formulating

Yesterday, we took a look at making some small changes to the water phase to create a more humectant-y product. Today, let’s take a a look at making small changes to the oil phase! Keep in mind that if you change the oil phase by increasing the oil amount, you need to modify the emulsifier...

Yesterday we took a look at how adding 3% of a fatty alcohol or fatty acid (like cetyl alcohol or stearic acid) could change the thickness of our lotion, and I’m sometimes surprised at how adding a titch of something can change a lotion so much! So I thought we’d take a look at how...

I mentioned yesterday that increasing your thickening agents – like butters, fatty alcohols, and fatty acids – can make a lotion into a cream. Let’s take a look at a 60% water lotion without thickeners, then consider what it would be like with different thickeners. Here’s the recipe from which I will be working for...

As we’ve been working with the 70% water recipe and the 60% water recipe, you can see the main difference between the two tends to be the amount of butters to oils. In the 70% recipe, we use more oils than butters; in the 60% recipe, we tend to use more butters than oil (not...

Unfortunately, I’m in a rush this morning with two craft groups to prepare for today, so analyzing how to make yesterday’s cream drier will have to wait until the weekend!  Not all lotions with 60% water will end up as a body butter or foot cream. I make what I consider a very nice hand...