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Lotions, creams, and butters...oh my!


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I made a cream this weekend with the same fragrance as my first CP soap. Seriously people...Candle Science's Amber Noir...check it out!! I used Nature's Garden's recipe for a pretty basic cream. I really love it. I just kind of wish it was just a liiittle bit thicker. It seems like a slightly thicker lotion in the consistency it's in. I looked up emulsified body butters and they seem to follow the exact same pattern just changing the ratio of water and butters. So, to make it just a teeny bit thicker could I subtract just a small amount of water and add that much in butters? I will probably also mix it a little bit longer next time as well. 

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Oh boy, now we're talking! Are you ready to take a wonderful journey through the world of cosmetics and personal care?

click here! https://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.ca

 

Prepare to be lost for days!!

 

I just love reading Susan's blog, she has so much great info in there. Her search bar is tiny and about halfway down the side bar, but it's really easy to use.

 

If you'd like to post the recipe you used, we can certainly take a look at it and give you some specific pointers.

Personally, I don't like greasy lotions, so there is a limit to how much butter I can add before it becomes too heavy for me. Generally if I want to make a lotion thicker, I will use fatty alcohols or a fatty acid to get the texture I'm after. My favorite is cetyl alcohol, I love that it adds slip and a silky skinfeel without being waxy. A common thickener is stearic acid, it is inexpensive and easy to obtain, I know NG sells it. Or you could try another emulsifier - did you use the traditional emulsifier? I think the BTMS-25 makes a nice thick lotion without a lot of extra thickeners.

I do love that Amber Noir too! Do you buy oils from RE? Their Sweet Amber Musk is ohmygod amazing in body butter. 😄

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5 hours ago, Sarah S said:

Oh boy, now we're talking! Are you ready to take a wonderful journey through the world of cosmetics and personal care?

click here! https://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.ca


Ooooh! Can't wait to check this out! Thank you. :) 

 

5 hours ago, Sarah S said:

If you'd like to post the recipe you used, we can certainly take a look at it and give you some specific pointers.

 

353 grams of Distilled Water 
48 grams Sweet Almond oil 
24 grams Traditional Emulsifying wax 
10 grams Cocoa Butter 
8 grams Stearic Acid 
5 grams Vitamin E Oil 
7 grams Optiphen Preservative 
6 grams Natures Garden Butter Brickle Fragrance Oil 

This is the recipe I used, but I used Shea Butter instead of Cocoa Butter since it was all I had on hand. 

 

5 hours ago, Sarah S said:

I do love that Amber Noir too! Do you buy oils from RE? Their Sweet Amber Musk is ohmygod amazing in body butter. 😄


We Sara/h's must just think alike! ;) I have never ordered from RE, though I will definitely have to check it out!! 

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When you add oils, butters, silicones, etc. that have a required HLB, you need to recalculate the amount of emulsifier. It will be simpler to just leave out some of the water. 

 

The type of butter will also also determine how the finished lotion feels, along with how much you whip it. 

 

 

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12 hours ago, TallTayl said:

When you add oils, butters, silicones, etc. that have a required HLB, you need to recalculate the amount of emulsifier. It will be simpler to just leave out some of the water. 

 

The type of butter will also also determine how the finished lotion feels, along with how much you whip it. 

 

 


I had no idea about HLB, but you mentioned it and swiftcraftymonkey mentioned it in her blog that @Sarah S shared, so I am just researching all about it! So crazy. This is so interesting. :) So much to learn. 

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It’s all chemistry, so the more you learn, the easier it will be to succeed, right? 

 

With emulsifying wax, generally 25% of the total oils, silicones, etc. that require an emulsifier should create a stable emulsion. Wax is not usually terribly fussy. Wax, though, creates the soaping effect which is that white film on your skin that forms when applying the lotion. Some people don’t mind, but it’s not an elegant feel at all and can be very sticky.

 

to thicken your current formula, you could try simple, common additives like xanthan gum and/or harder butters. You could also increase your stearic a little, or add Cetyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, etc. 

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I just got some cetyl esters, I can't wait to play with them and see how they compare to the cetyl alcohol!

