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How freaking cool is it that I got both these ingredients???
Let’s discuss.
AVC:
5% cranberry oil (AWESOME!!!!!! I’ve also tried with passion fruit, cherry and strawberry oils)
2% hydrolised oat peptide
1% Aristoflex AVC.5% preservative
remainder water
ZEN:
10% moringa oil
10% aloe juice
2% panthenol
2% Sepimax ZEN
1% allantoin
1% vitamin b3.5% preservative
remainder water
Impressions
The AVC is a pain in the arse, but good golly, it is amazing. My skin always feels like satin. I had been using the above AVC recipe for about a month or more religiously every morning (and my Summer Worthy Face Cream at night).I followed Susan’s Sepimax suggestion for a simple recipe (I will be playing around with the recipe this week to better compare the two) and waited the full 8 hours before stirring. It came together beautifully with hardly any effort on my part and very little mess. Which is what I really liked about the AVC too. So if you are looking for a very little mess, either of these would work.
Upon applying the AVC (once I worked out the kinks), my skin feels soft, plush and hydrated (which isn’t all that hard as I’ve oily+happy skin). My skin stayed fresh and happy all day long and I noticed the little bit of strange acne I’d get kind of stopped appearing. There were a couple things I did that might have helped in this department, so not too sure if it was the cranberry oil or the evening primrose oil tablets I began taking. I loved the AVC so much that I formulated an awesome recipe and sent it out to my ladies for testing. And they fell so madly in love with it and suggested I name it: Kick in the Arse Hydration Booster. I kind of like that name!
So the Sepimax has a lot to live up to if it wants to compete with the AVC.
The recipe I made isn’t the best recipe and I will be making up a few various batches in the coming week to check out various oils and oil combinations to see how they work and how they are liked.
My initial impression is that I much prefer the AVC over Sepimax. I am finding the Sepimax to be like most gels upon application somewhat tacky, but quick to sink in. I really really want to get a good recipe because I can then add in my favourite electrolytes (hello silk! and more aloe!). While making I also tried out 2% and 3% Sepimax and found I prefer the consistancy of the 2%.
Another tick in the pro column for the AVC is that you only use a very small amount of oils- 5%. I love this. It provides me with the perfect way to test out new oils and see how skin friendly they are. I’m currently playing with funky oils to see how my skin reacts. And this is the cheapest way for me to figure it out!
So, stay tuned to this space later this week when I return with more findings!
I see the AVC as more lotion based, moisturizing products and the Zen as more cleansing and toning type products, although I want to make an eye gel with the Zen. I guess, in reality, you could make either one whatever you wanted it to be, within its limitations, of course!
I sure wish I could find small amounts of those oils you’re talking about to try! I really want to try the cranberry and passion fruit! And I can’t find hydrolyzed oat peptide anywhere! All that pops up is the oat protein. I may try some of the hydrolyzed rice protein I have in my next batch of AVC lotion. I think I need to toss my latest batch. Chunky allantoin is not skin friendly!! Ouch!
Made Baby Girl a bath gel with the Zen yesterday. Mixed everything then added the Zen on top and let it sit overnight as directed. I am so UNDER-whelmed by this product! All I got was liquid cleanser with gel blobs in it! I did not mix as Susan said. I just let it sit for well over eight hours. Stirred it and still blobby. Added a titch more, stirred it this time, and still blobby. Sepimax Zen is disappointing this first go round!! Will try again in something else to see if I just screwed it up somehow.
The generic preneutralized carbomer that I got for peanuts at Lotioncrafter has worked FANTASTIC though! Not nearly as picky as the ZEN and made a thick gel in seconds. AND I got to stir it!! And it still turned out to be gel! Made a fabulous gel toner with it too. Very happy with this stuff!
Guess I know where I’ll keep spending my money when I run out of these two products, I’m thinking!
Later on this week notes:
But first my skin: my skin is classified as oily+resistant+tight/wrinkled (I’m at that age where fine lines are approaching) I think I got the Susan classification right! I might be missing one category though. It is generally very well behaved, but it is on the oily side. In the summer I find I can just wear a moisturising toner and go on my way, but now that I am going on 37 next month, I cannot just do the young girl thing and slap on a toner and walk away I should have some extra oomph. Especially around the eye area.
To test, I rubbed AVC on the right side of my face and ZEN on the left.
AVC: still remains the one I prefer for face moisturising. My skin feels amazing with it! I really do think the Chinese translation of it “ice lotion” is a good description as it makes my face feel plump, very soft, silky and “fresh”. I really really like having a small tub of this in the fridge then applying as my face feels very happy using this as a cold “cream”. I apply toner, apply a generous amount of the AVC and walk away. My face doesn’t feel overly oily though the day, my skin feels great, and I don’t know why, but I have stopped having acne. I’ve mentioned before, it could be a couple of reasons (using the AVC or I began taking oral evening primrose around the same time).
