Disclaimer; this is part of my formulating of beginners series, which means I will being going into long explanations about everything, so even beginners can understand. Check out the rest of my beginners series if you haven't yet.
What is a Body Milk???
When I think of a body milk I imagine a very light weight, non greasy, almost water like viscosity type of body lotion. But you may be surprised to know, that isn’t necessarily true. There really isn’t any specific way you HAVE to make a body milk, the truth is that it’s just a marketing term. Realistically you can make or sell any body lotion and call it a body milk.
That’s actually how a lot of products are nowadays. The skincare industry keeps creating new marketing terms to help sell and market their products and make them stand out from their competitors.
So it can be difficult to really narrow down these types of topics to just a few simple formulas, because there are just endless possibilities to almost every type of product.To keep things simple for this video we will be making and talking about very light weight thin viscosity body milks because I think most of us would agree, that is what we think of when we imagine a body milk.
What is in a Body Milk???
Once you understand what a product is, the next thing you need to figure out is, what’s in it?
First off, body milks don’t contain actual milk. If you add cows milk, oat milk, coconut milk, or any other kind of milk you drink, then your lotion will go bad very very quickly. So no actual milk can be used for these body milks. If you want the properties of milk you can use cosmetic grade milk ingredients that you came buy from cosmetic ingredient suppliers. Click here for some examples.
Just like lotions, body milks are “oil in water emulsions”. This means there is a higher percentage of water, with a lower percentage of oil mixed into it so they don’t separate. Oil and water don’t mix, so in order to get the two to mix you need to use an emulsifier. I have a patreon exclusive video I filmed a while ago on emulsifiers if you would like to check it out. Blog version here
What are Emulsifiers
Here is short explanation of emulsifiers; they are usually waxy white or off white flakes or little round balls that are added into the oil phase and heated up so they can be melted. Once they are melted you add in the heated water phase and mix with an immersion blender and you immediately get a while milky concoction. As it cools it starts to thicken and then turns into your lotion, body milk, cream, moisturizer, conditioner, etc.
There are so many products that are made by using emulsifiers, so this is just to name a few. I also want to note that not ALL emulsifiers are white or off white flakes, little round balls or pellets, they can come in liquid form. But the waxy white or off white flakes or little round balls are usually the easiest to find and most commonly used emulsifiers.
So anyways, that’s an emulsifier, we need to pick one to use for a body milk. So lets discuss which emulsifier is best for a low viscosity thin body milk formula.
What Emulsifier do we use for Body Milks??
Like I said at the beginning you can call any lotion a body milk, so realistically we could use any emulsifier here, but we are simplifying things for the sake of beginners. So what emulsifier can we use to make low viscosity emulsions?
I think the easiest emulsifier for you to use would be lotionpro 165, simulsolv 165, Glyceryl Stearate Self Emulsifying Blend (GMS SE), or CreamMaker Blend. (probably has other names too)
These are all actually the same exact ingredient but sold under different names from different suppliers. So these would technically be called their “trade name” and it’s important to take note of their INCI name to see what is actually in these emulsifiers. The INCI name is actually Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG 100 stearate. Which means it is a blend of two different emulsifiers. These two emulsifiers will help create a stable emulsion, but with a thin viscosity. You can find the INCI name by reading the description of the ingredient. You will also find a recommended usage rate. That means you want to use the emulsifier some where between these percentages. I always recommend doing small batch experiments to see what percent works best for you.
If you remember from my previous posts in this beginner series, every formula we write has to add up to 100% so that means we know the Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG 100 stearate will be taking up some where between 1 - 5%. Your supplier might have a different suggested usage rate, that is fine. Use it within their suggested usage rate.
Writing our formula
Our body milk formula will be divided up into 3 sections. Phase A, phase B and phase C. Our formula also needs to add up to 100% and we use the formula to create our recipe. I will explain how you use the formula to create a recipe later on in this post. Just remember that formulas are written in percents and NEED to add up to 100% no matter what.
