Getting out of bed at this time of year is hard. I have an amazing electric bed warmer (seriously, if you live somewhere cold, getting one is a must) that I use to pre-heat my bed before climbing between the sheets each night, and I run it on low all night so I’m guaranteed to be roasty-toasty-warm. It’s utterly brilliant and I love it. But it does make getting out of bed extra hard because my bed is a super delicious cocoon, and outside of bed is… not. Not being in bed requires wearing pants and socks and all kinds of other things that are not a duvet, and that’s a bummer. Anyhow, this Morning Glory Foaming Facial Cleanser makes getting out of bed a bit easier. With its gentle, creamy lather and minty pop it’s like a shot of caffeine to the face, and with it waiting for me in the bathroom, I’m less prone to stay in bed until the sun comes up (which is quite late these days). I think you’ll like it.
I’ve been continuing to have fun playing with surfactants, so I thought I’d try a liquid one in combination with the powdered ones I’ve had fun with recently. One of the major bonuses of liquid surfactants is their liquidy state, meaning we don’t have to be concerned with dissolving them into our concoctions. The one we’ll be using today, Cocamidopropyl Betaine can also be used to speed up the melting/dissolving speed of sodium cocoyl isethionate (SCI), so that’s doubly awesome.
Cocamidopropyl Betaine is a secondary surfactant that helps create mild surfactant blends (it actually increases the mildness of other surfactants!) and, as we’re doing, is useful for dissolving powdered surfactants. It’s a relatively thin golden liquid that smells characteristically surfactant-y (soapy, basically).
Another major difference in using Cocamidopropyl Betaine instead of SLSa (as I do in my Meadowfoam Mango Creamy Facial Cleanser) is the consistency of the final product. You’ll combine a gelatinous blob of SCI + Cocamidopropyl Betaine with a thick cream and suddenly you’ll have a rather thin lotion—something perfect for a GoToob or a 120mL/4oz plastic pump-top bottle. While this Morning Glory Foaming Facial Cleanser is, in many ways, very similar to my Meadowfoam Mango Creamy Facial Cleanser, that simple swap gives us a product with a significantly different consistency because SLSa is a great thickener, and while Cocamidopropyl Betaine is a good thickener, it’s not as strong as SLSa. Cool!
The final product is a great mid-thickness lotion consistency with an incredibly creamy, gentle low lather. A squirt of this in your palm combined with a bit of warm water makes for a luxuriously clean (but not too dry) face in no time, and the menthol-y tingle is just the thing to perk you up first thing. I think you’ll love it!
Morning Glory Foaming Facial Cleanser
47g | 1.64oz water
3g | 0.1oz vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)10g | 0.35oz Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) (USA / Canada / UK / Aus / New Zealand / Nigeria)
15g | 0.53oz Cocamidopropyl Betaine (USA / Canada)5g | 0.17oz complete emulsifying wax (not beeswax!) (I used Emulsifying Wax NF)
9g | 0.32oz refined shea butter (USA / Canada)
9g | 0.32oz fractionated coconut oil (USA / Canada)
0.5g | 0.017oz menthol crystals
0.5g | 0.017oz Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada) (approximately 10 drops)0.5g | 0.017oz Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada) (or other broad spectrum preservative of choice at recommended usage rate [why?])
6 drops spruce essential oil
6 drops clementine essential oilPrepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer over low to medium-low heat in a wide, flat-bottomed sauté pan.
You’ll need three small heat-resistant glass measuring cups or glass beakers for this project. I used two 500mL/2-cup Pyrex measuring cups and one 250mL/1-cup Pyrex beaker.
Weigh the water and vegetable glycerin into one of the measuring cups. Weigh that measuring cup with the water and glycerin in it, and note the weight (mine was just shy of 550g/19.4oz). Cover that measuring cup with some foil to create a makeshift lid, and pop that part in the water bath.
Weigh the surfactants into another measuring cup (I used the beaker for them), and place that in the water bath as well. You’ll want to be sure you wear your dust mask (USA / Canada) when you measure out the SCI as it’s very floaty and easy to inhale, and that feels a lot like snorting soap—not pleasant! Stir the mixture occasionally as it melts—it’ll turn into a gelatinous sort of blob.
