I’m really excited to share this formula with you guys—this Pemberley Hand Lotion was my Formula Botanica final project, and I received a mark of 100% for it! The project was to create a product for a specific customer. I designed this gorgeous hand lotion for professional women, aged 30–40, who work in an office setting. It had to be ultra hydrating but also super fast absorbing so the user wouldn’t leave greasy fingerprints on papers or touch screens. The scent had to be soft as heavily perfumed products are frowned upon in office settings, but I also wanted it to be luxurious and pleasing to give the user a bit of a sensory break from their busy day. This is what I came up with!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
To ensure it was lightweight and fast-absorbing I kept out oil phase quite small, adding a titch of cetyl alcohol to keep it from being drooly. Camellia seed oil and jojoba oil are both light, fast-absorbing oils, so that further contributes to the lightweight-ness of the lotion.
Our water phase is packed with humectants—vegetable glycerin, propanediol, and some fancy hyaluronic acid. Colloidal oatmeal and panthenol are both sooth and moisturizing, and silk ups the moisturizing factor and sounds really fancy (label appeal is a consideration in product design, after all!).
The essential oil blend is lovely, and I’m really proud of it. The sweet rose hydrosol mingles with warm, vanilla-like benzoin, and both are lifted up by a touch of spicy cardamom and juicy, fresh grapefruit. It’s not an easily identifiable blend; everyone I’ve asked has been able to catch a note or two, but nobody has been able to identify all the parts. The scent is complex and beguiling; luxurious and mysterious. It starts off bright and a bit sharp before mellowing down to a warm, sweet hum.
The rose hydrosol I’m using today is from Plant’s Power in Toronto, and it is absolutely lovely. It is a true hydrosol—a product of distillation, not an essential oil solubilized in water. The rose scent is rich and velvety, with an almost juicy-ness to it. Beyond the rich scent, two things I’m really appreciating are that the hydrosol came in a heavy, dark glass bottle, and that I can download a Certificate of Analysis from the Plant’s Power website that includes a precise date of manufacture, so I know the hydrosol is fresh. Plant’s Power sent me the rose hydrosol along with a few other things I’ve really been enjoying working with—so far I’m very impressed with their quality.
The scent is a big part of what inspired the name—Pemberley. Pemberley is the name of Mr. Darcy’s estate in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. When I was trying to think of a name for this lotion I wanted something evocative of old-fashioned British luxury; manicured rose gardens, satin slippers, full skirts, and heavy wood furniture on richly carpeted floors. Pemberley perfectly encapsulates that for me.
In keeping with Formula Botanica’s natural ethos I used Optiphen Plus to preserve this lotion. This preservative can de-stabilize emulsions, so to counter that I included 0.3% xanthan gum and 2% cetyl alcohol to stabilize the emulsion. The pH of the final product also needs to be below 6; when made as written it is approximately 5 without any adjustment (which is perfect).
The finished lotion is stunning. It has a gorgeous, cool, glidey slip that makes it an absolute pleasure to apply. The scent is intoxicating and indulgent. The finish is light, without a hint of greasiness or tack, and my skin is left soft and hydrated for ages. I am so in love with this Pemberley Hand Lotion, and I hope you will be, too!
Want to watch this project instead of read it?
Pemberley Hand Lotion
Heated water phase
2g | 2% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
0.30g | 0.3% xanthan gum
28.46g | 28.46% distilled water
20g | 20% low molecular weight 1% hyaluronic acid solution
20g | 20% rose hydrosol
2g | 2% Propanediol 1,3 (USA / Canada)
1g | 1% colloidal oatmeal (USA / Canada)
2g | 2% hydrolyzed silk (USA / Canada)
2g | 2% panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)Heated oil phase
3.75g | 3.75% Olivem1000 (USA / Canada)
7g | 7% camellia seed oil
6g | 6% jojoba oil (USA / Canada)
2g | 2% cetyl alcohol (USA / Canada)Cool down phase
1g | 1% calendula extract
0.09g | 0.09% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.20g | 0.2% cardamom essential oil
0.30g | 0.3% pink grapefruit essential oil
0.40g | 0.4% benzoin resinoid
1.50g | 1.5% Optiphen™ Plus (USA / Canada)Prepare 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.
