Theory – Page 3 – It's all in my hands

Homemade cosmetics trends (and mistakes)

When I started studying how to make (real) cosmetics at home, it was because I was unsatisfied with all those “extremely easy and miraculous” recipes you find online.
From the “firming soap” (made, obviously, with aloe vera :D), the “detoxifying cream” and the “acne treatment” made with too much tea tree essential oil.
Yes it was inspiring for a start, but often things were not sounding right and I felt the need to know more.

Now, after studying (I am still studying of course, because the more you learn, the more you realize how much you still don’t know) I realize that sometimes things are not just “not right”… sometimes they are terribly wrong!
So this is why I am writing here.

Let’s start from the so called MIRACULOUS PROPERTIES: no cosmetic has such.
I learnt this with the first creams I was making: I learnt how to formulate, at first I used recipes of more experienced people and then I was tempted to do on my own. I obviously started adding all the active ingredients I had on hand… so to create the miraculous face cream which could help against acne, be full of antioxidants and also pore minimizer.
I had avoided all the silicons (which my skin doesn’t like, but if they work for your skin… why not 😉 ), all the synthetic oils (using instead oils which had good properties for my skin)… still my skin was better but it had not changed into a photoshopped magazine skin: it was still my skin with a small pimple every now and then, a bit oily on the T zone at the end of the day.
This is when I understood that learning to make cosmetics at home is mainly about NOT believing any commercial anymore 🙂 (and same goes for the tempting miraculous solutions trending online).

Another thing I have noticed is the general (and terribly wrong) belief that if something is “natural” it is therefore also mild.
THAT’S WRONG!
Let’s talk, for example, about essential oils: I have seen people adding essential oils into creams or products for their infants! This is terribly wrong because essential oils are highly allergenic: their content of allergens is so high that it may cause painful reactions on the skin, therefore, if you wish to make a soothing cream for the butt of your baby and you can’t help adding some kind of perfume to it: add an allergen free fragrance oil to it! (they exist and are easy to find on the websites I spoke about HERE).
This is a rule that many mothers don’t seem to understand because they are fascinated by the amount of “lovin’ essential oils” websites they find. Please understand that essential oils can be good in some contexts but they are definitely NOT fresh water and they should never be used on infants.

There is also another bad trend of giving to anything handmade a healing property.
It is AT LEAST deceiving to boost about the healing properties of something you make: firstly, because it is not a pharmacological product, tests haven’t been done on your product proving that it has healing properties; secondly because you are almost cheating the people you speak with.
Let me make an example: exactly yesterday I entered a shop of homemade soap. The soaps were looking good, smells were great but the problem was on the labeling.
The soaps were not called “Aloe Vera Soap” or “Lavender Soap”… they were something like “Stress relief Soap” (which is quite fine), “Firming soap” (??? how on earth is a soap supposed to firm your skin… I don’t know :D), “Flu Aid Soap” and so on.
I felt deceived and I didn’t purchase anything.
It is also true that sometimes your friends, once they know you make creams, will start asking you if you can make them try some homemade cream of yours. Usually they go “Can you make me an eye-lifting cream?” but sometimes they even go “I suffer of Dermatitis, can you make me a cream to cure it?” In this last case… say a big NO.
When it happened to me, I suggested my friend to go to a dermatologist and ask the dermatologist which cream to use. I also said that I am not a pharmacist and I cannot make “curing creams”. All I could do was to make an highly hydrating cream and I could try to gather information about what might help in case of Dermatitis but this still wouldn’t make my cream a cure for it.
My friend understood and called the doctor.
I know it is tempting, once you are able to make creams, to boost about your abilities and feel almost like you can do anything in the world… but bear in mind that you are still not a doctor and that you cannot substitute one.

