One day, on a flight, before I was DIYing up everything in sight, my seat-mate used the most delicious smelling lotion I’d ever encountered. Soft and delicate, lavender, but not quite. It was fantastic. I asked the woman about it, and she just gave me the tube. She’d bought it at the L’Occitane shop at the departing airport, and wasn’t that attached to it, I guess. I’m not usually one to accept gifts of lotion from total strangers, but I made an exception for this one.
I horded that lotion for ages, mostly just smelling it rather than using it. Then, as I started to make lotions, I set out to recreate the scent… but I could never quite get it. The primary scent in the lotion was lavender essential oil, but it was complimented by a melee of fragrance, linalool, limonene, citral, and geraniol—all aroma chemicals with their own complex scent profiles. So, frustrated, I put the project aside.
Then, in a stroke of luck, I sampled a new combination of essential oils and was immediately transported back to that airplane seat. I’d got it (or close enough without all the aroma chemicals). It was lavender, softened with benzoin, and brightened up with a hint of the citrussy litsea cubeba. Fantastic!
Use a nice French lavender for this lotion if you have it, and enjoy the soothing scent of French lavender fields on a dry, warm day.
L’Occitane Lavender Hand Lotion
10g | 0.35oz emulsimulse/ritamulse (or other complete emulsifying wax—not beeswax!)
15g | 0.52oz safflower oil73g | 2.6oz just-boiled water
2g | 0.07oz vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1 tsp raw honey or ½ tsp honey powder5 drops French lavender essential oil
2 drops benzoin essential oil
1–2 drops litsea cubeba essential oilBroad spectrum preservative of choice (why?)
Weigh the emulsifying wax and safflower oil out into a small saucepan and melt over low heat. While they melt, measure the water, vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada), and honey into a small glass measuring cup and gently warm them in the microwave, stirring to combine.
Once the oils are melted, add the water part and heat everything through for at least three minutes to ensure everything is melted. Remove the lotion from the heat and whisk as the mixture cools, until is is thick and creamy (the thickening will take a few days if you are using a different emulsifying wax than emulsimulse/ritamulse, so don’t panic if it doesn’t thicken up straight away!). Once cool, whisk in the essential oils and preservative.
Decant into a 120mL/4oz pump-top bottle and enjoy your soft, smooth hands!
New to lotion making? Watch my basic lotion how to video!
And no essential oils then ? :o))
thank you very much, looks great !!
Sylvie, from France
Whoops, good catch! I just fixed it 🙂 DERP!
How long can you store this lotion?
If you put it in a pump top bottle it’ll last 2–3 months, or at least it does for me. I definitely recommend the pump top over a wide mouthed jar as you introduce all kinds of bacteria to the lotion by dipping into it with your fingers, and it spoils much faster.
Thanks for specifying that beeswax doesn’t work, I’ve been wondering. I prefer to use only ingredients that are directly from nature or could be made in a decently stocked kitchen, I’m not sure any emulsifying waxes fit that bill so I’ve stuck with the hard lotions and body butters to avoid that need. Sometimes I miss a nice non-greasy lotion, but since my diet and metabolism have improved I’m not finding myself with dry skin except for when it’s been washed excessively (say after a full day in the kitchen) so it’s not that big of a deal any more for me.
I’m totally making note of that EO combination though.
No worries—it’s a question I get a lot, so I thought I’d head it off 🙂 Sadly, swapping out emulsifying wax for anything other than an emulsifier is like using a paint chip instead of an egg because they’re both yellow. You can pair beeswax with borax to make an emulsion, but then you can only do a 1:1 ratio of oils to water, which makes for a very greasy lotion. It does fit your “well stocked kitchen” requirement, though 🙂 Just think of it as something like what the Body Shop calls body butter—that’s about what it produces.
My favourite e-wax is Emulsimulse, and it is “a natural source self-emulsifier for oil in water emulsions. It is ECOCERT approved for use in Certified Organic products.” It’s not necessarily something you’d find in a well-stocked kitchen, but it’s the cleanest emulsifier I’ve found yet. I’m also working on more natural/raw alternatives, so stay tuned 🙂
I’m so jealous you are able to prevent dry skin through diet! I find that drinking a LOT of water helps, but it is so dry here that the only thing that truly helps is summer… or moving… oh well.
