Jadryga

That sounds like it would smell awesome! I definitely want to try that, although I hate the fact that ants get into everything here in Malaysia

All the botanical extracts can be obtained from Aromatics & More, they've got an excellent selection of extracts, but well, they're NZ based. I took a look at Herbarie, they've got all but the ginseng. Isostearyl Benzoate - Apparently has synthetic origins, functions as an emollient MMS has allantoin... I doubt a lot of those ingredients can be found in the home-based lotion-maker's inventory though. What on earth are living ionic minerals?

Dimethicone gives it good slip & glide (a silky sort of greasy, minimizes drag), which I don't think is what she's actually looking for. Cyclomethicone is the silicone that cuts greasiness, when used in the proper amounts. Robin has a valid point, though cyclo and IPM are not water-based ingredients and you'll probably be adding tiny amounts of both. To be safe though, if it's for personal use, and you're worried about affecting the preservation, you could always scoop out a small amount into a separate container (say 3-4 full body uses) and add cyclo + IPM proportionately to that. Repeat when the smaller container's empty

Actually, it's the diazolidinyl urea in Germaben II that releases formaldehyde. The parabens are not formaldehyde donors, but they can be pretty irritating by themselves in large doses. The amount that woman used is just plain overkill though. With the chemical stability of parabens her lotion will probably last for the next 20 years, and man, that is NOT a good thing. I'm sad to hear that she never got properly investigated or what she deserved. Hopefully, she's learned her lesson and she'll stop peddling things without proper research and quality control. On the other hand, glad to hear Marge is doing great!

Up to you, I should think Both are pretty effective, cyclo gives a pretty smooth, dry feel. I should think the right amounts of both will do wonders! For the moment though, until you decide, you could always just dust a little corn/tapioca starch on your hands to cut greasiness once the frosting's soaked in as much as it can.

You could add some cyclo too, to work in conjunction with the IPM. Found some % recommendations on MMS that might help: Lotions: 1 to 3% Creams: 3 to 6% Butters & Lotion Bars: 4-10% Massage Oils: 4-8% Lip Balm:1-5%

Well, listing it might help

Shea butter is non-comedogenic (just in case, that means, non-pore-clogging) and generally great for the face (vitamins, healing fraction, some UV absorption properties, etc) Might want to consider that Cocoa rates pretty high as far as comedogenicity goes, I wouldn't really want that on my face. Not sure about the rest.

EDIT: Mostly Lurkin's idea is better If you have it all in %, that's all you need already Just get a good calculator and decide how much you want to make, then multiply it by that. Like, say a recipe calls for 20% mango butter, that means it's X 0.2 (30% is X 0.3, 40% is X 0.4, etc) Then say you want to make 10 oz of butter, just do 10 oz X 0.2 = 2 oz, so your recipe would take 2 oz of butter, while a 16 oz batch would take 3.2 oz So... say a sample recipe for a body butter is.. 30% shea butter 15% mango butter 10% cocoa butter 10% avocado butter 20% macadamia nut oil 10% calendula oil 2% cyclomethicone 1% IPM 2% eo blend For a 10 oz batch that would mean 3 oz shea butter 1.5 oz mango butter 1 oz cocoa butter 1 oz avocado butter 2 oz mac nut oil 1 oz calendula oil 0.2 oz cyclo 0.1 oz IPM 0.2 oz eo blend Disclaimer: That recipe is just something I made up off the top of my head. If anyone tries it and it works, that's awesome, if not, well, you know why! All you need is a calculator If your recipe is in oz or ml and you want to convert directly, MMS has a great conversion calc. http://www.thesage.com/calcs/measures.html

Also cuts greasiness in things like lotion bars or whipped shea butter. (Must remember to add to my "To Buy" list.)