pros: VERY quick to make, on the cheap side, a little goes a long way, love the feel
cons: no silk, aloe, very picky about extracts, no saltZEN: I so wanted to love the ZEN. But upon application, it made my skin feel somewhat tight. And I hate any kind of “tight” feeling on my skin. I found it also made my skin look a little on the shiny side. I stopped using it on my face after a few days as even my students were pointing out that part of my face looked different than the other part of my face. Also the making of the ZEN took some figuring out. There are some tricks to getting it right. I also discovered that this worked better around my eyes than the AVC. So for the past few days, I’ve been using the ZEN as an eye gel, and the AVC as a face gel and have been quite happy with the results. I’ve another batch going on at the moment to test out coffee essential oil and the other batch is to test out green tea extract. My hope is to make a great eye serum/gel with the ZEN using: cucumber extract, green tea and hydrolised oat peptides/protein (the site I buy from translates into both). But need to do some searching to see if those are compatible.
pros: does seem to tighten a little, silk, aloe, salts, and more are happy in the ZEN, pretty easy to make,
cons: hard to leave it alone! Having to leave it alone for many hours, requires some figuring out@Belinda: I need to put on another pot of coffee, tend to the wash, then I shall be looking at the latest batch of ZEN to see if my theory is correct. If it is, I have a solution for you!!! If not, then it is back to the drawing board.
Ok. Chores are done. Belinda, I tagged you on Instagram! Not sure where you will look first! I even sent you a video! Ohhhhh!
My suspicions were correct.
Test 1: I bought some awesome little silver bowls to test out new recipes in. They are six inches in diameter. I made four tests the first try. Two aloe gels (one at 2% and one at 3%) and two with my face serum base oils+10% aloe juice+ recipe up in the original post again at 2% and 3% ZEN. They all turned out beautifully! Very smooth textured, no lumps or anything. The aloe gels turned out to be clear (I’ll be making more aloe gels with a higher percentage of aloe in the future with some cucumber extract and peppermint hydrosol for an after sun care BOOYAH!). All were a success.
Test 2: my maid seems to enjoy playing hide and seek with me and hid my new test bowls on me. So I used my 250mL beakers to make this batch as Susan used beakers on her blog so figured should work. Made up two batches to test out the green tea extract and the coffee essential oil. Epic failure. Just like you described Belinda! Gross and lumpy crap. No amount of blending got rid of those globs. It looked unappealing, and if I wouldn’t use it… well you get my drift. Had a nice foot mask though!
Test 3: finally found my bowls (she put them on the storage shelf for some reason. I mean they are stainless steel. Wouldn’t you think they would belong with the countless other stainless steel bowls under the stove?????) Tried the same type as in Test 2. Put it to bed, and just beat it up. Perfection! Well, perfection in the sense that there are no lumps, smooth textured and looks pretty good in the bowl. I still need to test out the recipe.
Conclusion: make sure that your bowl/jar has a wide mouth. I noticed yesterday while taking pictures of Test 2 that the gel only really was on top and not all the way through like it was in Test 1. I shrugged it off thinking, well Susan used beakers… Try again, but use a wide mouth container to put it to bed. I also used an electric whisk to beat mine up (god I love this phrase!!!).
I’ll be posting a post about my notes on my blog in the coming weeks as I haven’t figured out how to get my photos off my phone to post here. BUT if you want to see pictures and the video of the beat ups and such, they are on Instagram. Look for the hashtags #humblehive #humblebee
I’ll post more here once I’ve tested out how the new recipe works and be comparing it to the AVC. But so far, just testing out Test 3 on the backs of my hands, I think this recipe is going to give AVC a run for its money.
ohh, this is fun to watch. Penny, what is your blog so that we can follow along there? I have Ultrez 20 and Sepimax Zen that I have been experimenting with but no AVC yet. I am partial to the Ultrez and neutralizing it so far as the final product is smoother and ?softer on the skin. Not sticky like Sepimax.
Penny’s blog is Scrub Me Down- Happy Skin. Just type that in Google and it should come up. She’s also on Instagram and that’s where you’ll find the videos. Cyn and I are following her so you can follow us too!
Barb, I need to know what you put in that lovely gel-lotion ZEN creation you made on Instagram! It was beautiful and looked like it would be so awesome on the skin! It looked like a thick custard! Yum!
What is this electric whisk? Is this like a hand mixer or different? Notice I focus on the important things. Lol
Pssst Cyn… scroll back on my Instagram to about June 8 (shouldn’t be a lot of posts as it crashed in China for a bit). You’ll see two silver bowls and a purple hand held thingamabop. That’s an electric whisk!
Twin, my stick blender came with a whisk attachment, which is what I think Barb was using. Or something similar. It looked just like my stick blender with whisk attachment, anyway.
Oooh, then my new stick blender is doomed to be used for not cooking. Lmao.
I’ve been playing with both AVC and Zen and I like them both for various things. But I will say, Sepigel 305 is the boss. It’s preneutralized & it’s like a loose gel consistency. You measure it out, blend it in, let it sit once blended and boom, done. I want more of it. I actually think I like it better than the Zen, though I need to make sure it’ll handle all my extracts well.
I’m also looking at other carbomers to see if there are others I might like.
I want to buy some of this Sepigel 305 to try. Shocking, I know! And Twin, buy the cheap generic preneutralized carbomer on Lotioncrafter. So easy to use and makes a super thick gel. It doesn’t seem as fussy as Zen.
So until we find otherwise- generic is good stuff. Though I admit, I might not be using Zen to the fullest as I’ve been fighting severe bronchitis for a month. We were able to not get diagnosed with walking pneumonia by giving the doctors dirty looks.
Did you see Chemistry store has that lotion base to make it easier for cold process lotions? Yeah, I’m loving the idea this summer. Lol
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