I really love your recipes, but I am someone that is more comfortable dealing in ounces and tsp as opposed to grams. Is there a way you could post both formulas?
Tracey, my new kitchen scale goes from grams to ounces at the flick of a switch and no measuring spoons and cups to wash, when you measure by weight!
I could… but I’m not going to 😛 I’ve got over 500 recipes and posts up here, and I would much rather make new things & write new recipes than spend hours and hours converting all my recipes (especially considering only 3 countries use the Imperial system). But, it is easy for you to do the conversions yourself, just be sure to use weight ounces, not fluid ounces—there are lots of converters online. Or, the best solution of all is to get a scale that does both grams and ounces—then you can just toggle over to grams and it’s all counting from there, no understanding of the metric system required 🙂
Okay, thanks for the tip on the scale that does both conversions!
I will happily admit to using my scale as my converter-avoider many times 🙂 It’s awesome!
Hi!
I’ve been following your blog for several months and love the range of DIY beauty formulas you tackle 🙂
Have you found a way to make perfume from eo that lasts? I love the l’occitane lavender also … Would love to have a long lasting spray but my attempts at perfume have been lame! Please advise 🙂
I have! My first liquid perfume recipe comes out on Monday 😀 I love it, and I think you will as well.
This looks yummy! I am curious which French lavender EO you selected. There are numerous varieties of lavender EO available at New Directions Organics.
Thanks for the information,
Cynthia Groo
For this lotion their “population” and “French” are both good choices—the “Bulgarian” is also divine! I believe I used the French for this particular batch 🙂
This one I have to try, and will try to demo it to my team next week!
Your fan, Sylvia G.
Oooh, exciting! I feel honored to have made it to the NDA demo room 😀 Let me know how it goes!
Hello Maria
I’ve been following your blog from the UK for some time with great interest, so I’m surprised to find you making a factual error and hope you don’t mind my pointing it out. Linalool, limonene, citral, and geraniol are all components of lavender essential oil, not additives. Here in Europe, we have to draw attention to them on our labelling because they are potential allergens.
For your information, you will find here a spreadsheet of all the essential oils and the potential allergens they contain: http://www.thesoapkitchen.co.uk/images/MSDS/other/EFFA%20Sensitisers.xls.
With best wishes, Jane
Hey Jane—Thanks for looking out for me! I think we’re actually both correct here, which is always nice 🙂 I assumed they were additional additives because when something is listed as a component of an complete ingredient, it looks like this on the package:
With, of course, all the stuff in the brackets being the stuff that makes up the chocolate… and not a particularly nice looking chocolate here, either, haha.
So, if the lavender had been written up like that, yes, they would have just been the bits of the complete lavender EO, not additives. However, here, they weren’t, so I assumed they were additives, albeit naturally derived ones.
It’s not uncommon to find one or two of those aroma chemicals (especially linalool) in things that have no lavender EO as well (here’s an example I found today). You can even buy yourself a bottle of straight-up linalool here. My hypothesis is that they’re added to help regulate and normalize the essential oils, which can vary from season to season.
Then, of course, there’s the “fragrance” in there, which I’m sure we can both agree is not a component of lavender 😛
I didn’t know they were potential allergens, though, so thanks for letting me know 🙂 You guys are always so much more up to date on things like that in Europe.
What about a preservative? Won’t the lotion grow all sorts of nasties without one?
It will, eventually, but I find that “eventually” is generally quite a while. Using the pump top bottle really prolongs the life of the lotion since you aren’t dipping your dirty fingers into it, and with that I’ve had lotions last 3 or more months sitting on my desk, sans preservatives. Just be sure to watch for signs of spoilage like colour, texture, and consistency changes 🙂
Your environment also plays a huge role in how long the lotions will last without preservative. I took a bottle to work to see how long it would last there. It lasted just under a week before I noticed mould.
I do live in Texas, though, and the air conditioner is shut off once we close, then doesn’t come back on until we open the next morning.
So true! Living in a giant fridge has some advantages, I suppose 😉
The ambient temperature of the storage has little to no effect on long term preservation. A proper Broad Spectrum preservative is needed.
I have found that fridge storage vs. hot bathroom storage does have an effect, similar to how storing milk in the fridge vs. on the counter effects the shelf life.
This product really needs a preservative! No matter how good your manufacturing processes are, it will not prevent the growth of Garm negative, Gram positive and yeast/mold.