Phase A will be our heated water phase. This includes any ingredient that is water soluble and heat safe. If you aren’t sure if an ingredient is water soluble or heat safe, read the description of your ingredient or message the supplier. They should provide all the info you need about an ingredient. Go watch my entire beginners series if you don’t know what I’m talking about here.
Phase B will include any oil soluble ingredients that are heat safe, which would be your emulsifier; Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG 100 stearate, our plant oils/emollient esters, or butters. If you don’t know what emollient esters are then go back and watch my body butters for beginners video. In short, they are basically similar to plant oils/carrier oils (olive oil, sunflower oil, apricot kernel oil, etc) but they are much less greasy and heavy on the skin, usually they are clear, more light weight, and are used in lotions, moisturizers, and creams that are marketed as “oil free”. So if you want an oil free body milk then an emollient ester is what you would want you use. Or if you are some one with oily acne prone skin and want an oil free face lotion, you would use an emollient ester in your heated oil phase instead of a plant oil like olive oil or something.
I also think, since body milks are more light weight and they can be a bit harder to keep stable, and what I mean by stable is emulsified. (Remember emulsified means water and oil mixed together) So if the emulsion fails, that means the oil and water will separate resulting in an unstable or failed emulsion.
So using an emollient ester could help you create a more stable emulsion because they are easier to keep emulsified than plant oils/carrier oils. I also want to mention that even some plant oils/carrier oil are easier to keep emulsified than other. Some oils are just heavier than others. So it is important to keep in mind what your choice of oil is when making a body milk. The choice of oil could make or break your emulsion.
Then phase C is going to include our preservative and any other ingredients that aren’t heat safe. You always NEED to add a preservative to any product that includes water. There is not a way around this. You can’t make products that contain water without a preservative. Preservatives are 100% safe and will keep you and your skin safe. If we don’t use a preservative our product will immediately start growing mold and bacteria and you do not want to be rubbing that all over your skin. You could give yourself a serious infection. If you are a beginner and don’t know anything about preservative go watch my video on preservative I go into all the details over there.
Since this post is for beginners the preservative I am going to recommend you using is liquid germall plus. It’s the easier preservative to use for beginners. You only need 0.5% of it and you just add it directly into the product once it’s cooled. A lot of other preservatives are harder to use in emulsions as they can break emulsions which means it will make the emulsion separate. Or a lot of preservative are way to pH sensitive. All preservatives are pH sensitive, but some of them have a very small window of pH levels it can be in. If you don’t know anything about pH I have a video all about that. Go watch it pH is one of the most important things to understand when formulating and no I can’t give a short explanation of it, it’s too much to explain. So go watch my video all on pH.
If you don’t want to use liquid germall plus the second preservative I would recommend is Euxyl PE 9010. This preservative is even lip safe! So if you aren’t comfortable with liquid germall plus than Euxyl PE 9010 is a good alternative. It can be used in pH levels up to 12, so it’s not very pH sensitive and you only need to use it at 1%. If you want to use an ecocert approved preservative then I recommend Geogard ECT, Euxyl k 903, Tristate Eco, or Geogard 221. I even have a video on my patreon of me experimenting with these and talking about how to use them. Watch Here. Ecocert preservatives are harder to use compared to other preservative, so this is why I don’t like to use them in beginner friendly products.
So in short, phase A contains water soluble heat safe ingredients, phase B includes oil soluble heat safe ingredients, and phase C contains any oil or water soluble heat sensitive ingredients.
So here is s very simple beginner friendly body milk formula using minimal ingredients.
Body Milk w/ Minimal Ingredients
Phase A
74.5% Distilled water
10% Glycerin
Phase B
5% lotionpro 165
10% caprylic capric triglyceride
Phase C
0.5% liquid germall plus
Directions;
Combine all ingredients in phase A in a heat safe container.
Tare scale and write down how much phase A weighs.
Combine all ingredients in phase B in a separate heat safe container.