The last thing I don’t like much, is the general belief that anything synthetic is, therefore, bad.
Of course this is not true.
I already made the example of the allergen-free fragrance oil which is better than any essential oil in case of products for babies, but there is a bigger example I can make:
SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) and SLES (sodium laureth sulfate)
They are surfactants which have gone through any kind of bad publicity lately.
What happened is a big misleading campaign: there are no scientific studies saying that they cause cancer!
To be very honest soaps are harsher on the skin than most cosmetic-approved synthetic detergents!
Another thing I have read about SLS is that it is used to clean industrial floors or boats and therefore it is dangerous to the skin… well yes and no: anything if used in wrong amount can be dangerous! Even water can be lethal if you drink too much: it all depends on the concentration at which an ingredient is used!
If a detergent is formulated well, you can be sure that it is not dangerous to your skin. If a detergent is badly formulated… it might be aggressive (but still it doesn’t directly depend on the mere presence of SLS or SLES).

And, last but not least, THE PRESERVATIVES! 😀
Apparently it is very difficult to understand that any product containing water or water based ingredients (unless in certain, specific cases) NEEDS to be preserved with a real preservative.
I don’t know why but there is this huuuge campaign against preservatives, in general, as if they were “concentrated evil” 😀 where, actually, they save our cosmetics from a lot of trouble.
Of course, some preservatives are better than others (for example I am not a fan of formaldehyde donors!) but nowadays there are so many “new” combinations of ingredients for preserving a product, even almost eco-friendly (or better to say “not eco-un-friendly” 😀 ) that really there is no excuse! Anyone who wants to learn how to make cosmetics at home must understand that PRESERVATIVES ARE NOT AN OPTION, they are a must. 😀
So don’t be shy or stubborn and use them properly! 😀
Actually cosmetic brands often play with the scare of people and I have already found cosmetics where you read on the label “it doesn’t contain preservatives”, but it simply means that it doesn’t contain the preservatives which you know about 😀 maybe they are using a combination of ingredients like salicylic acid, urea or something else… that might figure as if they were inside of the cream for another reason, but eventually they are behaving as preservatives 😀
Ps: NO NO NO: essential oils are NOT preservatives! No matter how many pages you found on the internet chanting the, let’s say, amazing properties of tea tree oil! 😀

Have a great day! 😀

DIY Vitamin C Serum

Vitamin C is a very powerful substance and it is found in many commercial products for the skin because it is a strong antioxidant, it has lightening properties and, last but not least, it boosts the production of collagen (therefore you are left with a firmer skin).

Vitamin C is “ascorbic acid” (you could also find “L-ascorbic acid”) but in the creams you buy, if you read the ingredients, you will never find “ascorbic acid”, probably you will find “sodium ascorbyl phosphate” or “magnesium ascorbyl phosphate” (there are also other forms of Vitamin C, this is a mere example). What is this?
Well, Vitamin C has great properties but it doesn’t keep stable: it oxidizes even in contact with air, with light… (this is why if you make fresh orange juice you should drink it immediately after), so in order to be able to add this vitamin in our face creams, cosmetologists use a stabilized form of Vit C: if in the ingredients of your cream you read an ingredient which contains the word “ascorbyl”, to make it very simple, that is the stabilized form of Vitamin C.

These stabilized forms are many and they are growing in number all the time. They are not something negative (and even I use them in the making of Vitamin C creams… maybe I will post a recipe soon about it 🙂 ), however their properties are not 100% the same of the pure Vitamin C.

Today I am going to show you the easiest and most effective way to make at home a special Vitamin C Serum which is much more powerful than every cream you ever bought 😀

The only way to use pure Vitamin C (therefore “L-ascorbic acid”) effectively is to use it right away and make a new serum all the time.
This is why the recipe of today, unlikely all the cream recipes I have shown before, is not in 100 gr but it is in very small amounts: because you will have to make it anew every time you want it 🙂
But don’t be scared: it is made of three ingredients only and it is divided in two parts 😉

RECIPE:
(first part)
1 teaspoon demineralized water
1/8 teaspoon L-ascorbic acid (you can easily buy it in pharmacy; ask for the powder of vitamin C or ask for Ascorbic acid, simply 😉 )
(if you wish to, you can add also a drop of glycerin)
You mix these two ingredients in a bowl and measure the pH (you can find pH strips even in pharmacy: buy those from 0 – 14 so you can use them also for the other homemade cosmetics in the future. They should look like THIS in order to show you exactly the correct pH of the solution).
WARNING! Measuring the pH is important!
Ascorbic acid is obviously an acid (and it is also very strong) so you don’t want to apply on your skin something of pH 2… however Vitamin C is well absorbed (and used) in your skin only at a pH range of 3.5 or lower. Therefore check the pH of the solution and if you see it is lower than pH 3.5 adjust the pH by adding a little bit more water. Now check the pH again and keep adjusting until the result is pH 3.5.
This is really important and I am not responsible if you ruin your skin.