This might help: http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/askthechemist.html

Sounds like it might be the mango butter crystallizing, maybe? Butters can do that sometimes, especially shea. Some sites recommend heating your butters to a pretty high temp, some denounce it, but rapid cooling seems to be generally agreed on as a good method for avoiding it. One of the lotion/cream vets might be able to give you more detailed pointers.

You could try Dry Flo. That's modified corn starch. Not potato, but not wheat either, heh. MMS carries it.

There's always the B&B Gallery, we'd love to see them Glad you had fun... the first time I made lotion bars, they were rather sticky (I just played it by ear, now I know to measure!) but I had fun too! Sadly, for some reason, some grease ants decided my lotion bars were good munchies, so they infested it. One day, I'll get around to ordering some shea butter.

Do you mean gel candles? If yes, that should be in the Candle section. Found this excerpt on gel candles from http://www.dld123.com/hshnewcandles.html: If you mean jelly fuel/gel fuel/etc it's apparently alcohol with thickeners. Shouldn't be hard to color or add scent to, I suppose, but it's generally used as fireplace fuel? I've only found one instance of scented gel fuel, that's a citronella one by Sunjel, although, there was a Japanese restaurant near my house that used a small blob of pink gel to keep my syabu-syabu warm. Always wondered what that was. Probably the same thing, just colored.

Optiphen and Optiphen Plus both work on anhydrous formulae... but they have their tradeoffs. Optiphen has no pH restriction, but only covers microbes, not yeast or mold. Optiphen Plus works best with formulations with a pH of 6.0 and below but is complete (bacteria, mold, yeast, the works). Note though, that the natural pH of honey is pretty low (ranging from 3.2-6.1) so you might get away with Optiphen Plus. I agree with Lindsay though, your sugar will most likely dissolve into your honey or glycerin, so since it's for personal use, I recommend making it in small batches (1-2 uses) and completely bypassing preservatives That formula looks like it's enough for about 2 full-body uses anyhow.