As an addition volumetric measurements (cups, tsps, tbsps ) should be avoided. The accuracy of volumetric measurement is very low, If you multiply the error when you scale this Formula up, the error will be magnified as well. Your accuracy with weigh is limited to the accuracy of your scale (much more accurate).
Thanks for your feedback, Mark. If you read through the comments on this post and the FAQ you’ll find pretty thorough discussions on both points 🙂 Keep in mind that I am not trying to provide people with industrial scale recipes, similar to food blogs, which generally don’t use weight as their default measurement system.
It is as a Cosmetic Chemist with 30 years of experience I am saying this product is not properly preserved. It is not personal and most of the supporting data above in anecdotal non-empirical post-hoc statements. A Broad Spectrum preservative is needed. Period. It is not meant to disparage but to simply point out the safety issue.
Hi Mark!
If I make food from scratch, I will eat it in in a timely fashion rather than pump it full of preservatives so that it lasts longer. Marie is operating in a similar fashion with her cosmetics.
I’m currently making this recipe (waiting for it to cool down to whip it) and it barely makes 100 grams of finished product. Between using as a hand lotion and body lotion, I’ll be using this up so quickly I’m not at all concerned about scuzzies 🙂
🙂
That’s a great point, Liz. I make Marie’s recipes for my personal use, and since they’re only 100 grams, I use it all up very quickly. As Liz mentioned, when I make a food recipe from a recipe I’ve found online, I don’t put any preservatives in it either as I eat it up pretty quickly.
🙂
I don’t preserve my food, either, and I eat that. Again—this is a huge part of why I do not sell anything. You are more than welcome to add as many preservatives as you like to what you make, I’m certainly not trying to talk you out of it.
Actually Mark, this formula does have preservatives in it, natural ones.
Honey and the EOs provide a small amount of natural preservatives that aid in keeping this bacteria free for a short period of time. And, as it is such a small amount most people will use it up long before it goes bad.
From my research there is really no data to support honey or EOs providing any preservative powers of the broad-spectrum variety 🙁 Too bad, eh?
If you don’t have a scale that converts go to this website http://www.worldwidemetric.com & look for the “weight or volume” conversion calculator which ever suits your needs.
Thanks, Trish 🙂
Thank you very much for your receipt!
I am very happy & love it.
XXX
Thanks, Jam!
I’m in the middle of making this lotion, and it’s not thickening up. I’ve made lotion before using beeswax, aloe vera juice and grapeseed oil, and I didn’t have any trouble. I did replace the water with aloe vera juice, could that be it? I’m using this emulsifying was http://www.newdirectionsaromatics.com/emulsifying-wax-o-sls-free-p-1491.html Also, the Benzoin EO I purchased has the texture of thick honey, and it’s too thick to come through the dropper on the lid. Is that normal for Benzoin oil?
Hi Heather! So, this sounds like it could be one of two things (neither of which is the aloe vera or benzoin EO, both of which are totally on track). If you look at the description for the e-wax you’re using, you’ll see that it’s not a complete emusifier, which means it needs a co-emulsifier to create emulsions. So, if you don’t have a co-emulsifier, the problem could be that the lotion is not actually emulsifying. However, if you do have a co, then there’s a chance it’s just the way the e-wax works—that is, it’s slow to thicken. Lotions made with Polawax take about three days to fully thicken up. I don’t know why, but I definitely made a few lotions I had reluctantly decided to call “body milk” until they plumped up into proper lotion a few days later 😛 So, if you have an emulsion, I’d just give it a few days 🙂
What type of co-emulsifier should I use? I ended up adding a bit of beeswax, and I was able to obtain a lotion consistency. It feels a bit off though, like it’s not a body butter, but not super light like a lotion either. I think some of the emulsifying wax hardened back up without emulsifying into the lotion, leaving tiny flecks of wax throughout the mixture. I don’t think I’ll be ordering this kind of wax again.
Okay, now I feel silly. I guess I was in a hurry when I ordered this product, because it clearly states that it will not emulsify oil and water. I wish I could find emulsimulse in the states. The shipping is too outrageous to order from Canada.
I know emulsimulse is also sold under the name vegimulse, so keep an eye out for that. The INCI is Glyceryl Stearate (and) Cetearyl Alcohol (and) Sodium Stearoyl Lactylate, so keep an eye out for that as well (’cause those names really stick out… lol!).