At this point you can apply this water on your skin using a brush or even your own fingers, keep applying even in multiple layers until the water is finished.
WARNING! Do NOT apply on the eye area or too close to your lips or nostrils.
It is normal if it stings a little, but it should not be painful and it should not last more than 2 or 3 minutes.
WARNING! If you feel pain wash off immediately! If after 3 minutes the stinging hasn’t stopped yet, wash off immediately! Some people have a very delicate skin and this acid might be too strong for them. If this is your case, rinse off immediately and avoid using acids on your skin. They could damage it!

If instead your skin didn’t react badly to the Vitamin C boost :D, wait for the skin to be dry (wait approximately 10 minutes) and now it’s the part two 😉
(second part of the “recipe”)
2 drops of Vitamin E (Tocopheryl acetate or Tocopherol – you should be able to find it in pharmacy very easily. It is a very dense liquid. The Tocopheryl acetate should be transparent or slightly yellowish. Tocopherol, instead, is dark brown).
Put these two drops on the tips of your fingers and tap it all over your face.
This time it shouldn’t sting anymore.
Let it sit on your skin for 20 minutes and wash off (you will have to wash your face vigorously, because Vitamin E is quite sticky 😀 ).

This is the easiest, most effective Vitamin C serum.
After applying the ascorbic acid, you apply Vitamin E because these two Vitamins work in synergy, boosting the antioxidant properties of them both! 🙂

I wouldn’t suggest to apply this Vitamin C serum everyday because it is quite aggressive. Once a week should be enough.
It is better to make this treatment in the evening before sleeping (so the skin has time to “recover” all the night) and I would suggest to avoid making this treatment in summer or late spring (it is always negative to use acids on the skin in summertime! They weaken the barrier of the skin and they can make more disasters than positive things if your skin receives direct sun rays in the period of an acid treatment).

Now, after having done a little bit of “terrorism” about this Vitamin C Serum… I can say that I have not misused it and I am very happy about the results!
I used to have some red signs on my skin, left from an old acne, and they are finally gone! 🙂
Also, my skin looks more fresh and firm! 🙂

So don’t misuse this DIY and have a great day! 😉

Vitamin C serum

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Buying online COSMETIC INGREDIENTS

Maybe you’ve been reading my posts thinking “yeah right… and where on earth am I gonna find these ingredients?!”
Well I guess it is time for me to show you a few online shops of raw material of cosmetic grade!
This is obviously very important because if you use a fragrance oil which is not of aimed in cosmetic use… well, don’t be surprised if you get a strong allergic reaction or even something worse… same goes if you use urea which you find in gardening shops: that won’t do! 😀

This said, of course in the online shops which sell raw materials for cosmetic use… all the ingredients are of cosmetic grade… but here a few tips in case the online shop you found is not in my list:
– maybe before you purchase, read around the internet if there are experiences of other people
– for each ingredient they sell, they are supposed to own a MSDS which is the Material Safety Data Sheet. The MSDS should be available for each ingredient on their website or they should send it to you after purchase: if it is not available on their website, before you place an order contact them and be sure they are going to send you one. This is important.
– Before purchasing try asking some information about one of the ingredients they sell: for example at what percentage it should be used, if it shouldn’t be used with certain ingredients and so on. Usually they have this information on the ingredient page but sometimes they don’t. A serious supplier will be able to give you some information, however, don’t expect too much: don’t expect suppliers to be formulators.
– If it is the first time you want to buy raw material… DON’T BUY EVERYTHING you find! Make a small list of ingredients that will be really useful (an emulsifier, a thickening agent, a gelling agent). Start planning to make simple creams, pick few active ingredients (maximum 3!), really: keep it simple! 😀
– do NOT go for the “nice name” ingredient: for example, if an ingredient name is “NO MORE WRINKLES concentrated active ingredient” 99% of the time it is a big NO NO NO 😀 If you click on it and look for the INCI name, probably it comes out that this “concentrate active ingredient” is actually made of “water, lecithin (emulsifier), some kind of oil, the great ingredient” and you can be sure that your great ingredient will be at minimum %.

