Formulating Body Oils Part 1; Choosing your Ingredients & percentages - Formulating for Beginners

So far in my new "Formulating for Beginners" series I covered what to expect on your formulating journey, why you shouldn't make those DIY's you see on pinterest (cause I know that is where a lot of beginners start, I did it myself). We talked about equipment and sanitation and now I think it is time to actually formulate a recipe together.

Do you remember me saying that I want to do a series of videos, within this series for beginners, of recipes that don't need preservatives? Well I'll be showing you guys two body oil recipes that don't need preservatives in the next video/blog, but I thought it would be a good idea to formulate these recipes together. This way you can have a better understanding of why we are using the ingredients I choose and how I decide how much of each ingredient to use. Before we get into writing the formula, we need to have a better understanding of what a body oil is and what ingredients are in them.

Before you begin formulating a product you need to know what the product is. Like I said we are making Body oils. So you need to understand what a body oil is and what ingredients are found in a body oil. I always advice, if you are making a product you have never used before, buy a store bought version you like, so you can compare the two and make sure they have similar qualities and that you are making it correctly.

So what's a body oil?

Body oils are products that consists of only oil based ingredients. Body oils are anhydrous products. Anhydrous is a word you want to adapt into your vocabulary because you will notice it is used a lot in the formulating community. Anhydrous means containing no water.

Body oils are used as a moisturizer on the skin, for massages, in the hair, people add them to their baths, & some people apply them in the shower on wet skin. Basically they are used to reap the benefits that oils posses. Body oils typically are composed of a primary oil and secondary oil. Of course you can add as many oils as you would like, that's the joy of making your own products, but remember this. It is better to use a lot of only a select few ingredients instead of using only little amounts of a bunch of ingredients. What I mean is that if you use a little bit of this oil, that oil, another oil, and 5 other oils you are barely getting the benefits these oils possess because there are only small amounts of each oil. If you use a lot of one or two oils, your skin will be able to absorb more of those oils reaping more of their benefits. Does that make sense? So for this simple body oil I am only going to be using 2 different oils. A primary and secondary oil.

What the heck is a primary and secondary oil?!

I don't know if other people use "primary" and "secondary" to describe different oils, but I do. I'm not sure what the technical description would be for what I am going to explain, but here we go. A primary oil is an oil that is less expensive and your secondary oil is more expensive. Your secondary oil may also have an unpleasant odor or color. For example, you may have noticed some oils are super cheap. You can by a gallon of sunflower oil for $20, but rosehip oil cost $180 for a gallon. That is a HUGE difference! As much as we love the benefits and feel of rosehip oil, it may be a little to expense for you to be using all over the body. So it's a good idea to dilute it down with a cheaper oil. Here's another example. Neem oil, it has some amazing benefits for the skin, but it STINKS!!! So this is another case when you wouldn't want to use it at 100%. Dilute it down with some jojoba oil to make the scent less noticeable. There may also be an oil like evening primrose that you love because of it's benefits, but it doesn't absorb quickly. Mix it in with a quick absorbing oil like Meadowfoam and there you go! Problem solved. Sea buckthorn oil is really orange and may stain the skin, so we need to dilute it with another oil. There are many reasons why we may not want to use an oil at 100% so keep this in mind. Blending oils is so much fun, but don't get to crazy with it and blend together to many. You want to make sure you are using oils that compliment one another.

Feeling and Absorption of Oils

One more thing I want to mention is that everyone feels oils differently. Just because google says an oil is fast absorbing, it may not feel fast absorbing to you. Sunflower oil is said to be slow absorbing, but I love it! I feel like it absorbs very quickly. So if you don't like the oils I choose, mix it up and let me know which ones you use :)

Choosing our Ingredients (for a simple Body Oil)

Begin by brainstorming what ingredients you want in your body oil. I always like to make a list of the ingredients I want to use before writing the actual formula. Choose your primary and secondary oil. Most oils Suggested Usage Rate is up to 100%, but there are some oils that have a Typical Usage Rate. It means they can be used up to 100%, but typically are used at a lower percentage, most likely because they are really expensive oils. I purchased some Blueberry Seed Oil from Lotion Crafter and it says Typical Usage Rate: 1 - 5%, up to 100%. So checking with your suppliers is a good way to figure out how much of an ingredient to use.

