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.

Making Whipping Cream Beauty Soap Bars ( Cold Process )

The same video but on Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McaiutbewYE

Update:  The lather test after almost a year later (July 2013 - May 2014). 

While uploading the photos, I must have clicked on something wrong and unknowingly deleted the Youtube video that was here.  I replaced it with a link and directly uploaded the video onto Blogger.

I didn´t really care for the strong aroma as a facial soap, hence, they sat wrapped up in my box for soaps.  When I realized I didn´t do a follow up on the lather test.  I took one into the shower and I just love it! It lathers great and gives a rich and creamy feel. For some reason the strong floral scent is pleasant in the shower since it wasn´t right there in my face but rather a subtle perfumed steam.

This recipe is a keeper.  I´ll just have to keep in mind the concentration of the EO or FO used.

Making HP Cream Soap with Recipe ( Hot Process )

Making cream soap is quite interesting to me because you get to see the texture changes from combining the acids and oils with the lyes go through their stages in the process of converting into this creamy soap that looks good enough to eat.  I am including the recipe, the video of the process and the follow-up photos.  I hope someone out there finds it helpful.  I wished I had something like this when I was in search of information on cream soap without having to sign up or register in order to get access to tried recipes. So here is my tried recipe; it might not be up to par to some but it´s good enough for me and for anyone looking to start.

 

Day 8 of  "rotting"

Day 16 of  "rotting" (in container shot)

Day 16 of  "rotting"

Day 23 of "rotting"

Day 32 of "rotting"

Making Whipped Shea Butter Soap

What better way to dress up a plain looking piece of soap from a silicone cupcake mold than to top it off with some whipped soap.  I really do need to look into making a video instead; between remembering to include all of the ingredients, taking off the gloves to grab a camera and proceeding, all the while fearing the batter would harden on me, resulted with only a few photos to show for.

My recipe is approximately:
44% palm oil in solid form
30% shea butter in solid form
19% coconut oil in solid form
 5% castor oil
 2% olive oil

After dissolving the lye (calculated with 5% superfat) into the water, I left it in the fridge to chill.  Then I proceeded to whip up all of the solid oils together until it resembled whipped cream.

(If I stopped at this point, it could be a fantastic body butter!  Alas, I couldn´t save any aside since I already had the lye measured out for the entire batch of oils.)

Continuing on...
Drizzled in the cold lye solution while slowly whipping.  Once incorporated, I drizzled in the liquid oils.  The batter wasn´t as fluffy but glossier.  It looked good enough to eat because it resembles a lot like cream cheese frosting.  Some cream fragrance oil was added, calculated to about 1/5 ml per cupcake.

I scooped out the batter into a prepared disposable piping bag and piped the cupcake soaps.

(A product side note:  the Rubbermaid Spoontula is a must-have fabulous tool in the kitchen!  I´m using my older one for soaping and I have another one for foods.  Make sure it´s the version with the deep red colored handle.)

I think next time I will use a wider opening tip for piping.  It was difficult towards the end squeezing out the batter.

A Precursor to the Best Anti-Wrinkle Eye Cream

I´ve been quite happy using a facial serum after washing my face at night but sometimes it gets too messy when working around the eyes.  My face serum had so many different oils because I couldn´t decide which to keep and which to leave out; it turned out to be a mixture of argan, neem, avocado, wheat germ, almond, apricot kernel, coconut, rosehip, lavender and vitamin E.
Lately, I´ve been using the serum on most of my face but I tend to go for the lotions to dab around the eyes.  I think it´s time for me to try and whip up an eye cream.  This might be the precursor to an even better eye cream down the road and the journey starts here for me.

DIY Recipe:
  2 gr. Argan oil
  2 gr. Rosehip oil
  2 gr. Tamanu oil
  2 gr. Coconut oil
  2 gr. Avocado oil
  2 gr. Apricot Kernel oil
  3 gr. Emulsifying wax Cetearyl Alcohol/PEG-20 Stearate
16 gr. Rose water
  8 gr. Glycerin
  2 gr. Vitamin E
  2 gr. Hyaluronic Acid (1% concentration)
1/2 gr. Coenzyme Q10
1/2 gr. Collagen
   2 gr. Bulgarian Rose essential oil (0.3% concentration)
0.50 gr. Germall Plus


Everything seemed to go well except it stayed too wet.  So I decided to reheat the mixture in order to incorporate 5 gr. of melted beeswax in order to get a salve-like texture.

I´ll try this for a month or so to see what adjusting I would need to make to this recipe.  I did try some on the back of my hand; the cream needs massaging in but once it´s absorbed, the skin looks beautiful and healthy with a slight sheen.  There is a slight tacky sensation and it could be either the hyaluronic acid because it was viscous or it was the coenzyme Q10 because when I felt the yellow powder between my fingers, it felt a bit sticky.

Update:  In hindsight, I shouldn´t have added the beeswax; it´s too stiff to use around the eyes and I notice the granules of beeswax (I think).  What I´ve been doing is combining this with some oil serum on my palm before applying onto my face.  My skin feels nice after applying; just the form it´s in now isn´t up to par.  I´ll continue to play with the recipe once I finish this batch.