Ok… after having warned you… 😀
Let me put some links! 😀
NOTE: I am not publicizing any website, I am just posting some websites I know of… that might help you in starting your serious COSMETIC DIY! 😀
I have bought only from some of these websites and obviously I am not responsible if something on your order goes wrong.

Here we go:

Asia:
http://www.bulkactives.com – good website! It has some ingredients which are very difficult to find somewhere else. Prices are a little bit higher than in other places.
http://stores.skinessentialactives.com/

North America:
http://www.makingcosmetics.com – many ingredients and also sells in bulk!
http://www.ingredientstodiefor.com
http://www.lotioncrafter.com/

Europe:
http://www.gracefruit.com – UK – Has many many ingredients for soap-making and also some ingredients. Long list also of fragrance oils. Prices are quite high compared to other websites but some fragrances are difficult to find somewhere else.
http://www.activeformulas.com – UK – website mostly about active ingredients. It has a vast choice.
http://www.aromantic.co.uk/home/products/active -ingredients.aspx – UK
http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/
http://www.phoenixproducts.co.uk/
http://www.sensoryperfection.co.uk/ – if you click HERE you will find my review of some of their fragrance oils

http://www.zrobsobiekrem.pl/pl/i/Information-for-foreigners/129 – PL – This website is from Poland and you can use Google Translate to translate everything written on the page. It sells cheap plant extracts and also some emulsifiers and active ingredients!

http://www.glamourcosmetics.it/ – IT – Probably my favourite Italian website that sells ingredients. Very serious, ship extremely fast, have good variety of ingredients – if you click HERE you will find my review of some of their fragrance oils.
http://www.dermolife.it/shop/index.php – IT – Italian website with good prices about tensioactives. Many active ingredients (vitamins, minerals, aminoacids) also.
http://www.farmaciavernile.it/ – IT – good ingredients (also some special ones which I couldn’t find on other websites).

http://www.dragonspice.de – DE – website from Germany.
http://www.manske-shop.com – DE – website from Germany. It has mostly ingredients about making soaps, therefore a lot of butters and oils, many fragrance oils, essential oils and only few cosmetic ingredients (but basic emulsifiers and active ingredients are there) – if you click HERE you will find a review on some of their fragrance oils.
http://www.alexmo-cosmetics.de/
http://www.aliacura.de/

http://www.aroma-zone.com – FR – French website. Many kinds of oils and butters (very exotic), emulsifiers, essential oils and some active ingredients (but read the INCI of each, before purchasing).

http://www.jabonariumshop.com – SP – website from Spain mainly about soap-making. Good prices.

http://kosmetikmacherei.at – AU

http://www.candlemaking.gr/ – GR

Australia:
http://stores.skinessentialactives.com/
https://www.escentialsofaustralia.com/
http://www.n-essentials.com.au/
http://www.aussiesoapsupplies.com.au/
http://www.heirloombodycare.com.au/

Please let me know if you know any good shop from your own country.
Notice also that if you make an order from a website which is not in your country, you might have to pay custom duties… so get informed about it before you make your order! 🙂

Hair Conditioner Recipe (and THEORY)

Hello 😀
Today I would like to show you a basic recipe for a good Hair Conditioner 🙂
The formulation for a lotion and an hair conditioner are similar but not same: there are some basic differences that, if not followed, might make you fail.

So!
There is still a Phase A and a Phase B BUT! while in the making of a lotion you add the heated Phase B to the heated Phase A… here you MUST do the opposite!
You must pour the Phase A into the Phase B. This is very important!