It’s funny that you say shipping is very expensive to the States… I checked once and it was only a little bit more than shipping within Canada 🙁 Shipping up here is so expensive for everything!
I don’t know what site you are using but if you check out newdirectionsaromatics.com they have both a USA and a Canada site. Check in the upper left hand corner of their page to make sure you are in the correct location.
Unfortunately NDA doesn’t sell emulsimulse—I get that from Saffire Blue.
Actually, NDA does sell emulsifiers. Look under Raw Materials at the waxes. you will find them there. The one I like is the Self-Emulsifying Wax – N. The Polawax also works nicely.
Of course you do, haha, just not that specific one 😛
Thanks Marie, I will definitely search U.S. retailers for the vegimulse, or emulsifiers with that chemical makeup. And yeah, I’m pretty cheap when it comes to shipping, lol. New Directions isn’t too bad, but it’s probably the most I’ve ever spent on shipping. Typically, in the states, if you spend at least $35 shipping is free.
Ah, to enjoy such shipping luxuries! The only place that does free shipping at $35 is Amazon.ca, and their selection is crap compared to Amazon.com 🙁 Most places that do offer free shipping have a threshold of $50 or $100, but that’s not all that common.
I’m not all that familiar with co-emulsifiers (yet!), so I can’t offer much advice there. The reviews suggest that solubilizer (polysorbate 20) may do the trick, which is handy as solubilizer is great for oil-in-water emulsions, like toner, where you just want a wee bit of EO in a mostly water product.
I just finished making your recipe with an emulsifier from Formulator Sample Shop (US), they call it Phytomulse. It’s fantastic.http://www.formulatorsampleshop.com/PhytoMulse-Amaranth-p/fss30100.htm
I too had the delay reaction with another lotion recipe using a vegetable emulsifying wax and searched for a better option. I hope this helps. Loving the lotion, going to make more and give as gifts. I did make some subs, sunflower oil for safflower and aloe juice for water. It’s so lovely. Thank you Marie! ;D
Cool, it’s great to know there are more and more great looking e-waxes out there 🙂 Phytomulse looks quite simlar to emulsimulse in that only one ingredient is different (though of course that’s a big difference when there’s only three ingredients!). Thanks for reading & DIYing with me 🙂
I’ve just made this lotion, LOVE it. The smell is divine, it make me happy and relax. Thanks for sharing great recipes. Love your blog Marie.
Fantastic, I’m thrilled to hear it 😀 Thanks for reading & DIYing with me!
The benzoin is so thick, how do you get drops out of the bottle?
Simply place the bottle in a pot/larger jar full of hot water for a few minutes and it’ll heat up & thin out 🙂 Just be sure to have the lid on tight!
Just to be sure I got this: Take the dropper top out, place it in warm water, and then it will drop out in “blobs”, instead of drops.
Thanks in advance!!! I love the smell I got out of this lotion!
Yup! You might as well toss the dropper as it is never going to work with the benzoin 😛 Then yup, hot water bath, just be sure not to get water in the bottle 🙂 Have fun with it, benzoin is so wonderfully versatile!
Hey Linda,
I was caught off-guard by this too! I ended up having to pry off the plastic dropper cap. If you come up with a better way, let us know.
Thanks Marie,
That sounds much easier than prying off the lid, lol.
No matter what you’ll generally find that the “drops” of benzoin EO are more like “blobs”. I’ve written the recipe with that in mind 😛
Oh yes—do this, too, lol. No dropper top + water bath.
What would a good co-emulsifier for the wax that the commenter above used on accident? Polysorbate 20 or stearic acid? I’m new to this!
I believe Polysorbate 20 is the better choice from my research, but I haven’t tried it and I’m not an HLB expert (yet!) so I can’t say for certain. If you’re just starting out I’d really recommend you get yourself a complete emulsifier like Polawax or Emulsimulse so you don’t have to bother with co-emulsifiers 🙂
such a great recipe! i made this yesterday and i love it! thanks so much 🙂
Awesome! I have this lotion on my desk at work right now and all the ladies at the office love it 🙂
i was wondering is that a blue glass bottle from NDA?
It’s plastic (I’m getting some glass ones soon, but I thought it would be squeezable when I bought it… it isn’t, haha). But yes, it’s from NDA.