Weigh the emulsifying wax, shea butter, fractionated coconut oil, menthol crystals, and vitamin E oil into the last measuring cup, and place that in the hot water bath as well.
Leave everything in the hot water bath for half an hour to give all the ingredients a chance to come up to temperature and hang out there for a while (this helps kill anything that might be living in the water part of your concoction, melts the surfactants together, and melts the oils thoroughly).
At about the 25 minute mark, boil a kettle of water.
Once half an hour has passed, remove the water part and oil part measuring cups from the water bath (leave the surfactant one in the water bath, though). Remove the foil from the water part, and pop that measuring cup back on the scale; add some of the just-boiled water from the kettle to it to bring it back up to the noted amount from earlier (this was about a 2g difference for me).
Pour the water part into the oil part and use your immersion blender to blend everything together; blend for about two minutes, and then leave the mixture to cool for about 10 minutes. Come back and blend for another minute or two, and repeat the wait-and-blend cycle until the outside of the measuring cup feels just warm to the touch (like testing a baby bottle), and the cream is quite thick. At that point, blend in your preservative and essential oils.
Remove the surfactant blend from the water bath and scrape it into the lotion—it’ll be a semi-translucent viscous blob. Stir that into your lotion with a flexible silicone spatula until thoroughly blended, and then give the entire thing a few blasts with your immersion blender (don’t worry, it won’t lather up like crazy!). The entire concoction will thin out a lot at this point, which can be a bit of a surprise as you added a thick blob of something to a thick cream, and suddenly you have a relatively thin lotion. No worries, this is normal!
Decant the cleanser into a pump-top bottle or squeeze tube. To use, combine a squirt of the cleanser with some warm water, massage it into your face, and rinse away.
Makes 100g/3.5 ounces of Morning Glory Foaming Facial Cleanser. I perfectly filled two 60mL (2 fl oz) GoToobs.
If you don’t have fractionated coconut oil, any other lightweight, low-scent carrier oil will work. Examples include sweet almond oil (USA / Canada), safflower oil, and sunflower seed oil (USA / Canada / UK / NZ). I recommend sticking with cheaper oils as we’ll be washing this concoction down the sink and pricier oils will go to waste.
If you don’t have clementine essential oil, some suitable alternatives would be red mandarin essential oil and tangerine essential oil. Orange essential oil will also work, though I do prefer the softer citrusy scents of tangerine, mandarin, and clementine for this recipe.
Because of the menthol, I do not recommend using this to remove eye makeup!
This sounds fantastic and I can’t wait to receive your book, by the way. Question: Why did you put menthol crystals? Is it necessary to have those? Wondering if it would irritate the face. Can this be used as a facial cleanser? Thanks so much and keep doing what you are doing!
They give it a lovely cool tingle; at a concentration this low (0.5%) it’s not irritating, though I wouldn’t put it in your eyes 😛 And yes, it can be used as a facial cleanser LOL, that is why I called it a facial cleanser ;P I love a touch of menthol in facial cleansers as it’s fantastic for really perking me up first thing in the morning!
Hi Marie,
I’m wondering if it would be possible to make this by using all Cocamidopropyl Betaine, rather than also using the sodium cocoyl isethionate too? I made the Meadowfoam Mango Creamy Facial Cleanser and found my skin stinging from it (I have super sensitive skin). I’d love to try a foaming cleanser. If not, I’ll just stick to what I use now.
Thanks. Love your recipes!
Cocamidopropyl Betaine is really just recommended as a secondary surfactant, so I wouldn’t recommend it. Cocamidopropyl Betaine + SCI will be very gentle, so I would recommend giving it a try—the Cocamidopropyl Betaine will make the SCI even milder, and without the SLSa the blend will be gentler than the one you already tried 🙂
Thanks Marie!
Bah humbug! An ingredient I don’t have! Or maybe I have it and they call it something different. I’ve a box full of strange liquids and powders thinking it was one thing but it was actually a different one. I thought this one seller was selling a pyrex 500mL container… but turns out it was this thing called cab-25.
I’ve been having issues getting the surfactants. It took forever to find the polysorbate as they are called tweens here. I’ll make this…. one day!
I have to go post on the .Winter Winderland Lip Gloss post!