The second difference is that there is not a proper Phase C because every extra ingredient (which should be added when the Phase A and B are already emulsified and at room temperature) has to be added singularly… ONE BY ONE! 🙂

Apart from these two big differences, however, everything else is quite same! 🙂

Phase A:
Water to 100 (explanation HERE)
Glycerin 3
Guar Hydroxypropultrimonium Chloride 0.1 (this is a very good ingredient in a hair conditioner or even in a shampoo, but don’t use it at higher concentration than 0.1-0.15% – However if you don’t have it, you can use instead a water where you had infused Mallow or Flax Seeds)
Heat this phase up to 75° (absolutely check the termometer!)

Phase B:
Esterquat 8 (this is a CATIONIC emulsifier, therefore it is different from the emulsifiers which we have in our lotions. It is important that you use an emulsifier specifically for hair conditioning 🙂 this substance in the specific is very good because it is eco-friendly 😉 )
Jojoba oil 2
cetyl alcohol 3.5
stearic acid 1.5
Heat this phase up to 70°

“Phase C” (but remember you have to add them one by one and in this order)
Hydrolized wheat protein 3
Panthenol 1
Poliquaternium-7 2 (this enhances the conditioning ability. If you don’t have it you can skip it)
Preservative 0.5-0.6 (or whichever concentration the preservative you are using needs to be!)
Fragrance oil or Essential oil depending on your taste 😀

Have a great day!!! 😀

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How to make a lotion: EMULSIFIERS pt.2 – THEORY

In the previous post about emulsifiers we talked about their HLB which, at the end of the day, only tells us wether an emulsifier is more lipophilic or more hydrophilic.
What we, more importantly, need to know about our emulsifier is
– how to use it (hot or cold process)
– and at which percentage.

This is not same for every emulsifier. Even with the same HLB, the ability of an emulsifier can be totally different (and therefore we might need to add to our cream more or less of it).

These information we can collect easily in the moment we purchase our emulsifier: who sells them know the percentage of use and usually posts it on the page of the product (if it is not written there, you could always send them an e-mail and ask for more details about their product. If they don’t know or don’t reply… well, change supplier and buy from a well informed one 😀 ).

However I have decided to put together a small guideline about emulsifiers.

The biggest difference is wether the emulsifier has to be used in hot process or cold process.
An emulsifier which needs to be heated up to 70° is usually solid, normally sold in pearls and his ability to emulsify is only at 70°C. If the two phases we are trying to emulsify do not reach this temperature… well, the emulsion will separate soon enough. So bear in mind to properly check the temperature of your two phases before you mix them (you don’t want to waste precious ingredients nor time, do you? 😀 ).
Since the highest number of emulsifiers work at 70°C, you have to simply follow the process which I already explained in the beginning: you heat up the two phases, you pour the phase B into the phase A and mix with an immersion mixer, once it looks emulsified very well you keep stirring with a spatula until the lotion cools down completely and eventually add your phase C.
There is an huge number of these emulsifiers.

Always remember that these emulsifiers can be more lipophilic or more hydrophilic… or can even be self-emulsifying (which means they already contain both lipophilic and hydrophilic emulsifiers) so always check their composition to find out if they need a co-emulsifier or not (you can, once again, find this specific information from the website where you order your supplies!).
Just to make an example of the two most easily found emulsifiers:
– Methyl glucose sesquistearate – needs to be used at 3%, needs to be heated up to 70°C to work and is more hydrophilic so it needs a co-emulsifier which will be lipophilic (for instance cetyl-alcohol at 1% will do).
– Montanov 68 – this is a self-emulsifier. If you read its composition it already contains both the lipophilic and the hydrophilic emulsifiers: Cetaryl alcohol,Cetearyl Glucoside. It is usually added at 4% to a cream and needs to be heated up to 70°C.
Even if it might sound more difficult, having to mix your own two emulsifiers gives you better results in your cream (at least once you get the grip of it and realize what is the effect of each emulsifier in the final lotion).
If you want to follow a good advice, you should make different experiments with just water (gelled water) and a very cheap oil in a fixed amount and different emulsifiers, if you do this, you will be able to experience the different effect each emulsifier gives to your cream. This is a very important experiment if you want to be aware of which emulsifier does what… (and in the moment you decide to formulate a cream these notions will be very important!).

