Facial and Body Cream
For those of you who are new to this group, I'd done an article about a product called Shealoe awhile back and after obtaining a sample and trying it out from the company, which is www.terrrylabs.com, I found I really liked it. What it is and they've got a trademark on the name, is a combination of 55% shea butter, ultra-refined and 45% aloe gel, which makes this very creamy, and also great for your skin. Since shea butter itself has many great things for you in it, as well as a natural SPF of factor 4, added to aloe, the all-purpose after sun/burn treatment, as well as the creaminess of this blend, it's a real winner. This is the basis for this cream. I buy it from (not the company as I didn't actually want an entire bucket), but from www.soaperstore.com (I think) or www.druzillabrown.com - same owner, I just forgot which site it's on. Either/or will get you to the product and it's a good price, so I'd ordered 10lbs. of it.
Recipe:
32 ounces of shealoe
8 ounces of monoi, unscented
4 ounces hemp seed oil, refined (unrefined is just as good)
8 ounces meadowfoam seed oil
2 ounces cherry kernel oil
5, 400 IU (standardized, USP) vitamin E capsules, poked and squirted in.
2 ounces golden jojoba oil, organic
3 tsp's polysorbate 20 (mixes oils and water and the aloe part, being a gel, has water in it)
2 tsp's liquid polymer, cosmetic, top of the line.
.5% preservative - I used, as usual, LiquiPar Optima
An Essential oil blend of choice, mine were two, a blend of the 5 sandalwoods in the world, trademarked and blended by the essential oil university by Dr. Pappas, along with a little bit of ylang-ylang II and a bit of sweet orange. The other was one I call Fresh Scent as it's one that's pretty unisex and always smells very fresh - that one is half and half, lemon oil and spearmint oil, but those were just my choices and next time I make it, it'll probably be totally different blends. The amounts of essential oils you'd use would be to smell, not too strong and not too light, keeping in mind that this will also be a body as well as facial cream.
I whipped it all together with my cake-type beaters and found it to be thicker than I actually wanted. I debated whether to leave it "as is", it still went into the skin nicely and if I hadn't been also thinking "body cream", the keyword being body and wanting it to be a bit thinner for the all-over moisture, I added this:
8 ounces of water, purified
And beat it again. It came out exactly the texture and way I wanted it to be. I added a little more preservative to account for the extra 8 ounces, and I do the preservative by the ml, as you just don't use much and it was done. I've tried it out on a few testers and it's gone over very well - this one will be another keeper and one I'll make again.
*Note - for the preservative and anything else that you need the mls for, take your ounces, ALL of them, add them up and multiply them by 30 (which is how many mls are in an ounce), so adding the 8 ounces of water translated into 240 mls and .5% of that was 1.2mls of additional preservative. Which is basically hardly anything and I have the disposable pipettes/droppers that are marked for that.
There are conversion charts all over the 'net, for this type of thing, but I've found that it's easy enough with a calculator or a pencil and a piece of paper to just multiply it out, for the ounce to ml ratio.
Skin:
Non greasy, goes right in. No irritation on anyone, especially me, as that's one thing I always test for and I'm usually the offender :)
Scent: Pretty much whatever you'd like, as you control what the scent is, whether it be a blend or a single essential oil.
Irritation:
None, after testing on many.
*Note #2 - I used the amount of different oils for a reason, as I chose them for their individual properties and actually made this for a request by a friend with problem skin. You can use a lot of oils, a couple oils or just one oil - you do NOT have to use half of what I just did. It'll come out great with just one oil. Choices are many and they're all pretty good for you; I was looking for a specific formulation, which is why there are so many oils in this, but it's not necessary and I'll also be making it with maybe one or two, in addition to the shealoe.
As always, any questions, please ask.
This makes a wonderful gift for any season. A 2 - 4 ounce jar is always nice, or if you're making it a bit thinner, use a 2-4 ounce malibu tube or lotion bottle. Either/or is nice and always appreciated.
mn - 2007
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Comments: 15
The oils - Monoi - for the 8 ounces - $7.00
hempseed you can get on a fast-buy for under $5.00 or around there, same with cherry kernel which is actually less - meadowfoam seed oil I chose as I did the rest of the oils, for the skin properties, and that was $14.00 lb, non-fast buy pricing and I didn't buy a large enough of an amount for wholesale.
Jojoba (golden, organic) - fast-buy pricing of $6.00 - 16 ounces, though lots of times I'll just get the gallon of that.
The teaspoons of polymer and also polysorbate 20 as well as the vitamin E capsules - pennies for what I used.
The essential oils I do buy in bulk-wholesale, so those are hard to break down, but the sandalwoods are the most in the above blends, being over $150.00 for 16 ounces. The others are a lot less. Does that help?