It’s a pity everything doesn’t also come labelled with a molecular diagram 😛
As my younger sister is fond of saying, “Word.”
Ohhh then imagine if I could search by chemical structure rather than guessing random phrases and playing the hit and miss game! I’d have so much free time!
And imagine how much better our chemistry literacy would get!
Marie, Ooh another cleanser, def need to make some of these. Surprised by the name you gave it, A bit of a euphemism in the UK. Perhaps that’s one that hasnt reached Canada, made me chuckle though. Keep making xx
Ha! I can definitely imagine the euphemism now that you mention it, but I don’t think it’s terribly common here… I may also just be very daft! Thanks for letting me know, I’ll be sure to avoid using it in the UK haha.
I have Amphosol but don’t SLSa instead of the SCI. Will it make a huge difference if I use SLSa in place of SCI? Also thank you for listing a Canadian link for the ingredients.
I think the final product may be a bit thicker, and likely not quite as gentle, but other than that I doubt you’ll notice much of a change 🙂
Ooo, my questions have been answered in the best possible way, with a brand new recipe! Yay! Thank you Marie, you genius you.
So basically if I used Coco Glucoside as a secondary surfactant in your meadowfoam mango creamy cleanser, it would thin out and be more lotion like. I can’t wait to try this one as well. Though I do not like Cocamidopropyl Betaine because of the ecotoxicology reports. One of the main reasons I started DIYing was because of the impact all my bath and body products have on the environment. So will probably make this with either Coco Glucoside or Decyl Glucoside.
You’re welcome—I enjoyed the challenge and new experiment 🙂 I look forward to hearing how this works with your changes; I have coco glucoside as well but have yet to work with it.
Made this cleanser last night. Love it! I think this is going t be my favorite cleanser that I’ve made so far. My face felt clean AND it left my skin feeling soft. Thanks once again, Marie!
Oh, and if I’m not mistaken, isn’t this the day that your book starts shipping from the warehouse?!! 🙂
Yay! I’m so glad you’re loving it 😀 And yes, it is—eep!!!
Would this still be effective with no surfactants?
No, it would just be a lotion—a rather nice lotion, but a lotion.
Hi Marie,
I love your blog & the book. I read it cover to cover in 2 days. My comment/question about this post is about cocamidoproply betaine vs coco betaine. You call for cocamidopropyl b. & use coco b. Realize Beauty has a blog post explaining that they are 2 different chemicals. Among other things, Cocamidopropyl b. comes in powder form & coco b. is a liquid. I read your ingredient list & ordered cocamidopropyl b. I know I can use them interchangeably, but should I use the same amount of cocamidopropyl b as coco b?
Thank You!!
And now I see I was wrong about it being a powder – it is a liquid. I ordered so many new products that I confused myself. My apologies for posting in error. And from what I have read, the two can be used interchangeably so I will stick with what I bought.
Happy making!
Yay! I’m so glad you loved the book 😀 You definitely want the liquid one as it is what helps the SCI dissolve. According to the people I purchased it from, I used cocamidopropyl betaine, so that’s what I used… unless they have no idea what they are selling, which would be concerning :/
From the online research I’ve done, many people think the two products are the same because of the similarity in name. Susan also discusses this on Point of Interest. Most online sellers pitch coco b as cocamidopropyl b. Here in the US I was only able to find cocamidopropyl b from an eBay seller.
Ah, yes—I think I read about the difference on POI before I even started using it so I didn’t realize the confusion was so widespread! I believe the stuff I’m using is the same stuff she uses (I know she also loves Windy Point), so I’m relatively certain it’s the right stuff… here’s hoping!
I really wanted to make this cleanser, but I didn’t have the Cocamidopropyl Betaine. I made it anyway, just swaped it with more SCI. Mistake. I realized halfway through that SCI wasn’t melting at all and after some research I found out that it has melting point around 200°C and I should have added Cocamidopropyl Betaine. At least I learnt something haha. Also, I have a question about adding ingredients that contain alcohol to lotions. I have a green tea extract that has a Propylene glycol in it. Should I add it to water phase or when it’s cooling down?
Aww, boo! I do have a creamy cleanser made with just powdered surfactants here you might like to check out. It ends up being much thicker than this one!
