My First Lotion- a School Paper

 

    Hey everyone! I wanted to do a very quick post on lotion making. You may not know but I am in high school and recently had to do a paper on learning something new and writing instructions for it. I already had Bramble Berry's lotion making kit so I of course decided to learn how to make lotion! I thought I might as well share my paper with y'all but, remember I am no expert at all! So if you have made lotion I would love some feedback on the essay and if you haven't made lotion and want to I highly suggest going to the Point of Interest! blog which is such a wealth of info and where I looked to as a guide in my lotion making journey. Oh! and a very exciting side note is that after about a year and a half homeschooling due to chronic daily headaches I got accepted to a small privite school that I will hopefully attend next year!!!!

Now on to my paper:

PLEASE READ THRU ALL INSTRUCTIONS BEFORE EVEN PREPARING FOR THIS RECIPE

Heated Water Phase (combine these in the ~16 oz Pyrex)
Amount	Ingredients
18 oz	DISTILLED Water

Heated oil phase (combine these in the ~32 oz Pyrex)
Amounts	Ingredients
1 oz	Stearic acid
1 oz	Avocado oil
1.2 oz	Shea butter
1.2 oz	Emulsifying wax (AKA E-wax)
1.7 oz	Sweet almond oil

Cool Down Phase (combine in one of the small bowl/ shot glass)
Amount	Ingredients	Optional
.2 oz	Phenonip (a Preservative)
.1 oz	Fragrance oil or essential oils	X
½ tsp	Mica or liquid color (NOT food coloring)	X

1.     Sanitize all tools that will make direct contact with any ingredients, lotion batter, or the final product (so basically every thing but the scale).

  ***To sanitize put all tools (except for bottles) in the dishwasher on the sanitize cycle. For the bottles spray or put a bit of at least 91% rubbing alcohol in the bottles and swish it around and then place the bottles upside down so the excess alcohol can run out and evaporate.

2.     In the larger Pyrex measure out your ingredients for the heated oil phase  (the ingredients you should put in here are labeled Heated oil Phase in ingredient list). You must do this by weight since fluid ounces are not accurate. Before adding the ingredients to the bowl you may want to measure them out individually in one of the small sanitized bowls before putting it in the larger bowl (because you can’t take away a certain liquid if its already mixed with another)

3.     In the smaller Pyrex (I used a 16oz model) measure out (again by weight) 18 oz of water. It has to be distilled bottled water; the lotion will go bad otherwise. PS, yes the 18 oz of H₂O will fit into the 16 oz Pyrex.

4.     Next you will heat up both the oil and water phase. To do this you will put them in pots half-full of water. The catch is they can’t touch the bottom of the pot. You can put a rack in the bottom of the pot, but I found that if I just hooked the handle over the edge of the pot they will not touch the bottom.

· You will heat them both up  

to 170^o F and then hold 

them at that temperature 

for 20 minutes; this step is called “Heat and hold”.

5.     While you are holding the heat on the oils and water phase, it is time to prepare the cool down phase. It is just as simple as steps 2 & 3, just measure out preservative, fragrance (I used sunny herb garden), and color in one of the sanitized small bowl. The main component of the cool down phase is the preservative. The others are optional. You cannot make a lotion without a real preservative!!! Vitamin E and grapefruit sees extract are not preservatives, they are antioxidants. It is unsafe, if you want an all-natural product you cannot make lotion safely.

6.     After your 20 minutes of holding is up take both Pyrex containers off the heat

7.     Slowly pour the water into the oils. To reduce air bubbles pour the water down the stick blender that is already submerged in the oils.

8.     Now stick blend this for three to five minutes and then let it sit for ten minutes and repeat the process until your lotion is under 122^oF

9.     Once the mixture is below 122^oF add the ingredients labeled cool down in the box above. It is important to wait until the mixture has cooled before adding these because these ingredients are heat sensitive.

10.  Insert the sanitized funnel into the bottles (be sure all the alcohol has evaporated out first) and fill the bottle with the lotion. Repeat this with the rest of the bottles

11.  Finally let the lotion cool to room temperature before adding the tops, which should have also been spayed with alcohol. You now have finished homemade lotion that is ready to use!!

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     So that is my paper the copy I am sending in has more pictures but I couldn't really get the paper on the blogger format easily but I think we all know what a scale and the ingredients look like, right? I will add a few notes here for just y'all, I used Bramble Berry's sunny herb garden fragrance oil, which is really light in the lotion at .1 oz. The mica I used was apple green from The Conservatorie and to be honest I did not actually measure out the amount I used I just used like half a spoon full or something like that. Well thanks for stopping by and feel free to give me feedback on this tutorial paper I wrote!