Whisk the xanthan gum and glycerin together in a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup, breaking up all lumps of gum. Whisk in the water, and then add the rest of the heated water phase ingredients. Weigh the entire lot (measuring cup + ingredients) and note that weight for use later. Weigh the heated oil phase into a second heat-resistant glass measuring cup. Place both measuring cups in your prepared water bath to melt everything through.
After about 20–30 minutes the oil part should be completely melted and the water part should be thoroughly dissolved. Remove the water bath from the heat and weigh it. Add enough hot distilled water to bring the weight back up to what it was before heating, and then pour the water part into the oil part. Stir with a flexible silicone spatula to incorporate.
Grab your immersion blender and begin blending the lotion, starting with short bursts so the still-very-liquid lotion doesn’t whirl up and spray everywhere. Blend for about a minute, leave to cool for ten, blend for another minute or two, and repeat this blend-cool-blend cycle until the outside of the glass measuring cup is barely warm to the touch and the lotion is thick and creamy.
When the lotion is cool it’s time to incorporate our cool down ingredients. Because cool down ingredients are typically present at very low amounts you’ll need to use an accurate scale—preferably one accurate to 0.01g. As these more accurate scales tend to have fairly low (100–200g) maximum weights you won’t be able to put the entire batch of lotion on that scale without blowing it out.
Because our preservative is more pH-sensitive than the one I usually use (it requires a range of 4–6), you’ll want to test the pH of the lotion to ensure it is compatible. Skin Chakra has an excellent post on how to test and adjust pH, which you can find here. If made as written this lotion should naturally have a pH of approximately 5. It is a good idea to test the pH before and after the addition of the preservative to ensure compatibility.
Weigh the cool down ingredients into a smaller dish using your more precise scale, and then add a scoop or two of lotion. Stir to thoroughly incorporate, and then stir all of that back into the master batch of lotion. Doing it this way minimizes the amount of cool down ingredients lost to the secondary container.
Once the lotion is totally cool it’s time to package it up. I designed this lotion to be stored in a squeeze tube, like this. A 100g batch will fill a 100mL (3.3fl oz) tube pretty well. I use a syringe to fill tubes—I find that’s the easiest way. Watch the video to see how I do it! Once the lotion has been packaged up, you’re done!
Shelf Life & Storage
Because this cream 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 100g.
- To learn more about the ingredients used in this recipe, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there!
- If you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this page.
- You can eliminate the xanthan gum, replacing it with more water. You could also try a different gum, like guar gum or hydroxyethylcellulose.
- I don’t recommend swapping out the hyaluronic acid; if you have to please read its encyclopedia page for some ideas.
- Glycerine and propanediol 1,3 are our humectants. You could try replacing either or both with a different humectant, like sodium lactate.
- You could replace the colloidal oats with more panthenol.
- Review the encyclopedia page for panthenol for substitution suggestions
- You could try a different hydrolyzed protein (oat, rice, quinoa, etc.) in place of silk
- You could use a different complete emulsifying wax instead of Olivem 1000; Ritamulse SCG would make the most sense. DO NOT use Olivem 300.
- Cetearyl alcohol will work as an alternative to cetyl alcohol.
- You can substitute another lightweight oil like sweet almond, grapeseed, or sunflower seed for the camellia and/or jojoba oil. This is also a good place to use more luxurious carrier oils like argan oil!
- You can use a different botanical extract in place of calendula, or simply use more water.
- I don’t recommend altering the essential oil blend as it is stunning, but if you have to be sure to 1) keep in mind there is rose hydrosol in the recipe, and that impacts the scent and 2) maximum usage levels. You could also use a fragrance oil.
