No matter what product you are formulating, the formula has to be written in percents and the entire formula needs to equal 100%.
You first start with creating your lotion formula, not the recipe, there is a difference between a formula and a recipe.
A lotion formula is typically broken up into three phases
Water phase - contains all of the water soluble ingredients that aren’t heat sensitive. (Humectants, distilled water, hydrosols, etc)
Oil phase - contains all of the oil soluble ingredients that aren’t heat sensitive. (Plant oils, emollients, occlusives, butters, etc)
Cool down phase - contains all of the heat sensitive ingredients (for example the preservative, botanical extracts, & vitamins like niacinamide and panthenol)
Prior to this video I created a video all about the things that you need to consider before creating a lotion. This video is super helpful if you are just starting out.
When writing a formula I like to start with the cool down phase. The reason I start with the cool down phase is because I typically like to choose my actives and my preservative first for any product I formulate. The reason why is because typically these are the most finicky ingredients and I want to have these ingredients in mind when choosing all of the other ingredients for the formulas.
So for this formula, we are going to keep things extremely beginner friendly. This lotion will also be okay to use on the face and the body.
Cool Down phase
Starting with the cool down phase. I first am going to pick out my preservative. There are two preservatives I'm debating between. Either Liquid Germall Plus because this is extremely easy to find and beginner friendly, or Geogard 221 because this is EcoCert and it's pretty easy to use for beginners.
To figure out how much liquid germall plus to use, along with any other ingredient you want to use, read the description of the ingredient from the supplier you purchase it from. Liquid germal plus's Recommended Use Rate is between 0.1 - 0.5% and geogard 221’s usage rate is between 0.2 to 1.1%. With any preservative I always recommend using the highest suggested usage rate. So I will be using 1.1% Geogard 221 in my cool down phase.
I also want to add in a vitamin, so I am going to use DL panthenol, which is vitamin B5 and also a humectant. You can purchase this in a liquid form or in a powder. The suggested usage rate for the powder is between 1-5% and I am going to use it at 2%. So now I have 2% DL panthenol in my cool down phase.
Since DL panthenol is a powder I am going to have to dissolve this as well. So now I need to add some kind of solvent in my cool down phase. So I am also going to be including 5% distilled water to help with dissolving the DL panthenol in the cool down phase. The reason I chose 5% is simply because I have had experience with doing this and I have found that 5% is enough for me to dissolve 2% DL panthenol. I also wanted to include a powder in the cool down phase just to show you guys how you go about adding and dissolving this into an emulsion.
One last ingredient I want to add into the cool down phase is in antioxidants. I think antioxidants are always essential to add into any product you can. And they are definitely essential to products that contain plant oils because it helps with preventing the oil's from going rancid. It really depends on where you buy your vitamin E, so check the suggested usage rate for yours. I will be using mine at 0.5%. Now we can move on to the oil phase.
Oil phase
For this phase I like to start with choosing my oils/emollients first. Again you want to keep in mind who this moisturizer is for, what skin type, and what the final sensory feel is going to be, so you don't need to choose the same ingredients that I'm choosing. But this moisturizer I’m making should be good for normal to dry skin types.
I'm going to choose 15% jojoba oil simply because this is an easy to find oil, it's similar to our skins natural sebum and I think most skin types enjoy this oil. I’m keeping the ingredients minimal so we are only going to use jojoba oil. Feel free to use different oils here or even some butters if you would like.
Next, I am going to move on to the emulsifier. I am going to use ritamulse SCG/Ecomulse. I said this in a previous video titled (Best Emulsifiers for Beginners) that ritamulse SCG/ecomulse is my number 1 recommended emulsifier for beginners if you want it to be Ecocert. I’ll be using it at 7%. Again if you're wondering how I chose 7%, all you need to do is read the description to any ingredient that you purchased from, this would be called the formulating guidelines, and it explains everything you need to know in order to formulate with it. The ingredient supplier should be providing suggested usage rates. If you take a look at formulatorsampleshop.com, which is where I purchased my Ritamulse SCG, it suggests to use it at 5% for lotions & 8% for creams. So I'm using it somewhere in between there.
Now you may be wondering about the occlusive, if you want you can add in a different, or I guess I should say additional occlusive. But if you take a look at the ingredient list for ritamulse SCG/ecomulse it is Glyceryl Stearate, Cetearyl Alcohol, & Sodium Stearyl Lactylate. Glyceryl Stearate & Cetearyl Alcohol are both occlusives, so we do have an occlusive in this formula already. And that completes our oil phase.
Water Phase
Now it’s time for the water phase. My go to humectant is always glycerin, so I'll be using that at 7%. You can do a blend of humectants if you would like, but I am keeping things minimal for those of you who don't have a lot of ingredients. so we're going to stop there for the humectants.
Remember our formula needs to add up to 100%. So before we can figure out how much distilled water we need, we need to add up all of the percentages we currently have and subtract that from 100. So all of the percentages we currently have add up to 37.6 So 100 - 37.6 = 62.4 So that means we need 62.4% distilled water in the water phase.
& you just created your own lotion formula just like the professionals with ecocert compliant ingredients and ingredients, that for most people, would be considered “natural” but this depends on your definition of natural.
Final Formula
Phase A (water phase)
7% Glycerin
62.4% Distilled Water
Phase B (oil phase)
7% Ritamulse SCG/Ecomulse
15% Jojoba Oil
Phase C (cool down phase)
1.1% Geogard 221
2% DL panthenol
5% Distilled Water
0.5% Vitamin E (Tocopherol)
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