Fill a pan with about an inch of water and place it over your stove top on medium heat. (this is called a water bath)
Cover both phase A and phase B with foil and place in the water bath.
Heat until phase B has melted.
Once phase B has melted, remove phase A from heat and place on scale and replace any water that evaporated. Normally it's about 1 gram.
Remove phase B from heat and then pour phase A into phase B
Mix with immersion blender.
Once cooled to 104°F / 40°C add in the phase C ingredients and mix.
Check and adjust pH to between 4.5 - 5.5 (only add 1 drop at a time)
How to thicken a Body Milk
If this is way to thin you can easily make this a little thicker by adding in a thickening agent. I think most beginners would immediately think of adding in bees wax or some other wax for thickening, but honestly waxes just aren’t the best for a body lotion because they do have more drag to them. Meaning they are harder to spread onto the skin. Now that isn’t to say you can’t use a wax, I just think you will get a product you like much more if you stick with using a fatty acid or fatty alcohol instead, but don’t let the name scare you. I’ve talked about these so many times on my channel, but in short these aren’t actually acids or alcohols. They won’t burn or dry out the skin they are actually emollients, which means they moisturize the skin. They are also derived from natural ingredients most of the time as well. So many organic and “natural” products are using fatty acids and fatty alcohols. So this isn’t anything dangerous. A few common fatty acids and fatty alcohol are Cetyl Alcohol, Cetearyl Alcohol, Behenyl Alcohol, Stearic Acid, etc. My favorite to use is cetyl alcohol, and that’s what I recommend you using if you want to thicken your body milk a bit. I think it would be smart to just do some experiment batches until you get the viscosity you like. So you can take the formula we used before and subtract 1% from the distilled water and add in 1% cetyl alcohol to the phase B since cetyl alcohol is oil soluble. You can find this info by reading the description from the supplier you purchased the cetyl alcohol from.
Body Milk Formula w/ Cetyl Alcohol
Phase A
73.5% Distilled water
10% Glycerin
Phase B
5% lotionpro 165
10% caprylic capric triglyceride
1% Cetyl Alcohol
Phase C
0.5% liquid germall plus
Directions;
Combine all ingredients in phase A in a heat safe container.
Tare scale and write down how much phase A weighs.
Combine all ingredients in phase B in a separate heat safe container.
Fill a pan with about an inch of water and place it over your stove top on medium heat. (this is called a water bath)
Cover both phase A and phase B with foil and place in the water bath.
Heat until phase B has melted.
Once phase B has melted, remove phase A from heat and place on scale and replace any water that evaporated. Normally it's about 1 gram.
Remove phase B from heat and then pour phase A into phase B
Mix with immersion blender.
Once cooled to 104°F / 40°C add in the phase C ingredients and mix.
Check and adjust pH to between 4.5 - 5.5 (only add 1 drop at a time)
If you are just testing this out make a small 100 gram test recipe to see if you like the viscosity. You don’t want to make too large of a batch because what if this isn’t the viscosity you want? You don’t want to waste to much of your ingredients. So stick with small batches when you experiment. If this still isn’t thick enough for you, do another test batch and increase the cetyl alcohol to 2% or maybe even up to 3% or 4%. I think you get the point by now. Just make sure your formula always adds up to 100%
Making Body Milks more Stable
Like I said before, since body milks are so thin they aren’t quite as stable compared to other lotions. They are more likely to separate over time, so how can we fix this issue? This isn’t so much of an issue when you are just making products for yourself, but what if you wanted to sell a body milk, well then you should add in some kind of gelling agent/polymer to the water phase.
There are “natural” polymers and there are synthetic polymers. I’ll talk about both.
Adding a gelling agent/polymer will thicken the water phase into a gel making it harder for the oils to separate out. There are a lot of different polymers/gelling agents out there that you could choose. So lets discuss our options and see what’s best.