The “no heat” emulsifiers, instead, are usually liquid (normally very dense). They simply need to be added to phase B and, unless you are using rather difficult active ingredients (meaning that these active ingredients should be added alone in the end of the process), the phase A might contain also the phase C.
Once again you simply pour phase B into phase A and you mix with your immersion mixer until the lotion is formed.
Just one note: usually creams made with “no heat” emulsifiers are not very emollient and rich. This is due to the fact that, since the emulsifier cannot be heated up, you cannot use butters in your cream.
However SOME “no heat” emulsifiers (that, let me repeat again, just mean that the emulsifier will have emulsifying power even at normal temperature) DO bear heating. If you use such an emulsifier you can heat up the phase B in order to melt the butters (let’s say shea butter for example… which doesn’t need a high temperature to melt!) and then you can combine phase B to phase A and normally create your lotion.
If you want to do so, you should be able to get information about your “no heat” emulsifier, once again, right from your supplier. 🙂

This is all about the emulsifiers.
Let me know if you have any more specific questions about them.
😀

Have a great day! 😀

(Sources)

How to make a lotion: EMULSIFIERS pt.1 – THEORY

Emulsifiers are those substances which have the function to keep water and oils bound together in a lotion; this is possible because the emulsifier has a double affinity (it is both hydrophilic and lipophilic) and therefore the two, otherwise, immiscible liquids stay together.
This double affinity however is not the same for all the emulsifiers: so to say, some emulsifiers are more hydrophilic and others are more lipophilic. The value of this proportion is called HLB (“hydrophilic-lipophilic balance”).

[If you wish to skip the more technical part… just skip it 😀 bit more down I will make things very simple 😀 for the others of you, however, who wish to learn things little bit more in detail… well, keep reading 😀 ]

The HLB value goes from 0 to 20 and it is a numerical representative of the hydrophilic and lipophilic tendencies of the material.
I have found many schemes to sum up the different properties of an emulsifier according to its HLB but, to be very honest, they were so different from each other and mostly confusing therefore I have decided to sum them up in what seems to be the common basic idea:
if the HLB is between 0-3 then it is considered more a thickening agent than an emulsifier and it is strongly lipophilic.
If the HLB is between 3-6 this emulsifier is lipophilic and will be good if you want to make a W/O (don’t freak out and keep reading 😀 ).
If the HLB is between 8-16 this emulsifier is more hydrophilic and will be good for an O/W .

What do W/O and O/W mean?
The emulsions which result from combining oils and water can be of different kinds: for example an O/W (read “oil in water”) emulsion can form, where the oil is the dispersed phase while the water is the dispersion medium; or a W/O (read “water in oil”) emulsion can form, where the water, this time, is dispersed in the oil (there are also other possible emulsions like W/O/W or O/W/O but in case I will make another post in the future).
[The most common type of emulsion however is the oil in water]

So generally emulsifiers are more hydrophilic or lipophilic and in our cream (an O/W cream), to have a very stable emulsion, we should use two emulsifiers: one hydrophilic (the most important, therefore in higher percentage) and one lipophilic (or a lipophilic co-emulsifier).
Bear in mind, however, that some emulsifiers are sold as “self-emulsifiers” which means that they are already made of two kinds of emulsifiers and therefore you don’t need to add, for example, the lipophilic.

Here I post a list of common emulsifiers and their HLB value:

3.5-4.0 glyceryl stearate W/O
4.0 lecithin (the one you can find in the supermarket)
4.7 cetearyl alcohol W/O (good lipophilic emulsifier)
5.0 cetyl alcohol W/O (good lipophilic emulsifier)
5.8 Glyceryl stearate
6.5 Polyglyceryl 3-oleate intermediate properties (not a good emulsifier)
9.7 lecithin emulsifier O/W (this is the kind of “modified” lecithin which you can buy on the websites which sell raw material)
10.0 Montanov 68 O/W (this is the commercial name of a self-emulsifier which already contains hydrophilic and lipophilic emulsifiers)
10.0 abil care 85 O/W
11.0 cetearyl glucoside O/W
11.5 Polyglyceryl-3 methylglucose distearate
12.0 methylglucose sesquistearate O/W (very good emulsifier, this is one of those which I use the most)
13.0 PEG 40 Hydrogenated castor oil emulsifier O/W and solubilizer
15.0 Polyglyceryl 10-laurate emulsifier O/W and solubilizer
16.7 Polysorbate 20 emulsifier O/W and solubilizer

