Formulating Facial Oils Part 2; Writing a Formula - Formulating for Beginners

taralee
Mar 17, 2022
9 min read

Updated: May 13, 2022

In my last post for "formulating for beginners" I discussed facial oils. The difference between facial oils and body oils, what the benefits of a facial oil is and what ingredients are found in facial oils. Today we will actually be formulating 2 different facial oils

In order to fully understand this blog you should probably go back and read all the posts included in this "formulating for beginners" series. So lets recap a little.

Explaining Formulas and Batches

Formula's are written in percents.

Recipe's are written in weight. (grams)

Batch size is the total amount of product you want to make.

Since a formula is written in percents that means it can be easily transferred to any batch size. Batch size is the total amount of product you want to make. So a batch can be 100 grams, 150 grams, 50 grams, 1,000 grams, however much you want.

The total of your entire formula should equal 100%. A recipe should add up to the batch size you are wanting to make.

Writing a formula in percents makes it really easy to transfer into a recipe and makes sure you are using accurate and SAFE amounts of each ingredient.

How do you know what Ingredients are used to make a product?

I talked all about what ingredients are found in facial oils in the last blog post of this series "Formulating Facial Oils Part 1; Choosing your Ingredients & percentages - Formulating for Beginners"

How do you know how much of an Ingredient to use?

I talked all about this in the blog post "Formulating Body Oils Part 2; Writing a Formula - Formulating for Beginners"

Steps I take when Formulating a Facial Oil

What skin type are you formulating for?
What skin issues are you wanting to target?
Make a list of ingredients you would like to use in it
How do you want the facial oil to feel?
Do you want the facial oil to have a specific color or scent?

Formulating a facial oil for dry/mature skin

There are a lot of oils out there that work well with dry mature skin so we have many choices of oils. Also it is easier to formulate a facial oil that feels nice on dry mature skin as we don't have to focus so much on making the oil feel less greasy. The skin issues I am wanting to target is wrinkles, fine lines, dullness basically anything that comes with aging skin. I decided that the ingredients I want to use in this facial oil will be, baobab oil, rosehip seed oil, apricot kernel oil, meadowfoam seed oil, and vitamin e oil. I want this to be a heavier facial oil. One that sits on the skin and isn't easily absorbed. I don't want to add any fragrance to this product and I don't care about the finished color either.

10% baobab oil
25% rosehip seed oil
30% apricot kernel oil
34.5% meadowfoam seed oil
.5% vitamin e oil

baobab oil - Rich in vitamins and sterols, Baobab Oil absorbs quickly and is well balanced in oleic and linoleic acids making it perfect for dry skin

rosehip seed oil - Trans-retinoic acid is a natural form of vitamin A naturally found in rosehip seed oil. vitamin A has been found to help treat acne along with signs of aging. Rosehip oil is fast absorbing leaving little to no residue

apricot kernel oil - moisturizes dry, sensitive skin and smooths out blemishes, wrinkles, fine lines, and other symptoms of maturing skin.

meadowfoam seed oil - it is slightly waxy and closely resembles human sebum. When used in skin care, it naturally helps your skin to effectively form a barrier to lock in moisture

vitamin e oil - an antioxidant and a nutrient that is best known for maintaining the skins health. promotes the growth of new skin, is soothing, prevents dryness, itching, flaking, and burning, and it promotes the look of a youthful, radiant complexion.

Writing a recipe for dry/mature facial oil

In the blog post, "Formulating Body Oils Part 2; Writing a Formula - Formulating for Beginners", I talked all about how to transfer a formula in percents to a recipe in grams. If you aren't aware of how to do this go read that blog or watch the video. If you would like, go ahead and practice transferring the above formula into a 10 gram batch.

I'm only making a 10 gram batch as I have lots of facial oils sitting around from testing them out and I don't need more facial oils just laying around waiting to be used.

baobab oil - 1 gram
rosehip seed oil - 2.5 grams
apricot kernel oil - 3 grams
meadowfoam seed oil - 3.45 grams
vitamin e oil - .05 grams

Directions; mix all the oils together and add into a dropper bottle or dispensing pump bottle.

Formulating a facial oil for oily/acne prone skin

I would be more likely to recommend a facial oil to those with dry skin more often than those with oily skin. As someone who use to suffer from oily skin I understand that you want to do all you can to make your skin feel less oily. I'm not saying that everyone with oily and acne prone skin will enjoy a facial oil, but it is worth a shot because your skin might love it and it may help balance out the oil production of your skin. I know this sounds weird, but for some people, the reason their skin gets so oily is because they are constantly taking the natural oils away from their skin. In return this causes their skin to keep making more oil to make up for all the oil loss. (keep in mind that everyones skin is different and this may not be the case for you, but it could be. Skin is very complicating and your skin issues could be internal; the things you eat, hormones, etc. or external; what you are putting on your skin, environment, etc.)

When formulating a facial oil for oily/acne prone skin you want to focus on oils that are high in linoleic acid oils. Things like hempseed oil, safflower oil, grapeseed oil, neem oil etc. It is also important to add in other oils like squalane, jojoba oil, or meadowfoam seed oil. Adding these types of oils can help ensure that the high-linoleic acid oils don't dry out your skin and help balance your skins oil production. So with this facial oil our target skin issues is acne and balancing oil production. I want this facial oil to feel dry and absorb quickly into the skin. I don't want to add any fragrance and I don't care what the final product color is.

