Naturally Nourishing

Showing posts with label Face care recipes. Show all posts

I think I can confidently say that my mother has an addiction to creamed sugar scrubs. She is a fond user of a rose scrub I made, and was heart broken when she ran out.

As I have decided to step away from the business side of skincare and take a bit of a break from creation (which I may at some point write a post on), she's been left without a sugar scrub for quite a while now. Every time I see her she will ask if I have gotten around to making a new batch, and as I have been quite positively skincare'd out, I haven't.

So yesterday, feeling inspired to get out of my skincare rut, I did some formulating and crafted a new take on my usual rose creamed sugar scrub - a citrus and mango version!

With mango butter, coconut and watermelon oil, and a tropical fragrance blend, you can't get much more exotic than this.

If you haven't discovered the wonder of emulsified sugar scrubs yet, let me break them down for you. They are very similar to a typical oil based scrub except have the addition of an emulsifier (in this case emulsifying wax NF), which allows them to magically transform into a beautiful lotion on contact with water.

So no oil grease in your shower, no thick layer of oil on your skin, just a sweetly fragranced layer of lovely lotion on nicely scrubbed skin!

It also photographs beautifully!

Citrus Delight Creamed Sugar Scrub

Heated Phase:

9.5% E-Wax
9.5% Cetearyl Alcohol
19% Mango Butter (Can be substitued with Shea Butter)
18% Apricot Seed Oil
23% Watermelon Seed Oil
13% Virgin Coconut Oil
1% Seabuckthorn Oil
5% Moringa Oil

Cool Down Phase:

1% Optiphen Plus
1% Fragrance or Essential Oils (I used a blend of Grapefruit EO and Birds of Paradise Fragrance and did not use the full 1%).
Up to 140% Caster Sugar or Normal Sugar (140g sugar per 100g base)

For an easy 100g, just read the % symbols as grams and make away! If you would like to create a larger or smaller batch, or convert it into a different measurement, use this batch calculator.

Directions:

Prepare and sanitize your area.
Measure the heated phase into a pyrex (or similarly heat proof bowl).
Creating a water bath, melt your heated phase. To ensure sterilization, you can heat up to 75 degrees celsius and hold for two minutes.
Once the heated phase is fully melted and combined, remove from the heat and allow to cool till a solidified layer has formed on the top. This can be sped up by placing your bowl in the fridge or freezer.
Whip the partially solidified mixture and until fluffy, then begin whipping in the sugar till your desired scrubbiness is reached (I usually use the full 140%).
To finish, add your desired fragrance and preservative. While this product does not contain water, I highly recommend adding a preservative as it is very easy for this product to come into contact with water.

And there you have it!

This recipe is one I have been making for a while and is a regular on my cosmetic shelf. It is a dry mask mix which makes it completely adaptable to what your skin needs. Suffering from dry scaly winter skin? Mix it with some honey or your favourite facial lotion for a hydrating touch. On the other hand, has summer made your skin oily and congested? Try mixing with some witch hazel or coconut vinegar for a clarifying mask. Dry mixes have got you covered!

Dry mix masks are literally the easiest thing you can DIY. You don't need any fancy equipment, just some digital scales, a spoon, and a bowl. Ingredients wise they are simple, as they contain no water or oil phase specifically, just dry powders. As such, no preservative is needed because you are not adding in any liquid.

This mask is a super simple blend of Australian pink and yellow clay which are selected for being gentle, soothing clays that are suitable for mature or normal skin. To the mix we add a blend of antioxidant rich powdered extracts - these are water soluble so once the mask has been mixed with the desired medium they will be activated.

Rejuvenating Rose Mask

Percentages:

74.6% Australian Pink Clay
25% Yellow Clay
.1% Calendula Extract (Powdered concentrate - equals to 4.5% once diluted)
.1% Chamomile Extract (Powdered concentrate)
.1% Hibiscus Extract (Powdered concentrate)
.1% Rosehip Extract

For an easy 100g, just read the % symbols as grams and make away! If you would like to create a larger or smaller batch, or convert it into a different measurement, use this batch calculator.

I find a 100g batch typically fills 2 and a bit 50g jars.