I always like to add vitamin E to anhydrous products because vitamin E helps keep oils from going rancid. Over time oils can go bad and start to smell, vitamin E will lengthen the time before this happens. It is NOT a preservative. Vitamin E Suggested Usage Rate: 0.5 - 2%

Do you want to add fragrance to your body oil? You can use essential oils or fragrance oils. This really comes in handy if you are trying to cover up a nasty scent from an oil. Check with your supplier to figure out what percentage is safe for the essential oil or fragrance oil you choose to use. Never use Essential oils or Fragrance oils directly on the skin.

Shelf Life

When formulating a product, you really want to keep shelf life in mind. Your finished products shelf life is determined by your ingredients. Whatever ingredient you use that has the shortest shelf life then becomes the shelf life of your product. For example; If you use 4 different ingredients in a product and 3 of your ingredients have a shelf life of 12 months, but one ingredient has a shelf life of 6 months, then your products shelf life is only 6 months.

Be sure you are watching the shelf life of your oils. Oils like grapeseed oil is wonderful! But it only has a 6 month shelf life. When choosing oils you want to keep their shelf lives in mind, especially if you are selling products. This is why I quit using rosehip and grapeseed oil in the products I sell. It also isn't a bad idea to store your oils in the fridge. That can really help extend their shelf life!

Choosing our Ingredients (Advanced Body Oil)

You can actually use more than just oils in a body oil. If you are a beginner there is no issue with just sticking with oils, but if you want to play around with even more oil soluble ingredients go for it. There are a handful of other ingredients that can be used in body oils like, emollient esters and silicones. Emollient esters and silicones are a great way to reduce the greasy and sticky feeling of oils.

Esters

Esters are a bit confusing and I don't want to get into the full description of them now. The only ester I want to focus on are emollient oil soluble (anhydrous) esters. The simplest way I can describe the esters that I am referring too is that they are basically oils that have undergone a chemical reaction to make them feel less greasy. I specifically want to focus on Isopropyl Myristate (IPM) This is a very common ingredient I see used in anhydrous formulas to reduce the greasiness. It produces more of a dry feeling on the skin and reduces greasiness. IPM Suggested Usage Rates: Lotions & Creams: 2-5% Lipsticks & Lip Balms 1%-5% - Massage Oils 4-10%. I felt this was an important ingredient to mention just incase you are looking for a way to make a body oil without it feeling super greasy. IPM is not ecocert approved, so if you are trying to stick with ecocert / "green friendly" ingredients, this is not the ingredient for you

Silicones and Silicone Alternatives

Another fabulous way to make body oils less greasy is to use silicones or silicone alternatives. As the trend of Green cosmetics is growing, a lot of people are looking for more "natural" alternatives to silicones. The more "traditional" silicones out there that have a bad rep are dimethicone and cyclomethicone. So if you don't mind silicones try out these two ingredients to reduce greasiness in body oils. On the other hand if you don't want to use silicones. Don't you worry, cause I have some "natural" silicone alternatives for you. Natrasil, Neossance Hemisqualane, Coco Caprylate I'm sure there are more out there, but those are the 3 that I have used, and I love them! They are all ecocert approved and green friendly. So if you are looking to make a non greasy body oil with ecocert and green friendly ingredients these are your guys. Coco Caprylate Suggested Usage Rates: 2-25%, Natrasil Suggested Usage Rate: 1-25%, & Neossance Hemisqualane's Suggested Usage Rate: 1 - 60%

Wanna Learn more about Oils?

There is truly a lot to know about different types of oil, so if you want to read more check out this article HERE. This article will give you a better understanding about the different oils, their benefits, and it will help you decide which oil may be best for you and your skin type. Some oils absorb fast and some are slow. Get more insight on this info and much more by visiting the article I linked.

Now that you have a better understanding of what a body oil is and what types of ingredients are found in them then we can move on to actually writing the formula. We will be doing that in the next post. See you then :)

Formulating Body Oils Part 1; Choosing your Ingredients & percentages - Formulating for Be.

Download • 62KB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqdmivjhaPo