Category: Recipe

Rose and Patchouli – Soap Bar

This is one of the first soaps I made, a long time ago… but I opened this blog late and I realized I never posted anything about it.

It was the first GREAT and luxurious soap I made.

Recipe:
225 gr Olive oil
150 gr Coconut oil
50   gr Macadamia nut oil
50   gr Avocado butter (melted and added at trace)
25   gr Castor oil

70.17 gr lye (6% discount)
135     gr distilled water
30       gr rose water

1 tsp rice flour
7 ml Rose essential oil
4 ml Patchouli essential oil
10 ml Geranium essential oil

3 tbsp Rose buds to decorate in the end

Hope you liked it 🙂

 

 

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How to: Hyaluronic Acid gel

A while ago I posted how to make Aloe Vera gel.
I was planning to post a recipe of an hydrating gel (I have been using it in the morning for the last two months and I love it), but before I start, I thought it would be more important to show you how to make the basic ingredients for this gel.
Of course Hyaluronic Acid gel is one of these ingredients!

So tadaaa 😀

Hyaluronic Acid Gel

I love hyaluronic acid for the property of keeping the skin hydrated, also it is a substance that is naturally found in our skin.
It is used in many anti-aging creams (I don’t believe it is miraculous and it will make wrinkles disappear, but simply because it helps keeping the skin hydrated, the skin appears more plump and fresh).

Recipe:
[WARNING: this recipe, like ALL the recipes in my blog, is of COSMETIC GRADE, therefore this gel cannot be used any differently than by applying it ON your skin]
 1 gr         Sodium Hyaluronate 
98,4 gr  Distilled Water (or Rose water 😉 read the end of the post)
0.6 gr    Cosgard (or any other preservative of your choice: of course if you change preservative, use the amount of preservative which is needed for that specific kind of preservative)

1) Measure the Sodium Hyaluronate

2) Measure the water

3) Pour the Sodium Hyaluronate on top of the water

At this point some people like to mix it and some people like to let it be.
I have actually tried both ways and here is my experience: if you try to mix it at this stage, part of the SH will stick to the spoon. This means that a precious part of your gel will get lost (and SH is not exactly cheap, so you’d want to mind this).
IMO it is better to let the SH hydrate by itself on top of the water for a while, and stir later.

4) Cover the glass with plastic film and let it rest in the fridge for few hours.

5) After few hours the SH will be hydrated. Now you can stir it with a spoon so to make the gel more smooth (there will be harder parts and softer parts).

6) Add your preservative, stir again and put in a bottle 🙂

You can use this Gel by itself, for its great hydrating properties!
If you have a very dry skin you could like to use it before applying your cream 🙂
You could also make a more luxurious gel by substituting part of the water (or the entire water) with Rose water!

As you might have noticed in the market we can find creams or serums that say “40% Hyaluronic Acid”.
Well, as you can see I am using 1% of Sodium Hyaluronate and this is the highest concentration I can use.
It is technically impossible to use 40% of SH inside of a gel: it will never hydrate and you will waste a huge amount of money.
I tried once to make a 2% and it took ages to hydrate. In the end it was too thick. I could still use it but it was not a good gel at all.
I don’t know what they could mean by saying “40% Hyaluronic Acid” on a product where there cannot be more than 2% of SH, but it is long time I stopped believing what I read in the commercials for creams. The only thing I can believe now is the INCI and what I KNOW is that in one cream where it was said “40%”, the Sodium Hyaluronate in the INCI was at 6th place (this means that in NO WAY it could be at 40%, it could have been at maybe 1% or even less).

Hyaluronic Acid Gel 3 Hyaluronic Acid Gel 2

The only way to be sure of what’s inside a cream or serum or face-gel is MAKE IT YOURSELF!
Not only this is a great thing to learn, it also makes you feel like IT’S ALL IN YOUR HANDS!  😉

 

 

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Amla and Aloe Vera Soap – Recipe :)

This is a very simple recipe for a soap that I really like a lot 🙂
Unfortunately I believe that the properties of Aloe vera have gone totally lost (this soap gelled and even if I added the aloe juice at light light trace I am 99.999% sure all is lost), but still it’s a great soap and I love it on my skin (it’s full of precious butters eheheh)!
So I just hope you enjoy this recipe!