MARIE!!!
I have some exciting news….I think I found a way to make Lotion WITH beeswax! I’ve only been using it for about 2 days…but its been amazing thus far and I can actually get it to come out of a squeeze bottle. It’s NOT greasy and beautiful smelling since I have used lemon/tangerine. PERFECT for spring.
I would love to talk to you more about it…maybe you can use it. Would you please email me? labellenaturelle@yahoo.com Or I am on facebook. My username is dakotaossie.
Hope to talk to you soon!
Emailed! Exciting 🙂
I’m obsessed with the original Loccitane shea butter hand cream (and smell). The lavender has the same consistency but with the added lavender. I’ve been trying to duplicate that smell along with their milk soap scent but have had zero luck. It must be the chemicals:) Thank goodness Vanilla is natural:)
Thanks for the terrific posts!! I usually buy everything from mountain rose. I will take a look at NDA.
Thanks, Dana! L’Occitane sure does have some wonderful scents & products, but their price tags are definitely enough to scare me to my DIY kitchen 😛
NDA has $100 order min?? What if you only need a few items? Boo 🙁
I just don’t get a few items. It would be nice if I could, but here in Canada shipping from NDA is always ~$20 no matter how much you order, so ordering less than $100 of stuff is super painful in terms of shipping cost to merchandise cost ratio. It’s the same with all suppliers, unfortunately—NDA’s shipping is actually the cheapest in Canada in the DIY category, likely due to their size. Oh well. I just wait and build up a big cart, and try to only place 2–3 orders/year.
Hi Marie.
I came across your wonderful blog when searching for commercially prepared hand creams and, after reading through some of your recipes, I decided that I’d have a go at making one myself. I reckoned that if I can bake a cake then I can make my own cosmetics too!
Can you tell me how many millilitres this recipe yields? I’m taking a punt at 100ml for the finished product, no?
Forgive me if this seems like a silly question, but this delightful-sounding lotion will be my first foray into making my own cosmetics, so I’m going in blind and need to know what size bottle to order.
Also, would this https://www.soapkitchenonline.co.uk/acatalog/info_433943.html be a suitable emulsifier for this recipe, as I’m finding it impossible to source Emulsimulse in Europe.
Thanks in advance 🙂
Hi John! Yes, this recipe makes about 100mL of lotion when all is said and done 🙂 The e-wax you linked to also looks like it’ll do the trick, though you may find you have to wait a couple days for it to thicken up properly. Thanks for reading!
Hi there! I am a huge fan and spend my Sundays trying out your amazing recipes 😀
I’m having a bit of trouble with this one, though. I’ve made it twice today and the result is the consistency of milk. It never seems to get any thicker, even after an hour of whisking (even tried whisking another batch over ice).
Not sure what I’m doing wrong. I used my scale to get the exact weight measurements and, twice, it came out the same. It looks like a white lotion and smells delicious, but is no where near a lotion consistency.
Can you suggest anything that might help me? (Most of my ingredients are from Mountain Rose Herbs, in case that helps.) Thanks in advance!
Hi Gina! It sounds like your e-wax is the culprit, and not in a bad way. Some e-waxes take a couple days to actually thicken up properly—I’ve had a few batches that I thought were bound to be body milk, and a few days later I had a proper, creamy lotion. So, now that it’s been a few days, has the lotion thickened up on its own?
Hi Marie! Thank you so much for writing back so quickly 😀
Yes, I was extremely relieved (and happy) when I checked this morning and it was the perfect consistency. I was worried because it was so “milky” (though the smell has always been wonderful). I can’t wait to bring my new homemade lotion to knitting group tonight to show my friends!
I’ve been sharing your website with my knitting/hooping/yoga friends and now we’re all making the most delicious lip balms, lotions and beauty products.
You’re the best! 😀
Fantastic! Don’t you love it when doing nothing fixes the problem? 😉
Thanks for sharing & DIYing with me!
Hi Marie.
First off, thanks so much for your blog. It’s so informative and easy to follow. Since I discovered this recipe when I was looking for a commercially prepared lavender hand cream, I’ve lost a good few hours poring over the things you’ve written. This recipe was my first ever foray into homemade cosmetics and it was surprisingly easy. So secondly, thanks for the inspiration. I don’t know why I haven’t had a go at this a lot sooner!
