Creating Lotions Workshop Part 3
Figuring out percentages-
First you need to look at your recipe as a formula.......the amounts must be in the same format, for example, amounts are expressed all in ounces, all in grams, not a mixture of both. To make this easy on yourself, find a recipe that you've been wanting to make that has all units of measurement in either ounces or grams.
The next step is to figure out how much of a percentage there is in the recipe of each ingredient, then you can go from there by using the guideline of acceptable amounts to change the recipe to suit you.
!Remember! Always keep a notebook and pencil out while you are making a recipe, if you make any changes, make sure you remember to jot them down in the margins. Keep notes on what you did and how you did it. You may think you'll remember, but trust me, you won't.
To formulate YOUR OWN recipe, follow the link below to that section explaining the math and how to do it:
NEW! http://www.soapnuts.com/lothelp4.html NEW!
Here's a recipe from our library that we'll use for an example, I'll use my own so I don't step on any toes, : )- First let's total up everything so that we get what a 100% of our recipe is equal to:
10 oz. distilled water
2oz. vegetable glycerin
1 oz. emulsifying wax
1 oz. mango butter
1 oz. shea butter
1 oz. coconut oil
1 oz. grapeseed oil
1 oz. jojoba
.5 oz. lanolin or approx. 1 Tbs.
1/2 oz. palm stearic
-----------------------------------------------
19 ounces total!
Now that we know that 19 ounces = 100% of our recipe, we can now take each ingredient and find out how much of it is in our recipe percentage-wise-
The formula we are going to use looks like this (amount of ingredient/our total (19) x 100
This recipe calls for 10 ounces of water, so here's what it would look like-
10 divided by 19 = .5263 times 100 = 52.6 or 53 %!
We've just figured out that this recipe is using 53% water!
The oils can be added together and then formulated into a percentage the same way.
Now the recipe looks like a real top-secret formula-
53% distilled water
11% vegetable glycerin
5% emulsifying wax
5% mango butter
5% shea butter
5% coconut oil
5% grapeseed oil
5% jojoba
3% lanolin
3% palm stearic
-----------------------------------------------
Total = 100%!
Hopefully you're feeling pretty darn confident that you CAN make lotions and creams by now, even if you've had failures in the past, consider them a learning experience.
To get you started on your path to making lotions, feel free to visit the recipe nook for some very nice recipes or use the starter lotion recipe below to play with and experiment with using your own substitutions-
Standard Base Lotion Recipe-
.5 oz. emulsifying wax
2 oz. infused vegetable oil (grapeseed or sweet almond are nice light oils)
.5 oz. vegetable glycerin
4.5 oz. distilled water
20-30 drops essential oils (lavender is very nice, try combining it with peppermint, sandalwood or ylang ylang)
Directions:
Weigh out ingredients......combine the wax, oil and glycerin and heat until melted, don't over heat...let cool to around 110 degrees. Warm the water slightly if not room temperature and slowly pour the water into the cooled oils while blending with a stick blender or whisking like crazy....blend for about 2 minutes, let cool and add your essential oils, whip some more. Let the lotion sit until completely room temperature then blend some more before pouring into containers. If you are pouring into lotion containers, you may want to pour the lotion when it is still slightly warm before it thickens more.
I've chosen to not include a preservative, this is something that I feel you must experiment with for yourself and make your own decisions.
I have also experimented with using longer shelf life oils such as jojoba, fractionated coconut oil, adding mixed tocopherols (Vit. E), myrrh tincture, benzoin tincture, balm of gilead tincture, etc. and was happy with the results in most cases.
| Special Note About Water Adding back the *lost* amount of liquid is keeping your formula at the original % to make it 100%. It will be thinner than it is right now of course, but you're only putting back the amount that was lost to evaporation, ; ) This is important especially when using preservatives, because your preservative amount has been calculated using the original amount which is now 'off ' due to the water loss. You'll often notice on formulas Q.S. (in short, Quantity Sufficient), take a look at this formula for Vegelatum Natural Body Lotion and notice the part "q.s. with cold water".....http://www.happi.com/special/0701form.htm This is best accomplished immediately after preparing the lotion, careful weighing 'before and after' to get the accurate amount needed. (When boiling your water to sterilize it also). |
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All content provided on this Web site, excluding button icons, graphics, images, noted original author's works is the copyright of Rebecca Erisch, and is protected by applicable U.S. and international copyright laws. Information may be used for personal use only. Any other use--including display, distribution, modification, republication, reproduction, or transmission--of the content on this Web site is strictly prohibited. Copyright (c) 1999 Rebecca Erisch. All rights reserved.
Copyright Notice!
All content provided on this Web site, excluding button icons, graphics, images, noted original author's works is the copyright of Rebecca Erisch, and is protected by applicable U.S. and international copyright laws. Information may be used for personal use only. Any other use--including display, distribution, modification, republication, reproduction, or transmission--of the content on this Web site is strictly prohibited. Copyright (c) 1999 Rebecca Erisch. All rights reserved.