Friday, December 13, 2013

Yureka! A Sugar Scrub That Turns Into Lotion!

My interest started when I saw an image of a fluffy sugar scrub that didn´t look like what I was using at all.

Mine didn´t hold together long enough to take a picture unless it´s on a spoon.  How could this be?  I started reading about it further and little by little, I learned about an emulsified sugar scrub.  I started here:
http://swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com.es/2013/01/facial-scrubs-emulsified-scrubs.html

I´ve been using an oil with sugar scrub for months and love how my skin feels afterwards.  It´s a different story for the sink and tub however; I´ve even slipped while trying to exfoliate my heal while standing (that was silly of me).  Well, that´s in the past now ever since I´ve started using this emulsified sugar scrub.  An important ingredient is an emulsifying wax (E-wax) which is commonly used in making lotions and creams in order to keep the oils and water from separating.  So imagine having the E-wax in the sugar scrub.  Once you start rubbing the sugar concoction onto wet skin, it creates lotion! Bye, bye to oily tub residue, and say hello to well hydrated skin without the need for lotion application after the shower.

The recipe I used is adapted from  http://www.soapalooza.com

620 grams olive oil
100 grams coconut oil
  50 grams shea butter
100 grams e-wax (Polawax)
  80 grams stearic acid
  50 grams beeswax
    2 kilos white sugar
  20 grams fragrance oil (honeydew melon)
  10 grams preservative (Sharomix)
 
Heat the oils, butter, both waxes and stearic acid on low until completely dissolved.

Pour into a heat-proof glass bowl with the sugar and stir well.  

Why the glass bowl?  It helps cool the batter and it´s easier to see if the mixing is thorough enough.
Once the bowl feels warm to the touch (below 50ºC), add the scent, skin-safe colorant (if using) and preservative.  I used a bit of green food coloring to match the honeydew melon fragrance oil. The final product is pourable at this point to get it into jars.  It will firm up some more so that if you tilt the jar, the dough will not budge but pliable enough to grab some to take with you to the shower.


Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Making Creamy Goat´s Milk Lotion



Wow! I was super excited seeing how this lotion came to be that I wanted to share my experience in making it.  It turned out better than I imagined; creamy and feels divine on the skin. 

I remember watching a video many months ago on the making of goat´s milk lotion but I wasn´t in my lotion phase at the time and left it at that since I was more into soaping.  Now that I have too much soap and am taking a breather, I started looking into lotions.  Today I came across the same video by Susie at
http://www.oursimplefarm.com

I watched the video twice to make sure I had it clear of what to do.  I had just about everything I needed so I used the lotion calculator  http://www.sbwave.com/lotion/  to come up with a comparable recipe to make 500 ml worth of lotion.

25 grams e-wax
20 grams stearic acid
35 grams sweet almond oil
25 grams shea butter
20 grams avocado oil
184 grams goat´s milk
184 grams bottled water (I didn´t have distilled water)
4 grams Sharomix preservative
5 grams rose fragrance oil
1 gram Vitamin E

I weighed out the oils, the stearic acid and e-wax into a heat-proof glass container;  the goat´s milk and water goes into another container.  My scale only has whole numbers for the grams so they are not as accurate as I would like.



Each glass container gets heated through in a hot water bath before combining their contents together.   I made sure all of the stearic acid and shea butter has melted.



Once it´s warm to the touch, I added the scent, preservative and Vitamin E oil.  


At first I hand mixed it and then used the stick blender to make sure everything stays emulsified and to also "fluff" the batter into the creamiest of creams.



A very straight forward recipe and the result is a sublime cream for face or body!

Update:
The lotion thickened up even further the following day, so the pump didn´t work as well.  It would be better in a cream jar or tub.  I like a thinner lotion; will make the next batch with more water or reduce the e-wax since I am partial to the pump bottles so I won´t risk contaminating the lotion.