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Emulsifying Hand Cream advice needed
I’m trying to make a light and airy hand cream from honey, aloe gel, oil and water. I have a homogenizing mixer so shear intensity is there but I am having issues getting my proportions right and keep getting to watery or to oily. Can’t seem to find that happy place!
Any help, even general advice for emulsifying happily accepted.
Thanks!
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11 Replies
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the root cause of the problem is that you don’t have anything in the mixture which can chemically or physically emulsify the oil into the water; you need a surface-active material of some kind
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Honey is going to make it the very opposite of “light and airy”. Instead, think sticky and heavy. As Bill said above, you need an emulsifier.
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You need both an emulsifier and Rheology modifier and you can do both using a carbomer such as Ultrez 10 neutralizing the latter with equal parts by weight with triethanolamine or if you choose another base to Ph 5.5-.6.0.Does not require a lot of shear to produce cream with good sensorials.
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Tip: an easy emulsifier for beginners is Emulsifying Wax NF (INCI: Cetearyl Alcohol and Polysorbate 60).
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ok, so here is the deal. We got a hand cream (purchased) and I have been reading the ingredients and thinking the same thing - no way without an emulsifier. At this point I would say I’m about 80% sure their label is complete fabrication.
How can you list honey as the first ingredient and aloe gel as the second and have a pure white very light cream?Thank you all for the help. Not sure what to do now, if anything.
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Post the product. In many cases, the ingredient declaration could be incomplete or the emulsifier is in there, but it requires more experience with the raw materials to see it in the listing.
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If, for example, it’s this or something similar to this:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/195354106/organic-hands-cream-honey-and-aloe-honey
Materials: raw honey, aloe vera, olive oil, almond oil, geranium blossoms water, rosemary, grapefruit
There are significant issues with the accuracy of this ingredient listing.
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From BobxChemist’s link, down the page, they list the actual ingredient list versus their misleading “marketing” description. It makes a good bit more sense despite still being inaccurate regarding INCI names.
Ingredients: Geranium Blossoms Water, 100% Bio Olive Oil, Almond Oil, Pure Unrifined Beeswax, Vegetable Emulsifier Wax, Raw Honey, Bio Aloe Vera Gel, Grapefruit Essential Oil, Rosemary Essential Oil.
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these people do not have better list. Also I have seen this product labeled differently and I am suspecting its a pre-made cream just with a different label from a mass-producer.
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Do you have a jar or can you get one? Aren’t they obliged to put the INCI names in a LOI on the package?Edit: I see that you’ve purchased the cream. So they can get away with an incorrect LOI on the package?
Wow, those homemade products on Etsy are expensive! 😮 -
“Wow, those homemade products on Etsy are expensive! :-o”
Noticed the same thing!
Time to turn the kitchen into a “lab”? lol
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