Gifting Disclosure
The rose hydrosol was gifted by Plant’s Power.The hyaluronic acid was gifted by Pure Nature.
Just a question as to why optioned versus liquid germal plus as the preservative
It’s considered more “natural”. You can certainly use LGP instead!
Hi! optiphen plus isn’t considered a natural preservative…or so I thought. Phenoxyethanol is an ethoxylated compound and its source as found in cosmetic use is petrochemical. Formula Botanica doesn’t normally use petrochemical ingredients even for preservatives? Well I may be wrong or not updated. Love to learn more though.
Lissandra
That was my understanding too. It was in the Formula Botanica syllabus that phenoxyethanol is not natural and used in their formulation with clays only since clays are “notoriously hard to preserve” (the exact quote by FB).
And I remember that points were deducted for using this in assignment.
FB could have bended their ethos on a case by case basis.
Now I am absolutely curious and would like to know too.
This is what my tutor said: “Another thing is that Phenoxyethanol is no longer accepted in organic certification but as you didn’t mention your market is all about certified organic, I think it is fine. We don’t use it in our courses ( unless it is about clays) but it is still an effective preservative.” I hope that is helpful!
I am not a fan of rose scent. Can you suggest a different hydrosol that would be scent compatible? I love the benzoin & cardamom mix from the plum oil series and I LOVE the idea of adding grapefruit to that mix. . .
Hmm. Maybe lavender? You could also use distilled water instead and swap out some of the oils in the lotion for plum oil…. ooooh…. now I want to try that!
It appears as if there is a world-wide shortage of panthenol. I bought about 50 pounds or so of it when I could tell that it was becoming unavailable, and I haven’t been able to find a source for it since then (last summer) Any ideas on a good source for it in the US?
Lotion Crafter has it 🙂
Oh, I’m a little older (47) but this meets all of my hand lotion needs, and I have everything on hand (I’ll need to sub out some of the essential oils).
I’ll make this up this weekend. Thank you so much!
The marketing talk is just plain ol’ marketing talk 😛 It helped guide the formulation, but that’s about it. I’m not in the target market for this lotion, either, and I love it! 🙂 Happy making!
This formulation sounds wonderful and I can see why you received full marks, Marie! I’m going to try it for sure.
Since I’ve never seen you use them, I just wanted to say that when I’m making hand lotions for gifts, I’ve started putting them into silicone squeeze tubes that I get from the dollar store. They are wonderful because they are refillable and have a wide mouth for easy filling. If I’m making a big batch, I use a 1L zipper bag and cut the corner off to fill the tubes. I use a little bulldog clip to seal if I don’t use all the lotion at once.
I can’t wait to try this lotion!
Thank you! I have used similar silicone tubes in the past, but I find they are very… not photogenic, lol. They are fantastic for projects you don’t need glam shots of, though 😛 I often use them when I travel to bring along a small amount of laundry detergent!
Sounds amazing! I have most of the j gradients but not all 🙁 I guess my carts are going to get bigger today. You get your Hyaluronic Acid from lotioncrafters right?
Thank you! My LMW HA is from Pure Nature (linked in the gifting disclosure), but I do have some SLMW HA from Lotion Crafter that I haven’t opened yet 🙂
I have the SLMW HA from Lotioncrafter and really like it, the only thing is that it says (accurately) that it “has no thickening or gel-forming effect.” I have some LMW (no S) on the way and will see if it has a little bit more of a thickening effect 🙂
The one I’ve worked with is LMW and it very definitely gels—I’m excited to try the SLMW and see if there’s a possibility for an even more concentrated stock!
Love this one and can’t wait to try it! I am wondering about the use of humectants in lotions as I live in the desert of Arizona where skin is always dry. I remember reading(but not where) that in very arid climates humectants actually steal water from the lower layers of the skin. That doesn’t sound good! Not sure if I should use them or not. Any advice? Thanks so much!
