The Beginners Guide to Creating a Natural Moisturising Lotion

Are you ready to level up your skincare DIYs? Yes!

One way to level up, is to start creating gorgeous creamy lotions and exquisite nourishing moisturisers. 

In the skincare formulator world, creams and lotions are called emulsions. Creating emulsions can be trial and error - sometimes they will fail and it can take a bit of practice. 

When you first start creating emulsions,  it's recommended you start with very basic ingredients then once you've mastered the basics you can experiment with different oils, floral waters, and lots of different ingredients.  

Here is a very basic emulsion formulation (recipe) that's suitable for beginners. The formulation is further down the page, but if you prefer to watch the video, here it is.

Here's what you need:

1. Distilled water
2. Glycerine
3. Liquid carrier oil
4. Natural emulsifier
5. Natural Preservative
6. Vitamin E
7. Glass bowls or beakers
8. Spoon, spatula or glass stirring rod
9. Thermometer
10. Small scales  (0.01g)
11. pH strips

 

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF INGREDIENTS and SUPPLIES

Distilled Water

When creating skincare it's important to only use water that is free of toxins, pollutants and microbes. Distilled water has exceptional purity and has had all impurities removed from it.

Glycerine

Glycerine is a humectant. A humectant helps draw water to the skin to keep it hydrated. When applied on the skin, humectant molecules attract moisture from the environment and retain it inside the skin, which is why many skin lotions contain humectants.

Liquid Carrier Oil

Oils add nutrients and antioxidants to your lotions and creams. Different oils have different properties that can be beneficial for different types of skin. If you're unsure of which oil to start using, I recommend either Sweet Almond oil, Sunflower oil or Apricot Oil. These oils are suitable for most skin types. When you've practiced a bit, try incorporating some more luxurious oils like Jojoba or Rosehip.

Natural Emulsifier

Oil and water don’t mix well on their own. So to get oil and water to come together into a stable product, you need an emulsifier or emulsifying wax.

Emulsifiers have both a water-loving and oil-loving component to them, so they work like a 'glue' to keep both the oil and water phases of your lotion together.

There are lots of different types of emulsifiers available some are synthetic, some are natural, some are better suited for hair conditioners and some are better suited for face cream, some are best added to the oil phase and some are best added to the aqueous (water) phase.

When starting out, we love using Natural Olive Emulsifier (also known as Olivem 1000). It's simple to use and can be used in a wide variety of products.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E promotes healing, skin cell regeneration and helps to nourish the skin. It protects the tissue from free radical damage and is a great anti-ageing addition to any skincare product. You can get synthetic or natural vitamin E. We use the natural version.

Natural Preservative

Creams and lotions contain water. Once you add water to your product, it becomes a breeding ground for bacteria and moulds, so this means you need to treat skincare that contains water, like food. If you don't use a preservative it can go bad quickly, in many instances it will only last about 7 - 10 days in the fridge. 

You can't always see the mould and bacteria, but after about a week, it will be there, trust us. 

The thought of adding preservatives can be daunting or scary at first, but don't worry, because there are some great preservatives that can be added into natural skincare.

In this recipe we use Preservative Eco which is sometimes known as Plantaserv M or Geogard ECT. It's a broad spectrum preservative and we use this as 1% in the overall formulation. To be effective, this preservative needs to be added to your product that has a pH value of between 3 -8, and it should be added when your product is under 45 degrees celsius. Don't add it in when the skincare is hot.

You can also use Nat Preserve which is a powder that can be added to the water while it's warm. Nat Preserve isn't heat sensitive so it's okay to heat up. This product is effective in a pH value of 3 - 6.5. 

We suggest you create your skincare in small batches and use them within 3 to 4 months.

 Glass Beakers and Thermometer

To use the emulsifier to combine the water and oil together, we need to heat the water based ingredients and the oil based ingredients to 70 degrees celsius

To do this we use a water bath (double boiler method), so using heat proof glass beakers or bowls is best.

The thermometer is used to measure the temperature of your ingredients so you know if it's hot enough or cool enough. If you like you can use a simple glass thermometer or you can buy laser thermometers. 

Scales

When creating skincare, the recipes (or otherwise know as skincare formulations), typically use grams and are written in percentages.

Why?  Creating skincare is a science, and it's more accurate to use weight, when you are working with ingredients that are solid or liquid with different textures and viscosity. Using weight is best.

