Newbie to making lotions

[summer10]

Hello,

I woud love to start making my own lotions. I probably will start with premade base and then add Fragrance oils. Does anyone have suggestions on equipment I need to start with. Literature to read? Also how much oil do you normally use per gallon of lotion?

[eugenia]

You would not need anything except for sterile bottles for the lotion. Standard is 1% fragrance, so that's 128 oz x 1% 1.28 oz, little goes a long way in B&B, gallon will make 16 8oz bottles. Easiest way is to put the lotion in gallon ziplock freezer bags, cut a corner and "pipe" the lotion into the bottles (like frosting), then use a ruler on the bag to get every last bit, keep dragging what's left to the cut corner.

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[summer10]

Thanks for your help. I really appreciated it!!

[summer10]

I have bought several fragrance oils and was planning on starting off with purchasing one gallon of premade lotion. Is there a way to divide the gallon up and to test the different scents or do you have to test one gallon per fragrance?

[safetysue]

As Eugena stated - it's 1%. You simple use 1% FO for the amount of base.

8 oz of base @ 1% = .08 oz of FO

The formula is whatever your base amount is times 1% (.01) below are more examples.

26 oz of base @ 1% (26 x .01 = .26 oz) .26 oz FO

54 oz of base @ 1 % (54 x .01 = .54 oz) .54 oz FO

For accuracy weigh your base and FO. HTH