Extracts, liquid or powdered, should be added to the cool down phase, after everything has been emulsified together 🙂
I can’t find any clementine, tangerine or mandarin oils on Amazon that ship to Calgary. 🙁 Could you recommend any other alternatives (that can preferably be found at Windy Point)? Thanks so much!
Windy Point’s sweet orange should do the trick 🙂
Hi Marie, I made this today and added some medium sized (which are tiny) jojoba esters (jojoba beads) and a little bamboo extract and oooohhhhh… It’s AMAZING, feels like one of those super expensive microdermabrasion kit I used to buy at Sephora for a ridiculous amount of dough. YOU HAVE GOT TO TRY IT, adding exfoliants to a cleanser is really cool, you get a very effective and lovely face scrub. One note about the exfoliants: the bamboo extract is very scrubby but the powder is so thin one wouldn’t think such thing would exfoliate so much. I used it at 0.5% and the jojoba beads, though pretty exfoliating as well, are more… are softer so I mixed them both (used the beads at 1.5% but would probably use 1% next time) and wow, I had to step back on the application and scrub my face very gently because it is very scrubby. I’d probably only use it twice a week.
I acquired a set of exfoliants and would love to send you one set to see what you would come up with using these scrubby thingies!!! If you’re interested let me know and I’ll send it to you. That’s the least I could do given all the amazing stuff you do and share with us. Cheers!
So cool! What a fun and awesome way to customize the cleanser 🙂 I’ll happily accept a gift of exfoliants if you want to brave the shipping cost to Canada—send me an email at marie [at] humblebeeandme.com and I’ll give you my shipping address!
Perfect, once I order it I’ll gladly send it to u! The kids includes strawberry and cranberry seeds, loofah, pumice powder, jojoba beads, the bamboo extract and another one I can’t recall. I’ll email u to get your shipping address shortly. Cheers!!!
Exciting! Scrubby things! Thank you 🙂
It would be great if it didn’t have all those nasty chemicals…a little time and research and you can make an organic, all-natural facial wash that is thick, foamy, and wonderful.
I don’t blame you for being concerned about the inclusion of dihydrogen monoxide—it’s a seriously deadly chemical! Hundreds of thousands of people die from it every single year!
In all seriousness, though, please read this.
Im very curious to find out what nasty chemicals you are referring to…
I just wanted to say I made this but omitted the menthol because I wanted to be able to use it around my eyes with no problem and I LOVE it!
Thank you!
Yay! I’m so thrilled 😀 WOO!
This looks fun to make 🙂 I am desperately trying to make a face wash similar to the benefits foamingly clean face wash. I will copy the ingredients below. It’s like a pearly cream that I just rub on and wash off and someone mentioned it was just a liquid soap. So I guess I want to make a face wash with cream texture? What is the difference between a wash and a cleanser. I have sodium lauroyl sarcosinate, can I use that instead of the SCI?
Benefits ingredients
WATER (AQUA), GLYCERIN, PEG-32, PALMITIC ACID, STEARIC ACID, SODIUM LAUROYL GLUTAMATE, POTASSIUM HYDROXIDE, LAURIC ACID, MYRISTIC ACID, FRAGRANCE (PARFUM), GLYCERYL STEARATE, PEG-100 STEARATE, PHENOXYETHANOL, POLYQUATERNIUM-10, LINALOOL, TETRASODIUM EDTA, HEXYL CINNAMAL, LIMONENE, CITRONELLOL, BHT. N?? 05419/N
Hey! From what you’ve described it does sound like the benefit face wash is a lotion + a sufactant (not liquid soap), so this recipe is relatively similar. You can use sodium lauroyl sarcosinate instead, just be sure to pH test the final product and adjust it down to a pH of ~5.5 as sodium lauroyl sarcosinate is more basic than SCI 🙂
Thank you 🙂 I love the website and the videos, looking forward to trying the recipe
Happy making!
I made this the other day, as well as the Meadowfoam Mango Creamy Facial Cleanser. In both cases the emulsion began to break down by the next day, there is a layer of water laying at the bottom of the bottle. They can both still be used as long as I “shake well” before use. Not sure what happened. Any suggestions?