But I have just a few other lotions stockpiled...

image.jpeg.641d27ffdf5e12a6372f82aab40c578f.jpeg

 

😂😂😂

 

Probably the best way to approach it like making candles or soap, and just tweak your basic recipe a little bit at a time to see how each ingredient affects it. TT's suggestion about just removing some water to make it thicker is simple, and effective, and the more you make the better you'll get at the process too!

The biggest thing that helped me was learning to build a good recipe using percentages. It makes it so much easier to manipulate the ingredients, and it's a snap to make a little batch for testing or a big batch for gifting. Or in my case, a big batch to selfishly hoard. 😄

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4 hours ago, Sarah S said:

I just got some cetyl esters, I can't wait to play with them and see how they compare to the cetyl alcohol!

But I have just a few other lotions stockpiled...

image.jpeg.641d27ffdf5e12a6372f82aab40c578f.jpeg

 

😂😂😂

 

Probably the best way to approach it like making candles or soap, and just tweak your basic recipe a little bit at a time to see how each ingredient affects it. TT's suggestion about just removing some water to make it thicker is simple, and effective, and the more you make the better you'll get at the process too!

The biggest thing that helped me was learning to build a good recipe using percentages. It makes it so much easier to manipulate the ingredients, and it's a snap to make a little batch for testing or a big batch for gifting. Or in my case, a big batch to selfishly hoard. 😄

I made an emulsified sugar scrub with a recipe I made up using just percentages and it came out really dry so I'm a little wary of making my own recipes for now. I usually end up tweaking recipes I find anyway to suit my needs and adjusting and whatnot haha. 😝

 

And I definitely hear you about hoarding lotions/creams. I have eczema so especially during the winter I end up using lotion/cream like 10x a day sometimes haha. Being able to make my own is a blessing that I am heartily looking forward to!

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9 hours ago, TallTayl said:

It’s all chemistry, so the more you learn, the easier it will be to succeed, right? 

 

With emulsifying wax, generally 25% of the total oils, silicones, etc. that require an emulsifier should create a stable emulsion. Wax is not usually terribly fussy. Wax, though, creates the soaping effect which is that white film on your skin that forms when applying the lotion. Some people don’t mind, but it’s not an elegant feel at all and can be very sticky.

 

to thicken your current formula, you could try simple, common additives like xanthan gum and/or harder butters. You could also increase your stearic a little, or add Cetyl alcohol, cetearyl alcohol, etc. 

I've heard cetyl alcohol can be really nice. I also planning on getting cocoa butter, which is harder than Shea if I'm not mistaken. 

 

As far as the waxy feeling on your skin, there's no way around that right? Unless you used a different emulsifier? 

 

 

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The baby is sleeping soundly, my husband is hanging out with some of our friends in the other room. But I am too exhausted, so I decided to try to curl up on the couch and read this article lol including the pdf with a lot of math and numbers representing fatty acids and whatnot, but I am so exhausted I think I'm only retaining like 3% of what I've read lol. Hmm. Maybe I will pick it back up tomorrow. 

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1 hour ago, LittleMissSunshine said:

The baby is sleeping soundly, my husband is hanging out with some of our friends in the other room. But I am too exhausted, so I decided to try to curl up on the couch and read this article lol including the pdf with a lot of math and numbers representing fatty acids and whatnot, but I am so exhausted I think I'm only retaining like 3% of what I've read lol. Hmm. Maybe I will pick it back up tomorrow. 

Read it a few times and just become familiar with the jargon. 

 

In a nutshell, imagine your oils are sheets of paper you want to stick to the refrigerator. Each sheet needs a minimum size magnet to keep it on the fridge, otherwise it falls to the floor. The size magnet it needs is its “required HLB”.

 

ewax is an effective, albeit not pretty emulsifier “magnet”. A sheet of paper needs only 25% of its weight in an ewax magnet to hold that paper onto the fridge til you’re ready to dump it.  

 

Other emulsifier “magnets” are available in different cute shapes and sizes. It takes different combinations of those to hold the paper to the fridge effectively. If you miss, and add too little your papers fall to the floor. Add too much and they won’t look or feel quite as sleek. 

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