If you love body-butter-esque creams, this one is for you. This Rosé Moisturizing Body Cream has a consistency that makes me want to dollop it on a big slice of pie, or perhaps eat it out of an artisanal waffle cone. It smells fantastic and is loaded with ingredients to hydrate, soothe, and keep skin moisturized for hours. My skin loves it. I can’t vouch for how it tastes, though.

How to Make Rosé Moisturizing Body Cream

Our water phase is mostly distilled water and fragrant rose hydrosol. This time I’m using the Bulgarian rose hydrosol from Plant’s Power; I love its rich, sweet, and slightly astringent/powdery scent. It pairs wonderfully with the other notes in our scent blend for that wonderful rosé-inspired scent blend. Up next, we’ve got some soothing and moisturizing panthenol, and propanediol for some fabulous humectant-y goodness.

I wanted this cream to be on the richer, thicker side, so our internal phase (the oil phase) is on the larger side at 25%. Combined with a good dose of soft-solid cupuacu butter and thickening cetearyl alcohol we’ve got a cream that dollops up like stiff whipped cream. Swoon. While it does leave the skin feeling richly moisturized and velvety, I don’t find it to be greasy. This will be partly because both camellia seed oil and cupuacu butter don’t have greasy skin feels, and partly because the Lipomoist™ 2036 helps products absorb faster.

How to Make Rosé Moisturizing Body Cream

Speaking of Lipomoist™ 2036 molecular film—it’s a new to me ingredient that Windy Point here in Calgary recently started carrying, so I picked up a small jar of it the last time I was in the store. It’s a slightly yellowish gelatinous blobby kind of substance with this INCI: Water, Xanthan Gum, Caprylyl Glycol, Phenoxyethanol, Hydrolyzed Wheat Protein, Hydrolyzed Soy Protein, Pectin, Proline, Serine, Arginine, Glucose, Butylene Glycol, Chondrus Crispus (Carrageenan) Extract, Ethylhexylglycerin. There are film-forming polysaccharides, amino acids & hydrolyzed proteins, and compounds with tightening/tensing/firming properties. It is said to help reduce trans epidermal water loss (TEWL), improve moisturization, and promote collagen production. According to data supplied by the manufacturer, Lipotec S.A.U., Lipomoist™ 2036 moisturizes marginally better than hyaluronic acid, and “the moisturizing effects of Lipomoist™ 2036 emulsions lasted for more than 6 hours.” It seemed like a fabulous addition to a rich, moisturizing body cream! Please refer to the substitutions list at the end of the formula if you don’t have it.

The resulting cream has a fabulously decadent texture; rich and whippy, reminiscent of body butter, but much lighter. It smells incredible and leaves skin feeling soft and hydrated for hours on end. I love slathering some on before bed, after taking a bath or shower—I always wake up with awesome feeling skin!

Rosé Moisturizing Body Cream

Heated water phase
26.375g | 26.38% distilled water
35g | 35% rose hydrosol
2g | 2% panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)
3g | 3% Propanediol 1,3 (USA / Canada)

Heated oil phase
6g | 6% Polawax (USA / Canada)
9g | 9% camellia seed oil
7g | 7% cupuacu butter (USA / Canada)
3g | 3% cetearyl alcohol (USA / Canada)

Cool-down phase
7g | 7% Lipomoist™ 2036 (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 0.6% green cognac essential oil
0.4g | 0.4% lemon slices fragrance oil
0.125g | 0.13% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)
0.5g | 0.5% Liquid Germall 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.

Weigh the heated water phase into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup. 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 cream, starting with short bursts so the still-very-liquid cream 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 cream is thick and creamy.

When the cream 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 cream on that scale without blowing it out. So—grab a smaller dish. Add a scoop or two of cream, and then weigh the cool down ingredients into that, using the more accurate scale. Stir to thoroughly incorporate, and then stir all of that back into the master batch of cream. Doing it this way minimizes the amount of cool down ingredients lost to the secondary container.

With the cool down phase incorporated, you’re all done! Transfer the cream to your container; I used a 100mL (3.3fl oz) screw-top plastic jar from Yellow Bee. This cream is too thick for a pump-top bottle, but I think it would probably be ok in a squeeze tube and possibly an airless bottle that has a push-up bottom rather than a tube. To use, smooth over dry skin that could use a bit of extra love!

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 I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
  • Read the encyclopedia entry for panthenol for substitution suggestions.
  • You can use a different humectant instead of propanediol. You can try sodium lactate or vegetable glycerin, though you may find it to be a bit sticky. Sodium PCA would also be a good choice.
  • You could replace the rose hydrosol with more water and use a bit of rose fragrance or essential oil for the rose note. I’d probably use 34.5% distilled water and 0.5% rose fragrance oil. If you want to use rose essential oil instead of the rose hydrosol, please keep in mind that the maximum usage rate for rose otto is 0.02%.
  • You can use whatever lightweight, fast-absorbing carrier oils you have in place of the camellia seed oil.
  • Another soft butter, like shea butter or mango butter, would work instead of cupuacu butter.
  • You could try cetyl alcohol or stearic acid instead of cetearyl alcohol.
  • To replace the Lipomoist™ 2036 I’d recommend trying a blend of hydrolyzed proteins, humectants, and xanthan gum to start with—probably 4% hydrolyzed rice protein, 2.9% humectant of choice, and 0.1% xanthan gum to total the 7% Lipomoist™ 2036 used in this formulation. If you have hyaluronic acid you could include that at 0.2% as part of the humectants. If you’ve made a 1% solution that will mean 20% of this formulation will be that 1% solution, with 19.8% coming out of the distilled water and 0.2% coming out of the humectants.
  • You can use a different scent blend.
  • If you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this page.

Gifting Disclosure

The cognac essential oil and rose hydrosol were gifted by Plant’s Power. The plastic jar was gifted by YellowBee.