Natural Polymers
The first gelling agents are “natural” polymers. These are xanthan gum soft, caesalpinia spinosa gum (tara gum), Guar Gum, & Siligel to name a few. Siligel is actually a combination of a few ingredients, including xanthan gum and it has emulsifying properties. Natural Gums can sometimes feel tacky on the skin though. If you have any of these gums on hand you can try using them in your water phase. I would mix them with the glycerin first then add in your water. If you decide to use xanthan gum soft, siligel or Tara Gum I would try 0.5%, as for any other gums, I’m not to sure as I don’t have any of them to experiment with. So read what the suggested usage rate is for the “natural” polymer you have and try some experiments. Here is an example formula you could use.
Body Milk w/ Natural Polymers
Phase A
0.5% xanthan gum soft
10% Glycerin
74% Distilled water
Phase B
5% lotionpro 165
10% caprylic capric triglyceride
Phase C
0.5% liquid germall plus
Directions;
First combine the glycerin and xanthan gum before adding in the distilled water and mixing. Combine in a heat safe container. You should get a thickened gel.
Tare scale and write down how much phase A weighs.
Combine all ingredients in phase B in a separate heat safe container.
Fill a pan with about an inch of water and place it over your stove top on medium heat. (this is called a water bath)
Cover both phase A and phase B with foil and place in the water bath.
Heat until phase B has melted.
Once phase B has melted, remove phase A from heat and place on scale and replace any water that evaporated. Normally it's about 1 gram.
Remove phase B from heat and then pour phase A into phase B
Mix with immersion blender.
Once cooled to 104°F / 40°C add in the phase C ingredients and mix.
Check and adjust pH to between 4.5 - 5.5 (only add 1 drop at a time)
Synthetic Polymers
The other section of polymers/gelling agents you could use to help stabilize the emulsion would be synthetic polymers. There are so many different types of synthetic polymers, so to name a few, you could use sepimax zen, sepinov EMT 10, carbomer, or aristoflex AVC.
Except with these polymers you would add them to the oil phase. Usually polymers have a much better sensory feel on the skin. They feel more like water on the skin and don’t leave a film on your skin unlike the “natural” gum gelling agents. So if you want a very light sensory feel or tend to find products to be tacky or sticky then stick with a synthetic polymer here.
Out of all of the synthetic polymers I listed I’d personally recommend using either sepimax zen, or sepinov EMT 10, because not only do they gel/thicken, they also help emulsify. So they aren’t only stabilizing the emulsion, but actually emulsifying. Sepimax zen claims to emulsify up to 25% oils when accompanied with a natural polymer like xanthan gum. So you can combine synthetic and natural polymers for more stability. Sepinov EMT 10 claims to emulsify up to 50% oil. So either one would be a good option. Something to keep in mind when you are working with these synthetic polymers is that they don’t really work with all ingredients. Sometimes certain ingredients can thin them out, but not always. It really can depend on the overall formulation, but here are a few ingredients that might cause some issues for you. It doesn’t mean they will, but it’s possible. High amounts of aloe vera, hydrolyzed proteins, sodium PCA, sodium lactate, and cationic surfactants. Now I have used aloe vera with sepimax zen with no problem, but I do know it can cause issues with carbomer specifically, so it could cause issues with these other polymers as well. And by issues I mean, it thins it out. I have a lot of experience with sepimax zen and sodium carbomer specifically so I can really only talk from experience with those two.
I did do a test batch using 0.5% sepimax zen and I loved it! But I didn't have enough to make a big batch on camera, but I wanted to share the formula anyway.
Body Milk w/ Sepimax Zen
Phase A
10% Glycerin
74% Distilled water
Phase B
5% lotionpro 165
10% caprylic capric triglyceride
0.5% sepimax zen
Phase C
0.5% liquid germall plus
Directions;
Combine all ingredients in phase A in a heat safe container.
Tare scale and write down how much phase A weighs.
Combine all ingredients in phase B in a separate heat safe container.