Preservatives are needed mainly when you have a formulation with water in it (or that has a high probability of coming into contact with water) like lotions, creams, toners, etc. By "water" this includes just about anything watery that you'd consider part of your water phase for lotions, like goat's milk, aloe vera, papaya juice, etc. This isn't a problem for soaps because they're cured, but for lotions and such, the water content = bacteria/mold/yeast breeding ground. Milk is more difficult to preserve because of the complex proteins. There's a thread on preserving goat's milk lotions somewhere about this forum, heh. If you're planning on storing or selling aqueous products, there's no way you can omit preservatives. For personal use, you can just make small batches, refrigerate and throw out within a couple days (depends, really). Otherwise, you could make anhydrous (waterless) products like body oils instead of lotions or shampoo bars instead of shampoo, that sort of thing. Your scrubs, if anhydrous (not emulsified), could probably get away without a preservative, though you might want to put something like "use within 3 months of opening" or maybe include a nice scoop to discourage customers from dipping wet hands into the jar. As for vegan-ness... did some research for you and came up with these. If you're looking for universal usability, Optiphen seems to be your best bet. It's composed of phenoxyethanol and caprylic glycol. I've found a lot of sources of phenoxyethanol but the general consensus is that it's sourced from plant oils (sage, rose, coconut, etc). Caprylic glycol seems to be derived from coconut. EDIT: Just found some info stating that Optiphen only covers bacteria and yeast, not mold. Might want to take that into consideration. Optiphen Plus, a newer formulation including sorbic acid covers mold as well, but appears to be most effective for formulations with a pH below 6.0. http://www.ispcorp.com/products/preservatives/content/brochure/optiphenplus/intro.html (From MMS: Finally, a paraben and formaldehyde-free preservative! Optiphen is a unique liquid preservative formulation which consists of phenoxyethanol and an emollient base. For use in a variety of formulas such as aqueous, anhydrous and emulsion products. Optiphen is a clear liquid preservative that can be easily added directly to the formulation during pre- or post-emulsification, at or below 80°C. Optiphen has no pH restrictions in formulating, and is compatible with most ingredients used in the personal care industry.) Other alternatives: Sodium hydroxymethylglycinate or Suttocide (+ 50% water) (derived from glycerin or amino acids, although it denatures in aqueous solutions into sodium glycinate and formaldehyde. Now, it's theoretically safe, if used properly, but some might not want to use anything that denatures into formaldehyde, so personal choice there. There's a more comprehensive explanation here: http://houseofstrauss.co.uk/modules/wordbook/entry.php?entryID=522. From Aromatics & More: A safe and mild preservative derived for the amino acid glycine. It has broad spectrum anti-microbial properties and is active against gram positive and negative yeasts and molds. It maintains its acitivity in pH levels as high as 12. It may react with some citrus compounds and turn products yellow.) Sodium dehydroacetate (plant-based, haven't found all that much information about it.) Potassium sorbate (From Aromatics & More: A food grade preservative derived from Mountain Ash Sorbus species. Potassium Sorbate retains its activity in a pH up to but not over 6.0. It is very effective against yeast and molds.) Neopein (From Aromatics & More: Biopein® a 100% natural preservative was first introduced in May 2003. Since then the product has been improved on and has been replaced by NEOPEIN®. NEOPEIN® may be used at rates as low as 0.2%. The cinnamon component of Biopein has been replaced by Olive Leaf extract to produce a product that has less potential to irritate and a lighter scent. Ingredients: extracts of Origanum vulgare (oregano), Thymus vulgarism (thyme) Rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary), Lavandula officinalis (lavender), Hydrastis Canadensis (goldenseal), and Olea europaea (olive leaf).) Helpful reads: http://www.vegetarian-restaurants.net/Additives/Preservative-Cosmetics.htm http://www.fromnaturewithlove.com/library/preservatives.asp Found one in this forum! http://www.candletech.com/forums/showthread.php?p=199218 Good sources: (NZ) http://www.aromaticsandmore.com/products/preservatives_anti_oxidants.html (US) http://www.thesage.com/catalog/LotionSupplies.html Hope this gives you a good starting point. Good luck!

Man, that makes me want to go play with my lotion bar things now. Looks great!

E-wax is emulsifying wax. You use it to combine oils and water together into lotion/cream, like Misty said. A well-formulated ewax will probably provide some emollient benefits, make a stronger emulsion than beeswax and borax, and make your life easier

My skin didn't react too well with jojoba, got clogged pores... though that could be because it was also dry so had an accumulated layer of dead skin cells. Didn't really dare to try it again, though it sank in pretty darn fast. I use a combination of macadamia nut oil and avocado oil. Sinks right in, absolutely no greasy residue, just a nice, matte or dewy sheen, depending on how much I put on, less in the morning, more at night It's also odorless, just a faint sweet nutty smell that fades in less than a minute. The mac provides super-quick absorption and palmitoleic acid, while the avocado provides lots of nutrients and moisture and other concentrated goodness. I smeared a lot of customers at my boutique with it recently and they were all impressed with how quickly it sank in. I'm thinking of getting some emu oil to play with, though

I agree, most places I've seen list hydrosols as LESS expensive. Try MMS or Nature's Gift, maybe.

Nothing + shipping = As good as it gets! I may just get one. They should give you commissions for all the potential orders they might get cos of this thread

Man, those make my mad scientist side want to come out! Wish I could play with lye. Those look good though!

I tried honey in some lotion bars, I got gooey pockets at the bottom that spilled when I popped them. I'm thinking of trying it LaVida's way... by stirring until it's pretty much creamy before I put it into the molds. Last time I just poured it straight in. Don't have access to lanolin here, and it's quite a hassle for me to import it Keeping my fingers crossed for the agave tests!

Well....... it's not...... that..... bad.....? Joking Anyhow it really isn't. I'm not so sure about the colors for the pinky one, but the green one's got a funky retro look going on.