Recipe:
350 gr Olive oil
300 gr Coconut oil
200 gr Shea butter
100  gr Cocoa butter
50   gr Castor oil

139,43 gr Lye (6% discount)
200 gr distilled water

100 gr Aloe vera juice
3 tbsp Amla powder

This soap is a Cold Process soap.
I added the Aloe vera juice just at very light trace together with the Amla powder.

It has a natural scent 🙂
and it is lovely on the skin!

(just notice that the cocoa butter might cause allergic reaction to people who are allergic to nickel!)

 

 

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How to make Aloe Vera Gel (from aloe juice)

Not everybody is so lucky to have a plant of Aloe Vera.
Personally I have one but my heart doesn’t let me chop off a leg or an arm from it. 😀
Nevertheless when you buy “Aloe vera Gel” usually it is maximum 95% made of Aloe vera, remaining 5% (and this is not a little amount!!!) are other things.
So here is a recipe to make 99% Aloe vera gel where the remaining 1% is composed of Xanthan Gum (natural gelling substance) and preservative.

Preservative is an important step. I know many people who want to do “natural cosmetics” don’t want to use preservatives, but preservative doesn’t necessarily mean “bad”. There are many kinds of preservatives right now; you can choose a paraben free and 100% biodegradable (like the Cosgard which i am using).
The importance of preservatives is that they don’t permit the growth of bacteria inside our water-based cream/gel. If you really don’t want to use a preservative then you should save your gel or cream in the fridge and use it up in maximum one week time.

Recipe:
99   gr – 100% Aloe Vera Juice
0.6 gr – Xanthan Gum
0.6 gr Cosgard (I know this doesn’t make 100 grams but 100.2 grams 😀 I can count too, but some preservatives need to be added in smaller amount and anyway 100.2 gr in a bottle of 100 ml doesn’t make a big difference 😀 that’s all)

Lavender and Amber Soap Recipe


180 gr Olive oil
180 gr Coconut oil
150 gr Palm oil
30   gr Castor oil
60   gr Sweet Almond oil

210 gr water
85.46 gr lye

10 ml Lavender essential oil
20 ml Amber and Lavender f.o.

1 tbsp Lavender seeds

I made this soap with cold process 🙂 Now it is going to dry for 6 weeks and I cannot wait to try it!
I love the smell! 🙂

 

 

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Whipped Shea Butter

Shea butter is one of those wonderful butters you can use almost for anything.
It’s good for hair (as long as you don’t have too fine hair: it’s best for thick long dark hair that need discipline), good for under-eye area, great to prevent stretch-marks, wonderful to keep the feet moisturized.

So here we go: I was requested to make a butter for very stressed feet (you know, summer and so on) and I decided to make a whipped shea butter for feet! 🙂

The recipe is terribly easy and the results were great.
Enough words.
Here is the recipe:

100 gr Shea butter (I used refined shea butter, if you have unrefined shea butter it’s even better!)
20 gr Apricot kernel oil (or any light and easily absorbing oil)
40 gr Corn starch (this helps in feeling little bit less oily on the skin, but of course, since this butter is made 100% by butters and oils and there is no water inside, the buttery feeling cannot disappear)
20 drops Lemongrass essential oil
10 drops Rosemary essential oil
(this was my own choice of essential oils: lemongrass to feel fresh and rosemary for the antibacterial properties that, since this butter was meant for foot, were quite needed for a good results)

HOW TO:
– Simply melt the Shea butter in a double boier (not completely, just melt half of it and let the remaining heat melt the rest. This way all the good properties of Shea butter won’t fade away!).
– Add the apricot kernel oil
– Whip the oils, as if you were whipping some cream 🙂
If the oils are too hot you can whip them, put them in the fridge for few minutes, whip them again… until you are satisfied with the consistency.
– When the oils are properly whipped and they have cooled down you can add your essential oils and the corn starch!
– Mix all the ingredients with a spoon
– Put them in a jar

– ENJOY! (this is the best step 😉 eheheh)

EDIT: Please read the comments of this post also: any whipped shea butter tends to harden up after a few days. This was one of my first experiments of cosmetic, so it is perfectly fine if you decide to make it if you want to start a simple approach to “handmade creams”, but bear in mind that this is not a cream 🙂
I have made posts now on how to formulate REAL creams. It is a slightly difficult thing but it gives exponentially more satisfaction 😀
Have a great day! 😀

 

 

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