Fill a pan with about an inch of water and place it over your stove top on medium heat. (this is called a water bath)
Cover both phase A and phase B with foil and place in the water bath.
Heat until phase B has melted.
Once phase B has melted, remove phase A from heat and place on scale and replace any water that evaporated. Normally it's about 1 gram.
Remove phase B from heat and then pour phase A into phase B
Mix with immersion blender.
Once cooled to 104°F / 40°C add in the phase C ingredients and mix.
Check and adjust pH to between 4.5 - 5.5 (only add 1 drop at a time)
Body Milk w/ Aristroflex AVC
Phase A
10% Glycerin
74.3% Distilled water
Phase B
5% lotionpro 165
10% caprylic capric triglyceride
0.2% aristoflex AVC
Phase C
0.5% liquid germall plus
Directions;
Combine all ingredients in phase A in a heat safe container.
Tare scale and write down how much phase A weighs.
Combine all ingredients in phase B in a separate heat safe container.
Fill a pan with about an inch of water and place it over your stove top on medium heat. (this is called a water bath)
Cover both phase A and phase B with foil and place in the water bath.
Heat until phase B has melted.
Once phase B has melted, remove phase A from heat and place on scale and replace any water that evaporated. Normally it's about 1 gram.
Remove phase B from heat and then pour phase A into phase B
Mix with immersion blender.
Once cooled to 104°F / 40°C add in the phase C ingredients and mix.
Check and adjust pH to between 4.5 - 5.5 (only add 1 drop at a time)
Ecocert Body Milk
PEG 100 Stearate isn't Ecocert, that means if you want an ecocert product you can't use lotionpro 165, simulsolv 165, Glyceryl Stearate Self Emulsifying Blend (GMS SE), or CreamMaker Blend.
Instead I think a good Ecocert alternative would be Ritamulse SCG / Ecomulse, same ingredient sold under different names. There is also Montanov 202 which is natural, doesn't say Ecocert though. But that might be a good alternative for you too. I just didn't have any to test out.
But I came up with a formula to share for those looking for an Ecocert version. I did use Siligel and I am not 100% sure if this is ecocert or not. So you will need to look into that.
Phase A
10% Glycerin
0.5% Siligel
74% Distilled water
Phase B
4% Ritamulse SCG / Ecomulse
10% caprylic capric triglyceride
Phase C
1.5% Euxyl K 903
Directions;
First combine the glycerin and siligel before adding in the distilled water and mixing. Combine in a heat safe container. You should get a slightly thickened gel.
Tare scale and write down how much phase A weighs.
Combine all ingredients in phase B in a separate heat safe container.
Fill a pan with about an inch of water and place it over your stove top on medium heat. (this is called a water bath)
Cover both phase A and phase B with foil and place in the water bath.
Heat until phase B has melted.
Once phase B has melted, remove phase A from heat and place on scale and replace any water that evaporated. Normally it's about 1 gram.
Remove phase B from heat and then pour phase A into phase B
Mix with immersion blender.
Once cooled to 104°F / 40°C add in the phase C ingredients and mix.
Check and adjust pH to between 4.5 - 5.5 (only add 1 drop at a time)
The Euxyl K 903 lowers the pH a lot and mine came out to 4.5 so I did not need to lower it. But you may need to raise it. So watch this video if you need to learn how to raise it.
How to transfer a Formula into a Recipe
First you need to decide how much you want to make. If you want to make 1,000 gram batch of body milk then that is called your BATCH SIZE. So our batch size is 1,000 grams. Now we need to figure out what 74.5% of 1,000 is. This way we can create our recipe.
You could use a formula calculator or you can do the math.
To find what 74.5% of 1,000 is, start by moving the decimal space up to spaces in 74.5. So now you have .745 Multiple .745 by 1,000 which equals 745. That means you need 745 grams of Distilled Water for your body milk.
Or you could just google, "what is 74.5% of 1,000" if you don't want to do the math.
Hope you enjoyed! What do you want to see next in the formulating for beginners series?
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