My lotion adventure

The first time I made lotion around four years ago and it was a disaster :D.  First of all I was all for "green and natural" so I made lotion with beeswax and borax as emulsifiers.  It did not work for me   :( .  Then I made body butter using only oils and butters and whipped them.  It was nice I think, but I prefer non greasy one.  Then I went to chemical store to buy emulsifier because at time I already knew water and oil did not mix, they needed emulsifier to emulsify.  The store gave me cetyl alcohol which ofcourse did not work as emulsifier because it is not....

Finally I bought emulsifier online :D.  Until now I have used 4 different kinds of emulsifier:

1.  Colzamulse (behenyl trim ethyl ammonium methosulfate and cetearyl alcohol) 

     The usage rate : 2-5 %. This can be for hair and skin products.  I found this to be a bit draggy...

2.  Emulsifying Wax (Cetearyl Alcohol, Polysorbate 60)

     The usage rate : 1-10% .  This also can be used for hair and skin products. I love it because you          don't need much 

3.  Lexemul cs-20 (ceteareth-20, cetearyl alcohol)

     I couldn't find the usage rate so according to Jane Barber from making skincare, the general rule of      emulsifier is 25% of your total oils

4.  Polawax gp-200  (cetearyl alcohol, PEG-20 stearate)

     The usage rate : 2-10%), can be used for hair and skin products.  It can stand heat up tp 150 C for        two hours.  

While I love making lotion as much as making soaps, making lotion is fussier, I think.  In soapmaking, you need to clean your workspace, but in lotion making you need to sanitize your work space and equipments.  

You also need thermometer, pH meter, accurate digital scale, hand blender, non reactive container, lots of alcohol :D.  Right now  I own 3 hand blender : one for making soaps, one for making lotions, the other is for cooking :D.  

Lotion pH is between 4-5, more on the acidic side.  It's different with handmade soap.  Certain ingredients are temperature sensitive, so you need a thermometer to be correct. 

While I'm sometimes hesistant to use expensive oil in soapmaking, not with lotion because it is a leave on product, you get the benefits more than the wash off product, Imho :)

Soaps, Lotions and Balms I made recently


It's been ages I didn't write.  I meant to...but postponing is really a bad habbit.  Thank God I have been quite busy.  I always think busy is good ...especially for your soul :D .  So from all the soap recipes I tried I think I finally narrow them down to 4 recipes : Castile (100% olive oil), Bastile (70% olive oil and coconut-castor oil), One recipe that contains palm oil (I actually quite like palm oil in soap, not too much though), and One luxurious recipe that contain expensive oils and butters.  I also love to make transparent soap.  I think it's effortlessly pretty and holds the scent  and color well.
Most of the soaps I made are cold process soaps but for the ones using essential oil, I prefer hot process soaps.
 

Besides soaps I also love making lotions and balms.... I think it's a good thing that you can control what goes into your skincare...

How to make Chocolate Balloon Bowls

Soaps

Goat Milk Shower Gel

This is not the first time I made liquid soap but this is the first time I made liquid soap with goat milk.  It took two tries to get it right ( by right I mean the consistency that I like). In the fisrt try, I used cold goat milk  (not frozen) and I added it with lye.  It burned the milk and the final result was this :

 

While it lathers well and smells great, I'm not happy with the appearance.  So I tried the second time.  This time I did not mix the milk and the lye but I added the milk latter after the soap had gelled.

I added the milk little by little.  Eventhough the soap was quite hot, it did not burn the milk .

The oils I used for this liquid soap were coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil, sunflower oil dan cocoa butter.  It"s quite thick so I call it shower gel.  I was pretty happy with the result :)

Simple Soaps

Until now I get this statement a lot : "Your soaps are too pretty to be used" or "I'm going to keep this forever"..... I"m flaterred actually (I always think other soapers made way more beautiful soaps than I did), but before the soaps are made, we soapers, are actually formulate oils/butters and additives carefully to produce mild high quality soap :) . And along the way, It is hard to ignore all those tempting swirl techniques and all those pretty colors.  However, once in a while I managed to make simple soaps. No swirls. No fancy colors, just cocoa powder, activated charcoal and milk as additives.  To match the natural colors, I added chocolate FO, Milk FO and Peppermint EO as the scents.

 

Well, it's not that plain because I used fondant mat for texture :) . I'm quite happy with the results.  

New Soaps

Colorant Adventure

It's been a long time since I hunted  for this tree : Kesumba Keling (Bixa Orellana) or annatto seeds.  The seed is widely used as yellow colorant although it appears red.  I was pretty sure I  could find the tree here because it has  a local name (nobody I know even ever heard of this tree).  One day when we made our routine trip to Bogor, I saw it.  On the roadside of Jagorawi toll road.  At first I thought it was my imagination :) .  Until last week I made my husband pull over (which he sincerely did) and It was really the tree.  Yeayy.

I ground the seeds with coffee grinder and infuse it in coconut oil

And this is the soap :)

I'm pleased with this soap.  The yellow part is from annatto seeds and the brown part comes from honey.  I added biji selasih for light scrub. ...