Hey Connie! Generally speaking, this is how all humectants work, but theft isn’t a good way to think of it 🙂 In the skin, the dermis is the last layer that is vascularized—meaning it’s the last layer the body can deliver water to. On top of the dermis we have the epidermis, and it tends to need some help staying hydrated, especially in dry conditions. The application of moisturizers including humectants helps topically replenish moisture, hold onto the added moisture, and pull moisture up from lower layers of the skin, but that moisture is easily replenished by the body. So maybe not theft, but facilitated sharing? 🙂 Definitely embrace the humectants, your skin will love ’em! I live in a very dry environment as well and I humectant all the things!
I can see why you got 100% This is a wonderful lotion. I made it with just a couple of substitutions as I did not have everything on hand. It turned out beautiful, not greasy.
Very absorbent. Thanks
Thank you so much, Janice! And wow, you are FAST with the making! Thanks so much for sharing and DIYing with me 🙂
oh this looks lovely! Is it ok for professional women between 50 and 60 🙂 lol! Really, it looks divine. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you! The marketing talk is precisely that—marketing talk! If you fancy a lovely hand lotion I’m pretty confident this one will do the trick 🙂
I made this lotion exactly as posted. OMG, OMG…the scent…heavenly. The best combo yet and the lotion is so …so…so…I can’t even describe how satiny smooth it is. THANK YOU !!
I find the rose hydrosol (a distilled product) loses quite a bit if odour when heated. Do you find the same thing ?
I am so thrilled! I definitely think I should do some more things with this scent blend 🙂
I’ve found the scent loss varies with different hydrosols—some seem relatively unharmed while others positively vanish :/ We can’t really add 20%+ of the recipe in the cool down phase, though, so I would probably just use more in the heated phase, reducing the water accordingly, if you’re finding the scent from the hydrosol is insufficient.
Thanks Marie. I do have a wee confession. I added 7 drops of a red rose fragrance oil from NDA. It didn’t seem to make a difference but it sort of made it more mellow and rounded. Maybe my imagination. I’d sniffed it so many times by then I’m sure my nose was numb…LOL
Good idea about reducing the water and adding the reduced amount to the hydrosol. I’ll try that !
That actually sounds about right! This scent blend is not aggressively rose-y at all—if I didn’t know there was rose in it I might not pick it out at all 🙂
This sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing it.
I also love the sticker you put on the tube. Can you post the source for them? Thanks!
Thank you! The sticker is one of my own design 🙂 You can see the full project here!
Hi Marie, I wondered about the vitamin e; it seems the percentage is dialled back quite a lot – is there any reason for that? Thanks 🙂
The vitamin E is used at 0.5% of the oil phase, which is what I usually do 🙂 The oil phase in this formula is pretty small, though, so that means there’s really not much vitamin E.
Hi Marie
This recipe sounds wonderful! I love the name you gave it “Pemberley”; I too love Jane Austen and everything associated with it! I definitely want to make this, but I don’t have some of the ingredients yet, so I’ll have to wait (sigh)
I just finished a batch of my own hand cream and it’s scented with Lavender, Lemon, Frankincense and Myrrh. I love it and it so rich and good for your hands.
I have to tell you that I made a batch of your Frankincense and Myrrh lotion(alas I converted the grams to tablespoons and teaspoons: my gram scale is on it’s way) and it turned out beautifully! I also made another batch and decided to use some alkanet infused olive oil and scented it with Lavender, Lemon and Ylang Ylang. It’s a very pretty rose color and smells heavenly!
Thank you so much, Janice! I’m so glad you’re enjoying the lotion—your scent blend sounds utterly divine. Swoon! I love the alkanet infusion idea as well—did you know alkanet shifts colour in different pH environments? Plants are so cool!
