Winter time in Australia! Let’s slug our skin with oil to prevent dryness. This body cream features 20% of oil without greasiness. I also use heavy oil such as almond oil and macadamia oil. I really love high percentage oil as winter cause skin dryness.
The secret of our creamy body cream is polymer. There are many trade name of this type of polymer (Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer) such as ultrez 20, ultrez 21, Carbopol® ETD 2020. I purchased this from small supplier so I am not sure the trade name for our polymer. This polymer is synthetic ingredients to enhance texture feel of products.
I will discuss all raw materials you needed including its substitution.
I added emulsifier as well so it can hold more oil. In this body cream, I used blend of cetearyl alcohol and ceteareth 20 along with cetyl alcohol as I love to build body in this cream. It provides us with buttery feel with cetyl alcohol. You can choose not to use cetyl alcohol at all.
I use 15% of macadamia oil and 15% of almond oil because I prefer heavy and thick oil during winter time. If you want to have light oil feel in your cream, you can use squalane or caprylic/capric triglyceride.
Dimethicone is really optional, we found that dimethicone really help to reduce soapy effect. You can modify the formulation by using more dimethicone.
Our preservatives is blend of dehydroacetic acid and benzyl alcohol. It does have some funky smell. I bought this because I am very curious as recently most of products in the market are using this preservatives. You can mask this smell with essential oil. I recommend to use 0.5% essential oil during cool down phase.
Once all wax has melted, you need to combine water phase and oil phase together. In this step, make sure they have the same temperature. Stir them and let them cool before adding any cool down materials.
You might notice when you combine water and oil phase, it is very runny. You can let them sit overnight or mix them on cool water bath (put bowl with water and ice cubes).
Body Cream
Materials
Phase I
- 56.8 %x Distilled water
- 0.2 % Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer
Phase II
- 15 % Almond Oil
- 15 % Macadamia Oil
- 0.5 % Dimethicone 50cst
- 5 % Cetearyl Alcohol and Ceteareth 20 blend
- 2 % Cetyl alcohol
Phase III
- 0.5 % Vitamin E Tocopherol
- 1 % Preservatives Plantaserv A
Instructions
Combine all materials
- Combine phase I in glass beaker
- Combine phase II in glass beaker
Heat to 70 degree
- Heat phase I and II until the wax is melted
Combine heated phase
- Combine the heated phase I and II. Stir them until homogenous
Cool down phase
- When it is cool, add preservatives and tocopherol
- Check pH of your final products, adjust accordingly. You may need to increase pH to thicken the product
Notes
- You can choose any oil of your choice
- You may need pH adjuster to increase pH at the end
- Most of polymer require high pH to thicken the products
- We did not use any pH adjuster
- Remember to always check pH of your products
- You need to measure combine phase I before heat them.
- Once it is heated, the water may evaporate
- You need to add back the water to heated phase I