Jadryga

Wow, looks good! How much is one, roughly?

Your stuff looks good, gurl! Especially the soaps and bath bombs. There's just something about them that makes me want to take a bite...

I use a variation of the OCM... it's not as time consuming as the other method, and I like it no breakouts, just smooth, glowing skin.

My cleansing oil recipe:

macadamia nut oil, grapeseed oil, rice bran oil.

Yeah. I don't use castor. It's not easy to obtain here, and my skin hasn't been complaining, actually. I use roughly 60-70% mac oil, 20-30% grapeseed and 10-20% rbo.

I slather some on my face and keep rubbing all over for a couple of minutes until it's about half as oily as it was before.

After that, I just splash my face repeatedly with (pretty) warm water and wash the excess oils off, rubbing as I go. I feel the heat helps the oils to penetrate much like the steaming would If I'm showering I just hop in and do the same.

After I'm done, I rub my damp skin gently with my towel to dislodge dead skin cells, and rub some mac oil in. No tight feeling after cleansing, and my skin tone's evened out tons. The mac oil penetrates so quickly and leaves a matte, dewy finish too that I absolutely love! My relatively inexpensive alternative to jojoba

It's good for me (and probably teens), since I get rather impatient when I sit around waiting for the steam to work

I've tried a lot of things - salicylic acid (worked, but so oily after! And if you get that stuff in your mouth, ugh!), isotretonoin (dried my skin out so badly, lips were cracking), acne washes (dried my skin out too). I think now that I'm not drying my skin out more, it's doing a LOT better

They look awesome! Here's crossed fingers you'll be able to replicate that every time

For stress, the eo. It's the inhaled compounds (scent) that calms the nerves. The extract's mainly topical.

Maybe some chamomile and helichrysum as well? They're great anti-inflammatories. The chamomile in conjunction with the lavender would help with stress as well, and stress worsens everything, really. That's rosemary camphor right?

Quick question... does an fo blend smell different when soaped from when put straight into a body oil?

I'm having a hard time finding an fo blend that doesn't smell slightly cloying to me, despite lots of raves I see about the scent soaped. I can't soap for nuts cos lye comes under the Poisons Act here, though I'd like to so very much

Ahh... interesting... time for me to invest in q-tips then... thanks!

Hmmm... what's the q-tip test?

Mediterranean Spring it is!

Thanks, people!

Actually... it looks rather like marble cake with some chocolate syrup drizzled on top. Yum!

I was playing mad scientist with some fragrances from Old Mill and stumbled upon...

Green Tea fo (~10 drops) + Wild Fig & Cassis fo (2-3 drops) + Peppermint eo (1 drop) = a lovely buttermint scent once the oils have blended.

Odd combo, but it's interesting, so just thought I'd share it I want to use it in my body oil which has mac oil and rbo, but the mac has a distinct nutty scent. I'm a little afraid to put too much in the oil, but the amount mentioned above is just too little to cover the scent. It's 100ml, with 75% mac oil and 25% rbo.

Would anyone know what the limit for the ratio of fo/eo to oil would be?

Omigawd, the Chestnuts and Brown Sugar really DOES look exactly like fudge!

Maybe a darker pink for Passionate Kisses?

Got my sampler pack from Jenn from Old Mill a few days ago (yay!)... Wild Fig and Cassis was a little too sweet on its own for me, I was planning on using it for a body/massage oil, so I toned it down with some lavender. Now I'm happy, the scent is still sweet, but slightly more robust.

Question is... what do I name it?

So far on the list of suggestions...

Lavender Bubbles

Lavender Dreams

Summer Dreams

Lavender Figs

Spring Figs

Mediterranean Spring

Spring Figs & Cassis

ingredients: water, sodium laureth sulfate, cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium cocoamphoacetate, glycol distearate, cocamide MEA, laureth-7 or laureth-9, hydrolized wheat protein, hydrolized wheat starch, chamomile [antheis nobilis] extract, slippery elm bark [ulmus fulva], black walnut [julgans nigra]extract, aloe barbadenis gel, panthenol, polymethoxy bicyclc oxazolidine, citric acid, polyquaternium-10, guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride, sodium chloride, tocopheryl acetate, triethanolamine, disodium EDTA

Christina

Not sure if you want the whole list or what...

Surfactants and foaming agents are a nice green color, additives are a happy orange, conditioning agents are a cool blue color, pH adjusters are a fuzzy pink color, things that influence product appearance and other useful ingredients are a funky purple color.

