I seem to be on a bit of a “concentrated” kick, partially inspired by my recent trip to Australia. I brought shampoo bars with me (that also ended up doubling as body wash), and found that all the use (aka getting wet) and the lack of time to dry between moves meant they got pretty darn smashed up. I love shampoo bars at home, but it seems like if you are packing them up and moving them around frequently, and using them often enough that they never get a chance to fully dry, they’re not as travel friendly as they could be. So, I started thinking about ways to create sudsy things that didn’t need to dry, and that’s how we ended up with these Lemon Rose Facial Cleansing Drops.
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
The idea here is that you only need one solitary drop of the facial cleanser because it’s so concentrated. Bar cleansers are also very concentrated, and their solid-ness restricts the amount of product we can use in one go. For this project we’re letting our packaging to do that restricting for us, by doling out the cleanser one drop at a time. I used a 30mL/1 fl oz bottle with an orifice reducer/dropper top, but an eyedropper top would also work well. I tried a treatment pump as well, but it dispensed too much product.
Our surfactant blend is made up of gentle surfactants, but they are at a high concentration, so you do want to be sure you’re just using a drop at a time. We’ve got amphoteric Cocamidopropyl Betaine , anionic foaming silk, and non-ionic Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside. I’m also using all liquid surfactants—I tried incorporating a bit of solid SCI (Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate) in an earlier version and there was nothing drop-able about the final product!
To help make the cleanser more gentle I’ve included a fairly hefty dose of soothing panthenol/vitamin B5 (we’ve got to get that more concentrated, too!) and some film-forming hydrolyzed silk. We’ve also got two humectants—vegetable glycerin and sodium lactate. I also tried a variation of this cleanser where I used just 10% foaming silk and added 10% water soluble shea butter, which makes for an even gentler end product, but I know water soluble shea butter isn’t widely available, so I’ve presented the version that doesn’t use it.
Between the video and the blog I’ve presented two different options for scenting this cleanser. Here on the blog we’re using a blend of rose absolute and lemon essential oil, but the version on YouTube uses a new-to-me fragrance oil from Windy Point—the fresh and floral rosewater lemonade. Both are lovely options and give a decadent rose/lemon-y scent blend.
The making of this cleanser is crazy easy! There’s no heating required; just combine everything in a little beaker or measuring cup, stir, and voila—it’s ready for your travel bag 😄
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
Lemon Rose Facial Cleansing Drops
2.9g | 8.80% distilled water
15g | 50% Cocamidopropyl Betaine (USA / Canada)
6g | 20% foaming silk (USA / Canada)
3g | 10% Caprylyl/Capryl Glucoside (USA / Canada)1.2g | 4% panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 2% hydrolyzed silk (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 2% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 2% sodium lactate (USA / Canada)0.15g | 0.50% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)
0.03g | 0.10% rose fragrance oil
0.18g | 0.60% lemon essential oilWeigh everything into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup or beaker. Stir to combine; I used the MICROMini™ Mixer from Lotion Crafter, which is quite a lovely gadget. It’s a Badger Air-Brush Co. Paint Mixer, which you can also get on Canadian Amazon. It’s smaller than the Minipro Mixer, and well suited to less viscous projects like this one.
Once everything is all blended up, transfer it to a 30mL/1oz bottle with either an eye dropper top or a dropper orifice reducer. It is very important that the packaging you choose allows you to dispense a single drop of product so you are using it at an adequate diluting level. A lotion-style pump (and even a treatment pump—I tried it!) will dispense far too much product.
To use, dispense a single drop of the cleanser into your palm and work up with water into a lovely lather before washing your face.
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this cleanser contains water, you must include a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. This is non-optional. Even with a preservative this project is likely to eventually spoil as our kitchens are not sterile laboratories, so in the event you notice any change in colour, scent, or texture, chuck it out and make a fresh batch.
Substitutions
As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the recipe, you will get a different final product than I did.
- As I’ve provided this recipe in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams this recipe will make 30g.
- You could use coco glucoside instead of caprylyl/capryl glucoside, but you will need to test the pH and lower it as coco glucoside has a much higher pH
- You can use a different liquid anionic surfactant with a ASM ~30% in place of the foaming silk. Foaming oats look like they’d work well.