Directions:

Prepare and sanitize your area.
Measure all ingredients into a bowl. A jewelry scale that goes up to 0.01 such as those you can buy on ebay for $10 or less will work well for the extracts.
With a spoon gently combine the powders. Little pockets of clay can hide so you need to gently stir around and ensure you combine well.
Voila! If you would like to add a fragrance you can do so by blending a small amount of corn starch and essential/fragrance oils in a coffee grinder, and adding the fragranced powder into the mask.

To use, combine the powder with your medium of choice and apply! When mixing with something like yogurt, I generally only use 1 tsp to 1/2 tbsp of product, but when mixing with water you will need more like 1 tbsp. It all takes experimentation.

The perfect Christmas gift for loved ones!

In Australia the weather is finally starting to heat up. It's been a cold, rainy winter for us Tasmanian's, so I've been enjoying the change in temperature and bluer sky. The one downside to the increase in sunny weather though is sun damage! This is especially relevant down here, as due to Tasmania's location we are more prone to skin damage and the like. To help account for the damaging effects of the suns rays, I wanted to formulate a face cream light enough for sticky weather and packed with antioxidants and soothing oils to repair sun damage. It also contains CoEnzyme Q10, a powerful anti-aging active. What more could you want?

Avocado oil is my favorite summer oil as it is high in Vitamin E, a wonder antioxidant for healing the skin after a day out in the sun. Seabuckthorn berry and rose hip oil also lend a high antioxidant content to this cream, making it a great, all round anti-aging product. While the final feel of this cream is fairly light, I've also added in mango butter for an extra hydrating tropical punch. And who can forget the pomegranate oil! I've heard rave reviews of this oil so had to give it a try.

I wanted the fragrance for this cream to evoke warm tropical summer nights. I found the final blend of sweet jasmine, bright orange blossoms, and subtle rosewood utterly tantalizing, and I'm sure it will win you over too. My pomegranate oil has a strong, fruity aroma, which combined with the floral essential oils created a fragrance I just wanted to dive into.

And just look at those colours!

I promise the final product won't leave you orange.

The resulting product is a delightfully light, beautifully fragranced face cream that you won't be able to get enough of. I'll be using it as my night cream, but it is the perfect texture to use at any time of day. It has a balanced blend of linoleic and oleic acid which makes it a wonderful choice for all skin types.

Summer Dreams Face Cream

Percentages:

Water phase:

42% Distilled Water
20% Chamomile Water
6% Strawberry Extract (I made my own, see here for directions)
.5% Allantoin
.3% Panthenol
1.2% Hydrolyzed Oats

Oil Phase:

5.50% Avocado Oil
3% Rosehip Oil
3% Jojoba Oil
2% Evening Primrose Oil
1% Pomegranate Oil (if you have a particularly pungent pomegranate oil, you may want to lower the percentage in place of more jojoba oil).
.5% Seabuckthorn Berry Oil
5% Mango Butter
3% Cetyl Alcohol
5.45% E Wax

Cool Down Phase:

1% Optiphen Plus
.1% COQ 10
4 drops Jasmine EO
2 drops Neroli EO
1 drop Rosewood EO

For an easy 100g, just read the % symbols as grams and make away! If you would like to create a larger or smaller batch, or convert it into a different measurement, use this batch calculator.

And that's the ingredients! Now lets get into making.

Directions:

Prepare and sanitize your area.
Set up two separate pots with simmering water on your stove pot so that you can create two water baths.
Weigh your water phase ingredients into a pyrex bowl. To account for water loss, I typically add on an extra 20-25g of water (if you are heating and holding, you will need more). Once everything has been weighed into the bowl, take note of the bowls final weight (minus the additional water you added) and jot it down for future reference.
Weigh your oil phase into a smaller pyrex bowl. Take care to be exact, too much seabuckthorn will produce a very orange cream!
Take your two bowls and nestle each bowl into the previously prepared water baths.
Allow each phase to reach 75 degrees Celsius, or heat and hold. Regularly weigh your water phase to ensure that it does not drop down the weight that you wrote down. If it does, account for the water lost with additional water till that number is reached (distilled and boiled).
Take both bowls off of the stove top. The temperature of each should be around 75 degrees C. Add the COQ 10 into the oil phase now that it is off the heat.
Using a stick blender, emulsify the oil phase into the water phase on a medium setting. Allow to cool while regularly blending.
Add in your preservative. If using Optiphen Plus you may see slight thinning and separation, but if you continue to stick blend on high this will stop and the cream will remain emulsified.
Add in your essential oils, and viola!