Lotion Making 101: Basics and Key Ingredients
I have started using hydrosol for years and it has become a routine after wash. The hydrosols bring skin moisture as well as comfortable and calming aroma and other essential benefits such as anti-inflammation, antibacterial, antiseptic.
The only shortcoming for using hydrosol is quickly dried out. In order to solve this problem, lotion comes as a perfect solution. This blog will give you a detailed explanation for: what is lotion and how to make it. Good news is that it is simple and you can handle it at home.
What is lotion?
Lotion is a stable mixture of oil and water. When choose water, you will need distilled water. Not purified water, it is distilled water! You can use hydrosol to replace distilled water so as to add more herbal extracts.
Because lotion contains oil this makes it stay longer on the skin. Skin takes more benefits from both of the water (especially hydrosol) and oil due to its longer retention time.
OK, lotion is good but why we make by ourselves?
Good question! Look at the ingredients list on the bottle. You will find a lot of chemical names on it.
Unfortunately, there are many toxic chemicals have been used making different lotions, such as Synthetic colors, Fragrance, Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), Formaldehyde, etc.
If you felt uncomfortable while using a/some lotions, stay away from it/them.
When making your own lotion, you choose what ingredients you are using and you are 100% clear with your lotion with no hidden chemicals.
The best part is no hard to make your own lotion at home!
Key ingredients for making lotion:
Lotion is one consistent phase made with two phases, water and oil. However these two ingredients don’t mix well together by nature. This brings the third key ingredient: emulsifier.
Emulsifier works like glue bonding the two different things together. Under microscope, emulsifier has two ends. One end is water friendly tail which can stick with water; the other end is oil friendly tail which can bond with oil.
There are many different types of emulsifier. Emulsifying wax is a good start point to make your first lotion.
Now I am going to show you a simple recipe you can follow to make your first lotion.
This lotion is a great skin moisturizer and it is a thin lotion which can be pumped out from a bottle container.
Three ingredients:
Jojoba oil (the oil phase)
Lavender hydrosol (the water phase)
Emulsifying wax (emulsifier)
Tools:
Two 2-cup size glass measuring cup
One kitchen balance
One large flat pan as water bath
One hand mixer
One thermometer
Instructions:
Step 1: Measure 50 gram of jojoba oil in a measuring cup, and 200 gram of lavender hydrosol;
Step 2: Measure 12 gram of emulsifying wax and mix it into jojoba oil;
Step 3: Add water in a large pan as water bath and put it on stove, then turn on heat;
Step 4: Put two measuring cups into the water bath;
Step 5: Keep checking the temperatures of the two liquids. When temperature of oil reached 70 oC, stir it and make sure all of wax dissolved in the oil;
Step 6: Pour all of the oil into lavender hydrosol and use hand mixer to stir it vigorously for 1 minute. Then turn off the heat and bring the container out of the water bath;
Step 7: Keep stirring for 10 minutes. You can stir 2 minutes and stop for 1 minute then repeat it for 5 times.
Step 8: Let it cool down in air. When its temperature goes down below 40 oC, add preservatives and/or essential oil. Preservative is necessary. Essential oil is optional.
Is this instruction clear for you? Let me know if you have questions.
In next blog, I will talk about benefits of plant oils and preservatives I used.