Also, using percentages means the formulation can be scaled up or down easily. This is handy when you want to increase or decrease the amount of lotion you make. The ingredients in a formulation always add up to 100%

You can buy scales to suit any type of budget. These are a well-priced set of scales and are used by many beginner skincare formulators in their home lab.

pH

pH (stands for potential hydrogen) is a measure of how acidic or alkaline a substance is. Healthy skin has a pH of around 5, which means it's slightly acidic. This is important because our skin acts as a barrier and protects agains pollutants and helps prevent bacteria from multiplying. When the pH of our skin is out of balance, it can create the environment that breeds bacteria, acne and candida infections. 

Ideally you want the pH of skincare to be between 4 and 5 and no greater than 6. 

You get a more accurate reading by using a pH Meter, however when you're are beginner, pH strips will give you an idea of the pH level of your cream. 

 

LET'S GET TO THE FUN PART - THE MAKING!

Here's the formulation for a very basic cream, this makes 100g. 

 

Phase	Ingredient	Percentage	Weight
A	Water	67%	67g
A	Glycerine	3%	3g
B	Liquid carrier oil	22%	22g
B	Emulsifier	6%	6g
C	Vitamin E	1%	1g
C	Preservative	1%	1g

 

1. Clean and sanitise your work area and equipment.
2. Add phase A (the water and glycerine) to a beaker or heat proof glass vessel
3. Add phase B (emulsifier and oil) into a separate beaker or heath proof vessel
4. Place both beakers into a hot water bath (double boiler) and heat until 70 degrees celsius. Keep stirring the oils and emulsifiers so they melt together.
5. Once both are at same temperature (70 degrees), take them off the heat and add the oil ingredients into the water ingredients (Note: this is an important step. Add the oil to the water and not the other way around)
6. Using a small hand whisk or a glass rod, stir the ingredients gently so everything is combined. You can use a hand blender, but be careful not to whip too furiously otherwise there will be too much air. As your mixture cools it will get thicker.
7. Test the pH level and adjust if necessary. To test the pH, take out a tiny amount of cream and mix with distilled water to create a little mixture that you can dip the pH strips in. Use ratio 1:10. (1 = cream 10 = water)
8. Once your mixture has cooled to 40 degrees celsius, Add preservative and Vitamin E.
9. Keep blending until your lotion is creamy.
10. Pour into a jar or container. Your cream will get thicker after 24 hours.

 

The next step is to practice creating emulsions in order to get it right. It can take some time to master this skill, and even the most skilled cosmetic formulators can get it wrong. Don't worry if your emulsion doesn't work or if things go wrong - use it as an opportunity to learn what went wrong and then try again.

Remember skincare is a science, so write down everything that you do, so you can refer back to your notes. This is helpful if things go wrong and if things work brilliantly, you can always refer back to your notes so you can repeat it.

 

TROUBLESHOOTING (FAQs)

My cream is too runny or too thick

You can change the thickness of your cream. If your cream is too thick, you can  try creating another cream by adding more water (remember your formulation needs to add up to 100% so if you add water, you need to reduce the amount of oil or emulsifying wax)

If your cream is too runny, try reducing the amount of water, and add more oil or emulsifying wax. You can also add other thickeners like Xathan gum (this will be in a future post).

If you're using Olive Emulsifying Wax (Olivem 1000), these percentages will help guide how much emulsifier you need. 

3 - 4% Light, low viscosity (thinner cream)
6 - 8% Thicker viscosity products (thicker cream)

My cream is separating

If you find the ingredients separate, you might not be heating your water or oil/emulsifier to the right temperature. Both oil and water phases need to be at 70 degrees celsius to emulsify.

You should also check that your percentage of emulsifier is correct. If you're using Olive Emulsifying Wax (Olivem 1000), you don't want to use less then 3% or more than 8%  

Can I add essential oils?

Yes you can. Essential oils are heat sensitive, so you would add them during the cool down phase (phase C).

You will need to adjust the overall percentage of the formulation. Essential oils contain skin sensitisers and some of these can react with the skin, so ensure you use small quantities of essential oils and adhere to dermal limits.

The pH level is too high or low

To lower the pH, create a citric acid solution with 10% citric acid and 90% distilled water. Put a couple of drops of this solution in your cream. Test the pH again.

To increase the pH, create a bicarbonate of soda solution with 10% bicarb and 90% distilled water. Put a couple of drops of this solution in your cream. Test the pH again.