Which emulsifying wax did you use? Did you change any of the other ingredients?
Hi Marie, this also happened to me when I made both of these cleansers. I used emulsifying was NF both times – is that why? I really want a lotion consistency and then be able to have it foam up when I add some water to it. I love both of these cleansers but don’t understand why they keeping separating out. Any suggestions?
I’ve been experimenting further with this concept and I’ve been finding a higher percentage of emulsifying wax helps keep the product stable—ewax at closer to 50% of the oil phase rather than 20%. They are really finicky, though—I’ve found extended high-shear blending helps as well.
That said, these cleansers never really foam all that much—added oil kills foam, so the very nature of the cleanser means it will never be a very lathery thing. With intense agitation you will see some bubbles, but nothing compared to a surfactant product without an added oil phase.
I will keep experimenting, and hopefully I will have something more insightful to share with a new formula!
Hi Marie! I’d like to put this in a foaming pump bottle, is it thin enough for that? If not, would it be ok to thin it a bit with more water?
Can this recipe be made in double or larger batches without issues? I tend to like making a mess once in my kitchen, and prefer larger batches for this reason.
Thank you! Love your site, emails and cheery attitude. 🙂
This recipe is pretty much exactly the opposite of something you can put in a foamer bottle; it’s basically solid, and foamer bottles require liquids with the consistency of water. Nothing you do to this recipe will make it foamer bottle compatible 😛
And you definitely can scale up—my next post is on how to do that 🙂
This looks wonderful. I too chuckled a bit at the title as it has a different meaning as well in Australia! A question – if I double up the recipe would it be suitable as a body wash? Would love to have one less thing to carry around when going on holidays.
Hahahaha, it’s amazing I didn’t get myself into more trouble in Australia LOL. You definitely could use this as a body wash, but it is pretty low foaming 🙂 Happy making!
Love this cleanser! I added a few Vita Burst beads from Crafters Choice and it’s even more amazing. I’m ready to make more and am wondering if I can add just a tiny bit more of the menthol. It’s nice as is but would love for it to feel a bit more tingly and cooling. Thoughts?
Lovely! The general recommendation for face products is 1% or less essential oils, which we’re probably pretty close to here (darn past me not noting weights for those EOs). You could probably try the menthol at 0.75g 🙂
Hi, I really want to try this but I can’t find Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate any where. Can I replace it with Decyl Glucoside or Sodium Lauryl sulfate?
Decyl glucoside would be the better option of the two 🙂 I recommend giving this page a read!
Hello! I’ve made this cleanser and I like it very much. However, I want to formulate a cleanser with a thicker consistency. I have both cetyl alcohol and stearic am going to experiment adding one (or both) to the oil phase. Would you recommend that I reduce the percentage of water by the amount of added cetyl alcohol? This recipe isn’t listed in percentages like your newer formulations, and I don’t know if I can just start adding ingredients without reducing others? Thanks in advance for any tips!
I’d actually try a gum here rather than a fatty thickener 🙂 This formula is kind of secret percentages, in that it’s a 100g batch so you can just assume 1g = 1%, more or less (the essential oils aren’t included in that). I’d drop 0.3g from the water & add 0.3g xanthan gum, whisking that into the glycerin before adding the water and carrying on. Enjoy!
This was glorious ! I found slsa to be irritating for my sensitive skin, and even castile soap was a no go, this worked perfect for me and simple to make, I omitted fragrances and essential oil for my face … the little spots on my face from using castile soap almost disappeared after using this one! thank you so much for your recipes marie!
Hooray! I’m thrilled to hear it 🙂 Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂
I am going to give this recipe a try. Omitting the methol because i worry about being near my eyes. I would love your opinion about replacing the Emulsified wax NF with BTMS50 or BTMS25?
Thank you so much for all your recipe ideas and your beautiful sharing soul.
Sincerely,
Lisa Spates
Hi Lisa! I’d stick with the ewax NF as it’s far cheaper and this is a rinse-off product 🙂 Cationic ingredients are also more sensitive to electrolytes + the electrolyte content in the surfactants may cause the emulsion to split. I’d also recommend including 0.3g xanthan gum in the formulation (add it to the oil phase) to improve stability. Happy making!