This HLB value told us something about how the emulsifier is going to behave with our water and oils but there are many more important things which we still cannot know through it:
– how to use the emulsifier (does it need to be heated or does it have to be used at normal temperature?)
– at which percentage to use it (with a same HLB value different emulsifiers can be more or less strong)

[to be continued… 😀 ]

(Sources)

How to formulate a SERUM

We have learnt how to formulate a lotion, but what is and how to formulate a serum? 🙂

There are few rules to follow:
1) a serum is usually a very light lotion (this means usually 2%, maximum 4% fats),
2) it is typically fluid
3) it has a very high concentration of ACTIVE INGREDIENTS.
4) it doesn’t have to be heated (actually this is a consequence of the previous points)
5) the function of a serum is to give an extra boost of good ingredients to your skin (just to be clear: the function of a cream is to be emollient and hydrate to the skin… therefore wishing to create “the ultimate hydrating serum” is like expecting to bake the best cake in the world without an oven: if you want hydration, you make a cream… if you want to feed your skin with an extra-boost of vitamins, antioxidants, anti-aging ingredients and sooo on, you make a serum).

How to proceed:
there is still Phase A and Phase B but they will be slightly different:

PHASE A – will still contain water, glycerin and a gelling agent (or not, but I will explain this later… so keep reading 🙂 ), but you will have to pay attention to which gelling agent you choose: you need to choose a gelling agent which won’t break down in presence of salts or other tricky ingredients (for example carbopol ultrez 21 is one of these difficult gelling agenta). For instance xanthan gum or hydroxyethylcellulose are good gelling agents for this purpose (in case of hydroxyethylcell. remember the gel is formed only at 70° so you will need to heat your water and, only when it is cooled down, proceed in the making of your serum).

PHASE B – the oil soluble ingredients have to be very few: 1.5 – 4% (maximum!). By this I mean that even your oil soluble active ingredients will be counted in the fat percentage of the serum: for example if you desire to add 1% of vitamin E (tocopherol), you include it in your “maximum 4% count” 🙂
But how to behave with these oily substances in order to have a smooth, silky and specially fluid serum? 🙂
You will need different emulsifiers from those which we have used up to now: you will need actually two emulsifiers (one lipophilic at 0.25% and one hydrophilic at higher percentage) which are liquid and don’t need to be heated!
There are many on the market. Actually you could even use a solubilizer to keep together the emulsion (solubilizers are substances which are used to solubilize small small portions of oils into a lot of water: generally they are surfactants. In case you have a solubilizer at home and you want to use it as a hydrophilic emulsifier: add the oily substances of the serum in your becher and, little by little, add drops of the solubilizer until all the solution in your becher becomes milky white. Then add this solubilized oils into your Phase A).
Just for the record: if you don’t add oily soluble ingredients more than 1-1.5%, you don’t even need to add emulsifiers or solubilizers. This is the easiest and most simple way to make a serum 😀 everything would go in just one phase 😉

PHASE C – actually the Phase C could almost be deleted since you can almost always add the active ingredients directly to the Phase A (do not add them only if you use hydroxyethylcellulose as gelling agent because in this case the Phase A has to be heated and active ingredients are thermolabile).

The percentage of ACTIVE INGREDIENTS in a serum can be extremely high.
Sometimes you could even make a serum using an active ingredient as a gelling agent!
An example is the enriched hyaluronic acid serum which you can find HERE: this is also very easy to copy because there is not even the need of adding an emulsifier.

Let me know if I forgot to explain something or you have any questions.
Have a great day! 😀

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