Hi Marie, I stumbled on your You Tube video and then found this genius formula on your website. Congratulations! I am older than your target market but I do work in a office and am constantly wiping unabsorbed lotion off my finger tips to avoid getting it all my keyboard. The problem is that my finger tips need moisturizing too. I have never made my own lotion, but have wanted something natural. Thanks so much. I will begin to gather the ingredients, and give it a go
Welcome! Feel perfectly free to ignore the “target market”, it’s just marketing jargon for the assignment—I don’t fit into my target market either and I love this lotion! It is a pretty complex one for a first-time lotion maker, though—you might consider trying something a bit simpler to get the hang of emulsions and what not before making this one 🙂 The one in this video is really simple and a great starting point! Happy making 😀
I really love this one! At first all I could think was “xanthan gum = boogery”. And sure enough my first impression was eeeewwww slimy! But after it fully cooled and set, it had the most lovely non greasy consistency – almost a gel.
While this batch was setting, I decided to make another batch, this time with crothix instead. Although it came out quite nice, I did end up preferring the batch made with xanthan gum. I’d like to say it’s sitting on my desk right now, but one of my coworkers has claimed it as her own! Thanks Marie!
I am SO glad you’re loving it! You are definitely right—the xanthan does give it an extra slippy-ness that my other lotions don’t have. I was surprised by how much I liked that! And I’m glad to hear it is right at home in an office setting, ha 😛 Mine is happily living on my side table next to where I do most of my writing.
Thanks for DIYing with me, and thank you for being a patron!
Thank you for sharing, Marie. I’m new to making DIY creams and lotions and it was very helpful to follow the recipe. However I used other essential oil blend, because the benzoin I have is very sticky and thick, where did you get yours? How can I dilute mine so I can work with it?
You can put your bottle in hot water so that the benzoin becomes more liquid. Then it is possible to get the drops out.
Good morning Noni!
One of my benzoin resins is also wickedly thick and blob like! What I do when I need to use it, is heat it up gently in a cup of hot water so I can get a more accurate amount. My other container of benzoin is VERY liquidy! I bought mine here.
Pemberley Lotion was made this morning BEFORE work! That is how easy it all came together. It was my first time working with colloidal oatmeal and I am in love.
I did swap out some things for what I had on hand.
Emulsifying Wax NF, for the Olivem.
Monoi oil for the Camellia seed oil.
I did not have Xantham gum so I used a bit of Stearic acid.
I also have a dry spot on one hand so I sprinkled a bit of Urea in the mix.
I love it. I really do and the Monoi oil gave it a luxurious tropical scent that blended well with the rose and other scents you created. It smells like an English Garden was planted next to a Gardenia garden surrounded by a coconut groove with one singular Cardamom in the center.
Even with the oil swap it still dried down perfectly with no greasy after feel. I am 41 and an office manager so I feel like it still fits your ideal marketing “professional women, aged 30–40, who work in an office setting; and It provides the Sensory break”
Thank you so much for this recipe. My hands feel great and moisturized.
Amazing! I’m so thrilled to hear how you’re loving it, and how the changes you made have created something extra special and extra awesome 😀 Woohoo! Thanks for DIYing with me, and happy making 🙂
OMG!!! this is amazing! Thank you thank you for sharing it with us! I can’t get enough of the scent! I am hoping you do more experimenting with scents because this one is over the top!
I do have a question, if I wanted to thicken this up to a cream would I use stearic acid instead of cetyl?
Thanks again!
Good afternoon Connie!
That’s an excellent question! Your answer is not an usual one though. Firstly, be sure to read these posts in the encylopedia on cetyl alcohol and cetearyl alcohol. You might also want to check out stearic acid. At the end of the day, it depends on the end texture you are looking for. Personally, if you are looking for a much thicker viscosity product, I’d reduce the jojoba oil and add in a butter instead. Choices! Choices! What did you end up using?