Let me try to put it a different way which is another way I want to make this cream, and it'll be a lot less - I'll use a lb. of shealoe, which will be 5.00, and the only oil I'll use will be rice bran as it goes into the skin nicely and doesn't feel greasy - so that cost me, $7.00 for a gallon, and I'd be using a lot less than that, then saying the blend I'd be making for the essentials will be a sweet orange which is bulk, $9.00 a kilo, that's a whole different price, so it actually depends on what you'd use in them, and how much of a more expensive oil or oils that you'd want. I went with these as I was making this particular formulation for a friend of our son's who's got rosacea on his face and I wanted it, along with some other products, to be "right" for his skin. I also made some for another friend who's got acne, very badly and in addition to this, I made up for both, clay masks for each of their skin problems, as well as a lavender/tea tree essential oil blended complexion soap.
OK, did I just make it worse or better? I think I tend to get carried away, but I "think" my point is that you don't have to spend a lot on this, or you can spend a lot, and either way, this recipe is fairly large and makes a lot of cream.
If I've hopelessly confused you, PLEASE tell me! lol
Connie, they probably buy from the same people I do - which is www.av-at.com Butch's site, ask him for the password to the wholesale part - he'll give it to you if you email him, he's great like that.
If you're buying a lot, check with the university - which is www.essentialoils.org - Dr. Rob Pappas owns it. It's for resellers though and I'm not actually at this point and he knows it but since I make for the food pantries it's more like a non-profit.
Both also have some carriers, depending on what you're looking for. There is also Liberty Naturals, who recently moved, but they'll send you a catalogue, or they did for me and also they have essentials, but I've never bought any from them - I buy their floral waxes and that's also wholesale. So, there's a few.... but I'd ask Liberty if they test and what kind of tests they do on their oils prior to buying from them.
I tend to find a couple that I can trust and stick with those.
For samples, if you want butters/carriers, www.biochemica.com is very good about sending samples - and they send at least an ounce, no charge, also www.terrylabs.com will send you a sample of shealoe as well as their aloe gels if you fill out their form on their website. I usually get a sample of something new before I invest in it. Good luck and if I think of any other place for oils, I'll let you know.
I have a page on the aromatherapy group that lists the sources I use :) I had a website for about 4 years and did sell the "ingredients" to make things - the essentials, butters, carrier oils, etc's. It was HealingLite Essentials.com, net and org. I also taught online perfumery which was a lot of fun.
I don't sell anything now. When I decided to take down the website, I also decided to give whatever I could to others that I made, so I make soap for a couple food pantries and also lotions, creams, lipbalms, lotion bars, potpourri and whatever else I'm doing at the time and just share it.
Depends also on what I can afford, supply-wise, but I'm lucky as the wholesalers I had during when I had my website, I kept, and they're good suppliers.
Shawnee-- I think it took me about a week to get my shealoe sample, then after I tried it out, I ordered some, but not from Terry as I didn't want the entire bucket as I was working on the second half of a bucket of shea butter.
For carriers, and this will be by the gallon, another place to get them from is www.columbusfoods.com - Mike Lawson owns it and is great to deal with - you'd go to the website and click on "Soaper's Choice" there. He's also reasonable.
I share all my sources. Never a problem :)
Make up? I have to make that too, in order to be able to use it. Same with perfumes, Marks colognes, everything we use here, pretty much. Fragrance oils are totally different from essential oils as they're made in a lab from whatever will make the scent that they want. Argh, this should be a separate article, it's that bad.
Krissy - I have send a lot of things to people, but I don't sell anything. I did great on my website, good enough so that I couldn't keep up with the orders! I make things and with what I can afford, share them with people and take the soaps, lotions, lipbalms to a food pantry that services three towns as they have food, but no personal care items - and our own food pantry, also some folks in town here and a couple friends that live in different states. I'd made up my mind that after I stopped the website that I wouldn't sell anything, and I haven't.
The supplies that you need to keep on-hand just to keep up with the selling are an amazing amount, as I not only sold essential oils, absolutes, butters, carrier oils, bottles, etc's.... and it takes up lots of space, and I also sold organic herbs. Just too much, sales were great but I got no sleep! LOL
Sounds like an interesting recipe but I am wondering what the liquid polymer does? Sounds synthetic and I would rather use something else instead.
Any suggestions?
Aloha,
Aline
Hi I just joined Gather. I have been on a search for some time now for organic/natural emulsifiers.
Its nice to find someone who likes to share, it makes the our world softer. Since I would like an all organic/natural lotion, I too am curious of the source of the liquid polymer.
Also, the polysorbate 20, usually derived from lauric acid, is/can be a mild irritant but not a sensitizer. I know you said you have sensitivities to many non-natural ingredients, and your recipe does not bother you, but do you know of a more gentle emulsifier or leads to a source?
Mahalo,
Michael