- You can use hydrolyzed oat protein in place of the hydrolyzed silk
- You can use all of either glycerin or sodium lactate if you only have one of them
- Rosewater Lemonade fragrance is a good alternative for the essential oil blend
- The maximum usage rate for rose otto is 0.02%; keep that in mind if you would like to use it instead of a rose fragrance oil as specified above
Where can I buy the small weigh machine that you are using?
Lotion Crafter!
Hello Marie! What a fascinating idea, concentrated cleanser! I wonder about making a similar thing for other products…
May I ask what happened to the post about hyalauronic acid? It disappeared!
What the what?! It somehow got deleted—that’s so freaking weird. Thank heavens it wasn’t permanently deleted. It’s now been restored! Thanks for the heads up 🙂
Hi, Maria: would replacing the foaming silk with silk peptides work?
Foaming silk is a surfactant, silk peptides are another ingredient entirely. You would need to replace it with another surfactant.
Hanna is correct; replacing the foaming silk with silk peptides would be like replacing the other surfactants with coconut oil because they’re derived from coconut oil. Check the substitutions list for more appropriate alternatives 🙂
Ooh, I need a cleanser. I am going to try this at the weekend (will have to use coco glucoside though) I did manage to buy some water soluble shea butter 🙂 so may try using some of that. I have just bought a small bottle of Protelan AG 915 SF inci: Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate and also Lamesoft PO65 inci: Glyceryl oleate coco glucoside, have you played with these two at all Marie?
OOooh! I have not 🙁 I haven’t found them for sale in Canada, so alas, none of those fancy fun sounding surfactants are in my pantry. Have fun with them, though!
Nice!! Would you consider this good enough as a first cleanse?
Will it remove makeup/mascara?
Thanks!
Janna
I use this as my second cleanse, after an oil cleanser. I tend to use the oil cleanser for eye makeup removing, too, as it’s less likely to sting 🙂
Also, please don’t email me the same questions you leave on the blog—it just bloats my already unmanageable amounts of correspondence 🙂
is there a mixing trick I missed? When I went to blend it, it all sudssed up! Hope it settles out as I can’t fit much in a bottle right now!
Did you use a frothing extension on a milk frother? My mixing extension is basically a flat disc; if yours has some springs or other ruffles designed to incorporate air, that’ll incorporate air and cause sudsing. You also need to keep the mixer low and steady in the beaker—if you pump it up and down that will also pump a bunch of air into the product. It will settle out, and you can speed things along by skimming off the bubbles on top 🙂
Ok thanks. It settled out by the next day so all good now.
Glad to hear it!
Thank you for the recipe. What does ASM stand for please
Active Surfactant Matter—basically the concentration of how much is surfactant vs. water or other ingredients 🙂
Thank you thank you thank you! I travel constantly for work and I refuse to check a bag. Solids get sticky, so I’ve mostly been using liquids packed tight in a 3:1:1 bag. Any space saved there is a god send. I’d love to have a smaller 3:1:1, unpacking it isn’t always about 20 minutes of time that adds up!
I plan to use this for shampoo, face wash, and body wash. I use your conditioner bars for conditioner and lotion. Mine are jasmine and chocolate scented after a lush bar that I used way back when.
It’s not ideal, I’d prefer a concentrated liquid conditioner that I could dispense in drops. Maybe I’ll use honeyquat pf and hydronated oats? Hmm. You have sparked some inspiration. Now to figure out what oils I can solubilize with some delicious conditioning agents. Thanks again for making my frequent business trips easier!
YAY! I’ve been thinking about how to extend this concept into other areas; shampoo is the one where I keep thinking the physical lack of product would be problematic as my hair tends to swallow liquid shampoo at the point of application. Do let me know how that turns out! You could also check out my new conditioning hair balm and my conditioning bear oil for conditioner ideas 🙂
My first batch was 1/2 this recipe and it’s lasted me 8 months, and I use 2 drops each night! These drops have become my 3rd stage of cleansing after micellar water and oil cleansing with gua sha facial massage. I really like how quick and easy this 3rd step of cleansing is, not to mention how relatively easy it was to make this one-container, cold-processed recipe.
I’m getting ready to whip up a 2nd batch, but will use Rose and Lemon EO’s instead of the Windy Point fragrance oil. That scent was too strong for me, and I would like to tone it down a notch or two.
(My goodness, I think I’ve made about 20 of your projects by now, and some of them multiple times! Thank you Marie!)
That’s amazing! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your results with me—I really appreciate it 😀