Everything went well (apart from batch number one, which set off the smoke alarm when I left the oil on the hob whilst engrossed in weighing out my water phase) and the lotion that I produced smells divine! The only thing about it that makes me think that I’ve gone wrong somewhere, is that it goes on rather sticky but once it’s absorbed, it leaves my skin feeling wonderfully soft. Is this stickiness the texture that I should expect, or have I perhaps gone a little overboard with the honey or the glycerine?
Thanks in advance,
John 🙂
Hi John! Thanks so much for reading and DIYing with me 🙂 If you’re finding it a bit sticky my first guess would be that you’ve got too much honey in there. You might try dialing it back a little in future batches and reserving this one for before bed or something if the stickiness is bothering you 🙂
Thanks for getting back to me. Holding it until bedtime sounds like a good theory, but what with the excitement of this being my first DIY project, I reckon wiping the stickiness off with a towel is the most likely route I’ll go down 😉
I’ll try less honey with my next lot. I have some honey powder on it’s way to me, so hopefully that will help with accuracy.
I cannot wait to try some more of your recipes. I think a lip balm is going to be my next port of call.
Thanks again,
John
I know that feeling 😉 Enjoy your lip balm—it’s one of my favourite things to make!
Hi, Marie~
Your blog has become an addiction, a healthy one!
I’ve been wanting to make this lotion for awhile, and this morning it came together beautifully. The fragrance is unbelievable! I can’t stop smelling my hands. One question: how do you measure the EO drops? Do you use pipettes? Some of the essential oils are more fluid than others and come out fast, and instead of 5 drops, in goes 7.
Thank you,
Susan
Hi Susan! Thanks so much for reading & DIYing with me 🙂 I don’t bother with pipettes, I just use the droppers, go slowly, and don’t worry too much if I get 7 drops instead of 5 😉 It’s happened many times before, and I’m sure it’ll happen again, haha. More often than not a drop or two doesn’t make much of a difference.
I finally started making lotions (used up the store-bought ones!) and I chose this as a first go – it is quite lovely! I left out the honey and did add a preservative, but otherwise stuck to the recipe. One weird thing – I thought the eo combination smelled like Fruit Loops (the sugary breakfast cereal)! I think there’s something wrong with my lavender.
Awesome! Yay for homemade lotion 🙂 And yes, I sometimes get a whiff of “huh… froot loops?!” with this lotion, but the original did smell a bit loopy as well 😛
Hi Marie,
I just wanted to let you know what happened the last time I made this. So this is my absolutely favourite hand lotion recipe of yours and I’ve made it a gazillion times but last night I must have been very tired when making it because I completely forgot to add the water part! After I had whisked it and put it in a squeeze bottle, I noticed the bowl of water/glycerin/honey mix sitting on the counter! It still turned out ok though. Do you think that it’s ok to use? Or will it harden over time or something? What a rookie mistake! 🙂
Whoops! You might find it’ll harden up over the next few days (that’ll probably depend on the e-wax you used), but it’s definitely still ok to use—it’s basically just body oil/body butter now 🙂
Just wanted to give you an update…I used emulsimulse and now, a few weeks later, the lotion didn’t harden up at all. It’s still quite creamy/lotiony! Strange!
It should be creamy/lotiony… so this doesn’t sound too strange?
I totally forgot to add the water part (see my previous comment) so I thought that it would harden after a few days!
Right, durr. Well, with it being mostly liquids I suppose that still makes sense 😛
I love the lotion. Perfectly creamy without being greasy!
Wonderful! I’m so glad you love it, Julia 🙂
Anything stopping this from being a facial lotion? Thanks!
Nothing at all, provided your face and e-wax get along 🙂 (it can cause acne in some people)
Hi Marie!
Can I substitute the safflower oil for another oil?
Thanks!
Check out this article 🙂
Made this today! Absolutely beautiful scent!
The litsea really lifts up and amplifies the lavender smell. Love love love!
PS thanks for your reply on the whipped body butter, today I added 3% ceteryl alcohol to the e-wax to help stabalize it, I think its my optiphen causing issues.
Anyway just wanted to say that I tried this exactly as you’ve written + 3% ceteryl alcohol and it’s perfect. Only used one drop of litsea too. Phworrr that stuffs strong 🙂
I’m so glad you love it! It’s definitely one of my favourites.