Sodium Laureth Sulfate

- Surfactant, nothing new there

Cocamidopropyl Betaine

- milder surfactant, anti-static properties, humectant

Sodium Cocoamphoacetate

- mild amphoteric surfactant

Glycol Distearate

- makes shampoos opaque and pearlescent

Cocamide MEA

- foaming agent and stabilizer, viscosity booster

hydrolyzed wheat protein

- nothing new here

hydrolyzed wheat starch

- nothing new here either

chamomile extract

- the usual suspect, lightens hair slightly, soothing, anti-inflammatory, smells nice

slippery elm bark

- gives a slippery feel, soothing, anti-inflammatory

black walnut extract

- darkens hair, anti-inflammatory, good for some skin conditions, in this case, probably the scalp

aloe barbadensis gel

- simply put, aloe vera gel.

panthenol

- humectant, conditioner

polymethoxy bicyclc oxazolidine

- preservative

citric acid

- acidifier, important to keep pH slightly acidic for smooth cuticles

polyquarternium-10

- aka quarternized cellulose, anti-static agent, softener, conditioner

guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride

- aka quarternized guar, provides smoothness and volume, conditioner

sodium chloride

- plain old table salt, product thickener

tocopherol acetate

- Vitamin E acetate, I can't tell if it's natural or synthetic simply from this

triethanolamine

- pH adjuster and emulsifying surfactant

disodium EDTA

- water softener, sequestering agent

Super helpful links:

http://sci-toys.com/ingredients/shampoo.html

http://www.happi.com/articles/2007/02/economy-premium-shampoos.php

(Yeah, I'm a research nut :undecided )

Love the feet, the Black Raspberry Vanilla and the Rise and Shine!

(You're right, that Egyptian musk does look like flesh )

The MMS site has recipes actually. There's a link to lanolin recipes right at the lanolin section. Here's the shortcut:

http://www.thesage.com/recipes/recipes.php3?.State=Search&srch=Lanolin

Camden Grey's un-petroleum jelly is castor oil based and contains beeswax and carnauba wax, while Vegelatum is canola oil based and as far as I know, does not contain wax. Otherwise though, they're essentially the same thing.

Very pretty!

Although it took me a minute to make out "Simplify" on the one on the right... I saw "Pimply" at first then thought "No, that can't be right..."

Otherwise, they're purty!

A few detailed ones...

Snowdrift's formulary is pretty wide and has tutorials that teach you the technical aspects of lotionmaking and really helps you understand the process and the various components.

http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/formulary.html

Aromatics & More's formulary is very helpful for samples which you can follow per se, or use to gauge percentages for formulating recipes.

http://www.aromaticsandmore.com/formulary.html

This one's by Donna Maria and it's got some pretty interesting recipes.

http://www.makeyourcosmetics.com/recipes/index.asp?cat=lotions

Also pretty interesting...

http://www.pinemeadows.net/recipes.php

Thanks! :embarasse

Actually, Christina, I get my soaps from a girlfriend in the Philippines cos lye comes under the Poisons Act here so it's hard to get it I'm helping her market them here in Malaysia. I'm doing up the rest of the other B&B - whipped shea butter, scrubs, masques, etc, though I haven't quite finished tweaking my recipes as you can see I'm not sure where she gets her kojic acid but there seems to be a LOT of it in the Philippines. I think it's the pure kojic acid powder though, not the dipalmitate.

Sheila, that's funny

I tried out a simple masque with french pink clay, cocoa powder, tapioca starch and rice bran oil. Was thinking of making little packets that contain 1-2 uses for Mother's Day to go with my soaps and maybe a body scrub.

I'm seriously considering adding "CAUTION: May frighten little children" to the label though...

This is... just after I'd slathered the stuff on. I smelled like hot chocolate, yum. (On a side note, pink clay and oatmeal in water smells terrible. That was my first try.)

This is while I was trying to remove it. It was tough. I ended up a dark pinky color, like I went psycho with my blusher, though it's not really noticeable in the picture, so I raised my arm for a skin comparison. At that point I realized that I might need something tougher than plain water so I lathered up my shea butter soap.

Tada! After removing everything.

My skin's softer, but I'm thinking of using a lighter oil like jojoba so it won't be so tough for me to remove

Suggestions are welcome!

Isopropyl Myristate. Cuts the greasies!

No problem, glad I could help!

It probably wouldn't have turned up (or you would have gotten a truckload of pages) if you were searching for liquid vitamin D (without quotation marks) instead of "liquid vitamin D". Using the quotation marks narrows your search results down to exactly "liquid vitamin D" rather than a search with "liquid"+"vitamin"+"D"

Ah, just read the info page for golden shea at the agbanga site. I mixed it up with unrefined shea I think, sorry about that.