5% neem oil
10% hempseed oil
30% safflower oil
10% rosehip seed oil
10% squalane
34.5% Capric Triglycerides
.5% vitamin e oil

neem oil - is said to help unclog pores, soothe skin, can eliminate acne causing bacteria, tighten pores, heal scars and even skin tone.

hempseed oil - can strengthen, refresh, and revive the skin and is believed to help even out complexion, clear up acne and enhance skins overall texture and appearance

safflower oil - can hydrate dry or acne prone skin, soothe irritation and inflammation and is said to enhance skins appearance, quality, and texture.

rosehip seed oil - Trans-retinoic acid is a natural form of vitamin A naturally found in rosehip seed oil. vitamin A has been found to help treat acne along with signs of aging. Fast absorbing leaving little to no residue. since this oil is high in linoleic acid and vitamin A it can help regulate sebum production.

squalane - non-greasy oil soluble emollient that is capable of mixing with sebum present on the skin. This may help reduce the viscosity of sebum to minimize its greasy feel. this is a light weight clear oil with no odor.

capric triglyceride - non-greasy and light weight. works as an emollient, dispersing agent and solvent.

Writing a recipe for oily/acne prone facial oil

If you need more practice go ahead and try transferring the above formula to a 10 gram batch.

neem oil - .5 grams
hempseed oil - 1 gram
safflower oil - 3 grams
rosehip seed oil - 1 gram
squalane - 1 gram
capric triglycerides - 3.45 grams
vitamin e oil - .05 grams

Directions; mix all the oils together and add into a dropper bottle or dispensing pump bottle.

Choosing ingredients for an oil based makeup primer

Just for fun, I wanted to try to make an oil based primer. I did a little research and I found that oil based makeup primers are totally a thing, but don't seem to be as popular as water based primers. So the goal for this primer was to keep it as dry as possible. Which to me, meant I needed to focus on using a high percentage of those "silicone" alternatives I keep talking about. Natrasil, coco caprylate, and neossance hemisqualane. Even though these ingredients are oil soluble they don't feel oily, they feel more watery and I didn't want this primer to be super oily feeling. I decided to use natrasil at the highest recommended usage rate 25%. I also chose to coco caprylate as the highest recommended usage rate 25%. I didn't want to use neossance hemisqualane as I like to save this ingredient for hair care recipes. (it has lots of benefits for the hair) I recently purchased this new ingredient that a viewer recommended to me, luxglide N350. This is supposably a "natural" alternative to dimethicone. It's recommended usage rate is 1-3% and I chose to use it at 2% in this formula. I also wanted to add in some squalane as it has great spreadability and is a very light weight oil emollient that blends well with our natural sebum. I used FSS olive squalane at it's highest recommended usage rate 10%. I also chose to add in .5% vitamin e oil and 10% rosehip oil because rosehip oil is one of my favorite oils. It is great for all skin types, it absorbs quickly and I just wanted to have some kind of oil in this serum with some lovely benefits for the skin. Lastly, I filled the rest of this formula up with capric triglyceride and I used it at 27.5%. So lets take a look at the finished formula.

Oil based makeup primer formula

2% luxglide N350
25% coco caprylate
25% natrasil
10% squalane
10% rosehip oil
27.5% capric triglyceride
.5% vitamin e oil

Oil based makeup primer recipe

Once again, if you want more practice try transferring this recipe into a 10 gram batch.

luxglide N350 - .2 grams
coco caprylate - 2.5 grams
natrasil - 2.5 grams
squalane - 1 gram
rosehip oil - 1 gram
capric triglyceride - 2.75 grams
vitamin e oil - .05 grams

Directions; mix all the oils together and add into a dropper bottle or dispensing pump bottle

first impressions - overall, I like it. It absorbs into the skin so quickly and feels really good on the skin. I feel as if the application of my foundation was pretty similar to when I use my water based primer. If anything, I think the oil based primer made the application process feel a little easier since my skin had more slip to it. Typically when I wear foundation I find that I get flakey spots on my nose and in the middle of my forehead, which is very annoying! I was hoping this oil based primer would help, but unfortunately it did not. I believe this has nothing to do with the primer, but with my skin type and possibly my foundation, since this always happens. My skins very dry at the moment since it's winter here in Ohio, but I think I'm going to keep using this primer cause I really like it! My skin looks bright, dewy, and over all, looks great! I'm not sure if people with oily skin would like this primer as I think it did add a little extra dewiness to my skin, but it's definitely worth a shot and I like dewy skin. Like I said this doesn't feel greasy on the skin at all. I used about 4 drops for my entire face and gently patted it into my skin.

Thoughts on the other facial oils

facial oil for dry/mature skin - overall I wasn't the biggest fan of this serum. Yes, I do have pretty dry skin, but the dry parts are more around the T zone of my face. Everywhere else is pretty normal and this serum just felt way to heavy on my cheek area. If I were to formulate this for normal to dry skin I would use less apricot oil (or get rid of it) use less meadowfoam oil and replace with either coco caprylate, capric triglyceride, or natrasil. Personally I really like capric triglyceride in facial serums, so I'd probably go with that. I do have a few people in mind that I know would love this facial oil. So if you have dry mature skin I definitely recommend this facial oil. I personally, just wasn't the biggest fan. I'll probably mix it with one of my water based serum. That sounds lovely :)

facial oil for oily/acne prone skin - this oil absorbs into the skin so nicely! I was actually very proud of how this facial oil turned out. I didn't think I would be able to come up with one that absorbed into the skin so easily. I really think this is a good starting formula if you have oil/acne prone skin. Of course you may want to tweek the recipe yourself. I'm not sure how my skin would react to this facial oil if I were to use it daily for a while, but I do know it felt nice on my skin and only minutes after I applied it to my skin I couldn't even tell I just put oil on my face, unlike the other side of my face that had the facial oil for dry mature skin.

Facial oil for dry to normal skin types

I'm not going to actually make this formula, but I thought I would share a formula if I were to make a facial oil for myself. It would probably look something like this.