I just made this today in 15 minutes… quick and easy recipe. I didn’t add the preservative because I think I’ll be able to use it up in a week or two. It smells delicious and works great on my eczema-prone dry skin, so thank you Marie!
My only problem is that it did not harden up at all. I put it in the freezer for 15 minutes and nothing happened – it’s still more of a milk consistency (made it about 12 hours ago). I read the post that the culprit would be the e-wax I used:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FP0HAMG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s01
However, I didn’t see anything that it needed a stabilizer. I think I’ll let it sit for 2-3 more days… Marie, do you have any more advice on it? I went by your listed ingredients as much as I could without a scale.
Thanks! 🙂
Hi Elle! That product page is not helpful at all :/ No INCI to be seen, so I have no idea what you’re actually working with (that seller should be embarrassed, haha). I’d give it a couple days to see if it thickens up, if it’s e-wax NF or Polawax it will 🙂
Thanks for the response Marie! You should teach these Amazon sellers a thing or two about writing a good description :p
So, I left it for about a day – didn’t change the ingredients – and it thickened up. It’s a proper cream now and smells wonderful. Thank you so much for the recipe! Definitely need it in this cold, cold weather…
Cheers x
Woohoo! Enjoy 🙂
Elle Cee, I use that same exact emulsifier from Amazon and it takes a full 3 days to firm up. You can also add an extra gram or two of it to get quicker results, but I found I actually like swapping some of the liquid oils in this recipe for a gram or two of shea butter, and that also helps things firms up without making it too greasy.
Hi Liz,
You’re completely correct! I left it alone for 1-2 days, in the bottle, and now it is a proper cream. Also, thanks for the tip about the shea butter – going to see if I can incorporate that in my next batch :). Did you add preservatives to your recipe?
x
I bought the preservative Maries uses so I could replicate everything before going solo. I add it to the warmed water component before mixing with the oils.
Also tried aloe juice for the water portion, pretty awesome!
Hey Liz,
I’ll try that aloe juice text time! 🙂
So I had it in my glass bottle for 2 weeks, without preservative. It grew some nasties in there in that time frame. My room was probably a constant 65 F temperature, so it would have sped it up.
Will be dropping in some preservative next time…
X
I don’t know if its because I have been out of school too long but I am finding it super difficult to calculate how much preservative to add. I am using Germall Plus and it states a 0.1-0.5% rate, which is fine but the amount of Germall I need to add is super small (I doubled the recipe) and I am unsure how to measure it as my scale does not go down to that small of amounts. Can someone explain this to me in basic terms so my sleep deprived mommy brain can understand the math!
It’s pretty hard for me to advise on this when you can’t actually measure the amount properly :/ It’s a bit like asking for help with a bread recipe when you don’t own measuring cups :/ You’ll be looking to add 1g or less if you doubled the batch. Does you scale not measure in at least 1g increments? That’s kind of a bare minimum for useful scales for DIYing. Perhaps try weighing out 1g into a separate container first and then adding about half that if you’re aiming for a 0.25% usage rate?
I love the smell of L’Occitane. Can you suggest one or two recipes, besides this one, that I can use these EOs in? I ordered them from MRH, but having trouble finding a good e-wax, w/o a ton of shipping charges.
I’m obsessed with this combo and I’m going to try making a solid perfume with using Marie’s solid perfume recipe. Currently I’ve just been dabbing a couple drops on my wrists!
Thanks Liz. I will look into that one. Sounds like a good idea. I hardly use lotions. I moved from dry Colorado to Northern California and it’s so humid here, I don’t find a need for oils or lotions. I put argan oil on my face and never gets absorbed.
I have a shower wash recipe with hydrosols and oils, wonder if the three EO’s in here would work for that too. Time to experiment.
Much appreciated.
You should be able to add these EO’s to pretty much anything as the project you’re working with doesn’t have a pre-existing scent that’ll clash with them 🙂 And don’t forget about solubility concerns, of course 🙂
Thanks, Liz!
Liz’s solid perfume suggestion is awesome, and you could also try a simple body butter 🙂
Hi Marie,
THANK YOU SO MUCH for this incredible bank of knowledge! I am totally new to this DIY cosmetics malarkey. I would like to use Olivem 1000 (as you say it is natural, but would need stabilising?)… how do I work out what is needed additionally to stabilise?