Hey everyone, positive side effect… stronger nails! Pemberley has been my resident hand lotion totally evicting Lubriderm. I have noticed over the last week or so that my nails are a bit stronger and longer! I always get those annoying side splits along the edges but that has been drastically reduced!
SO COOL! Thanks for sharing, Rhonda 😀
Hi Marie,
Did you have any problem with dissolving the colloidal oatmeal? I made a soothing face cream yesterday for my brother in law (an 100 batch) and used 1% of colloidal oatmeal and it took me more than 30 minutes and even a mini mixer near the end but the colloidal oatmeal still didn’t get fully dissolved. I bought it from Pure Nature (New Zealand) so the quality is good. It was the second time I made the cream and it was the same the first time. I’m sure the water level in the water bath was right (more than the water phase in the beaker). Have you got any tips to help dissolving it? Thank you,
Huong
Hey Huong! I haven’t had any issues working with colloidal oatmeal in lotions, though as I’m thinking about it, colloidal oatmeal doesn’t really dissolve like something like powdered panthenol will, so that wasn’t the best choice of words for the instructions (sorry!). If you check out the video you’ll see my water phase is cloudy—that’s from the colloidal oatmeal. Once blended in I cannot feel it at all in the product thanks to the tiny particle size. I hope that helps and sorry for the confusion!
Thanks Marie I’ll watch the video later.
I recently made your Lightweight French Lavender hand lotion and got rave reviews after sharing with friends and family.
On the whole, what is a good way to double or triple the amount of end product without losing the integrity of the lotion? I want to triple this Pemberley lotion batch and make a larger amount in one sitting.
Please advise,
Susan
Wahoo! I’m so thrilled you and your loved ones are loving it!
When it comes to scaling you’ll want to make sure you’re using percentages—check out this post for more info 🙂 You’ll find the heating/cooling times will be longer. Also, be sure you’re topping up the water phase by weight (some of my earlier formulations don’t include the top-up-by-weight step, instead increasing the starting water amount by 10%—the instructions in this formula are the way to go).
Happy making!
hi Can I use xanthan gum in face lotions and creams? If you can tell us some kind of recipe with xanthan gum for face cream.is it safe?
You can, in the exact same way I have used it in this formulation. It’s safe, but you may not like the slip/finish on it. You’ll have to experiment and see what you like 🙂
Hi Marie:
I just made this yesterday and it’s wonderful! Thank you for sharing this great formula.
I was going to ask you about Hydrolyzed silk, as I couldn’t find it in your Encyclopedia.
I have since found it, but for the past month or so, when I check the Encyclopedia it is no longer alphabetical (which makes it harder to finds stuff.)
Is there a glitch? Has anyone else had this issue?
Thank you for your help.
Sly
That has been fixed! It wasn’t a glitch, but a result of updating the theme Humblebee & Me is run on—the update overwrote/broke the modification I’d created previously to alphabetize the encyclopedia. The update also changed enough things that I couldn’t just do the same thing again, so I had to find a new solution, but I finally did early last week 🙂
Wow it is expensive to purchase these ingredients. Can you help me in deciding to make this kind of investment?
Hi Barbara! If you’ve never made lotion before I would not start here. I recommend this formula instead 🙂 Starting here would be like trying to sew a ball gown when you’d never made a pillow case. Happy making!
Congratulations on your exceptional Pemberley Hand Lotion formula, Marie! It’s fantastic to see a product designed specifically for professional women in office settings. The lightweight and fast-absorbing formula sounds perfect for busy individuals who need hydration without greasy fingerprints. The luxurious scent blend you’ve created adds a touch of sensory delight to their day. Looking forward to trying out this hand lotion from storyvogue.com and indulging in its old-fashioned British luxury. #HandCare #LuxuryLotion.
I was looking for a hand lotion formula using Hyaluronic Acid and was so excited to find this one! You mention that this was formulated for a squeeze tube. Would I run into any issues if I used a bottle and pump?