Saturday, February 27, 2010

Lotions and Potions....

I love making my soap and feel that every single batch is an amazing and magical experience, even the ones that don't turn out as I expect....or perhaps especially those batches *smile*.
 
Something I haven't really be drawn to do and have even been a little afraid of up until now, is lotion making.  Why?  Well I certainly worried that I wouldn't be able to keep my area as sterile as I have read it needs to be; I am a kitchen soaper and know that, for soapmaking, as long as my bench and utensils are clean I am good to go.  I also didn't want to get involved in having to add preservatives to products (soap doesn't need any!) -  Which preservative to use?  How much to use?  How can I know the ph factor of my lotion so the preservative works.....?  You can see how my mind was working.  Thinking on all the negatives I could conjure up.

Well, yesterday I finally bit the bullet and made my very first emulsified lotion.  Basically, creams and lotions are an emulsion of oil and water, you see.  I decided to use my favourite soaping oils as a starting point and created Nourishing Skin Nectar featuring cocoa butter as well as rice bran, avocado and camellia tea seed oils combined with aloe vera juice.  I added a small amount of carrot tissue infused oil for its skin properties too....an added bonus was the lovely colour it added to my lotion.  Have a look:



I learned that lotions are rather easy to make and keeping my work area sterile is much easier than I expected.  Now I am working on a Balancing Skin Nectar recipe *smile*.

Enjoy your weekend!

6 comments:

Amy@10th Ave. said...

Congratulations on your first lotion! I'm not ready for those yet. :)

Clare Marie said...

I love how one day you're scared and now you're in tweak mode - I told you it was easy!

It looks and sounds wonderful Tanya .. Congrats here's to many more emulsions :D

Topcat said...

Thank you ladies! Yes, Clare you were right ;)

Patti said...

Congratulations! It looks lovely! Sounds like wonderful ingredients too!

Holly said...

It looks wonderful and creamy! I'm still scared to try but you're helping me get the courage up here. :)

Topcat said...

Thank you Milla & Holly!

Holly, it is fairly simple if you follow Krissy's instructions. The only thing I would do differently next time is start with a bigger test batch size. I used total of 300g ingredients and it was just too small to heat properly or blend at first. I will use double that amount for my next one :)