are not something like mold based on how they look up close, they look reminiscent of mold in the way they spring up and then spread, and would probably be pretty off-putting to someone opening their item and seeing that. I can't figure out what is causing this. I do use screw top tins currently, and they close pretty tight, but I'm wondering if somehow air is getting into some of the tins and causing this, or if it is something else, I really have no idea.

 

I make my solid perfumes/colognes with white beeswax, shea butter, virgin coconut oil, raw honey, essential oils and fragrance oils. I was hoping that between the coconut and raw honey, that their shelf life would be pretty good, and, they do both smell and feel / go onto skin really good still even months later. These little patches pop up on me all the time, though, and I have no idea what the cause is.

 

The little patches don't phase me at all, personally, I couldn't care any less and still use the items, but that's probably because I make them and know that there is nothing actually icky in them. But, I don't feel at all confident trying to brand while this is still an issue. Again I think it would just creep customers out to discover it when they remove the lid to their item. If I didn't know anything about how something was made and saw something similar, it would make me feel a little iffy, myself.

 

I suck at describing things, so I have provided photos. Sorry about the crappy photo quality, all I have is a cheap phone camera.

 

Edit to Add: I also sometimes see this patchy texturing happening within hours of making a balm that consists of nothing more than shea butter, argan oil and essential oils, and it spreads in the same patchy manner, and looks horrible. Other times it doesn't happen, though. I can't figure out what the variable is.

 

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Edited by NaughtyNancy
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You have a couple things going on.

 

Shea butter (and other similar butters with stearic) develop grains overtime.

 

I wouldn’t use honey in those as it attracts moisture. It can mold if moisture enters ((humidity, saliva) and can separate out over time. 

 

beeswax does bloom (like soy candle frosting).  

 

The picture shows, and your description above indicate instability in the base formula. Lotioncrafter and the herbarie used to carry a product that stabilized these types of blends called butterez. It was amazing. The second choice would be Cera Bellina, a modified beeswax product that is a decent emulsifier and stabilizer at around 10% or so of the base formula. 

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I think it may be mold from the honey.  Honey is water soluble and not oil soluble.  It could be food for other organisms.   I've never had that happen and use the same ingredients other than the honey in mine. I do get some grains sometimes from the shea butter.

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On 11/27/2017 at 10:00 AM, Moonstar said:

Im wondering if the honey has anything to do with it ? May I ask why you use honey, I would think it would make it sticky. 

 

My understanding of honey has been that it's really nice for skin, and that it also has antimicrobial properties. This has just been based on articles and such I have read about it, though, not on any pre-existing scientific understanding of my own. So I started adding raw honey to my solid perfumes and some other balms in small amounts. It doesn't cause a sticky factor (though I do only use a very small amount), and I did feel like the solid perfumes and balms seemed richer (though this could easily be a hopeful placebo effect, too). 

 

On 11/27/2017 at 10:03 AM, TallTayl said:

You have a couple things going on.

 

Shea butter (and other similar butters with stearic) develop grains overtime.

 

I wouldn’t use honey in those as it attracts moisture. It can mold if moisture enters ((humidity, saliva) and can separate out over time. 

 

beeswax does bloom (like soy candle frosting).  

 

The picture shows, and your description above indicate instability in the base formula. Lotioncrafter and the herbarie used to carry a product that stabilized these types of blends called butterez. It was amazing. The second choice would be Cera Bellina, a modified beeswax product that is a decent emulsifier and stabilizer at around 10% or so of the base formula. 

 

Thank you for all the info, appreciate it. I did start with unrefined shea butter, but did get major grainy problems. I wondered if it was because I melt it down in a double-boiler boiler as part of making the solid perfumes and balms, so I switched to refined shea butter, which did seem to help a lot. I'm going to try removing the honey, since multiple people including yourself are suspecting it as a culprit. I didn't use it in my original recipes, and now that you all mention it, the originals I still have in my collection don't have this patchy pattern, but do all have the "premium white beeswax" sold by bramble berry. Will also check out butterez. I really like working with botanical butters and really only use wax to get the firmer and glossier finish that people tend to like. I had considered candelilla wax but had read that its melting temperature is even higher than beeswax. Every time I make a new blend and make a solid perfume, when it goes into the double-boiler I just have this feeling like PLEASE SURVIVE THE HEAT lol. 

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Went ahead and ordered some of the Cera Bellina wax from Lotioncrafter to try. If I am understanding it right, I just have to modify my recipe to make it 10% of the overall composition, but can still use the premium white beeswax along with it. Am also going to be removing the raw honey and leaving that just to made-to-order skin care stuff for people who want it. Gonna do a mini test batch when the Cera Bellina wax arrives, and will try to remember to update this thread about 3 weeks from then with what difference(s) it made. 

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  • 1 month later...
On 11/27/2017 at 9:03 AM, TallTayl said:

 

The picture shows, and your description above indicate instability in the base formula. Lotioncrafter and the herbarie used to carry a product that stabilized these types of blends called butterez. It was amazing. The second choice would be Cera Bellina, a modified beeswax product that is a decent emulsifier and stabilizer at around 10% or so of the base formula. 

Butterez was great but is being disc. Once it's gone, it's gone according to LC. Just posting as an FYI on the butterez, which I personally love and will miss. 

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks again for all of the helpful advice. Occurred to me this morning that I forgot to add a couple things.

 

1. I did nix the raw honey altogether, so it is no longer part of my recipe at all. 

2. Raised total wax to 80% - 70% of a balm is the premium white beeswax, while 10% of the balm is the cera bellina wax.

3. Remaining 20% is a combination of refined shea butter, cold pressed virgin coconut oil and golden jojoba oil. 

 

Then I add the EO/FO to this base, % based on safety limits if I am making it for someone else, but admittedly I go higher when it's for my own use. 

 

This ratio setup so far is the best that I have tried. It seems that not only was the raw honey (as much I love using the stuff) jacking up my balms for long-term presentation, but also that too much shea butter was causing problems, too. 

 

I had originally not liked the first balms I made that had a high wax % as to me they were too hard, not creamy enough, and also had a tendency to "sweat" out the FO/EO in less than a couple weeks. The cera bellina so far seems to be counter-acting that even with reduced shea butter.

 

I do still find that shea butter seems to have a sort of metaphorical "emulsification" effect on different notes when I am trying to get a blended aroma to be more 'blurred' and musk like, but it doesn't take much of an uptick in % to notice this, and instead of lowering wax %, I just lower the VCO/jojoba %. 

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  • 6 years later...

hello

kindly tell me how you have solved your problem. 

i am making a solid perfume including bees wax , shea butter, vitamin E, one preservative. i am continuously facing the appearance of white dots. 

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