2 posts tagged “natural cosmetics”

I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing wrong. I tried the same recipe tonight for the rose and almond hand cream, except that instead of using borax as an emulsifier, I used cetyl alcohol.  I followed the instructions, pouring the rose water and cetyl mixture into the melted oils very, very slowly, then stirring until everything had cooled.

As I stirred, the mixture took on a creamy consistency, turning into what was looking like actual cream. Then, as I kept stirring and the concoction cooled, it started going "cottage cheese" on me (for lack of a better term). Then it separated and the rosewater leaked back out (see pic).

Perhaps I should have treated this like actual cream and stopped stirring once it had taken on the right consistency. I believe the continuous stirring caused the cream to seize and turn into "butter."

Guess I'll try again tomorrow night.

I tried the rose and almond hand cream tonight from "Neal's Yard Remedies: Recipes for Natural Beauty" tonight. The recipe calls for:

• cocoa butter
• beeswax
• almond oil
• rosewater
• emulsifying wax
• rose absolute

I didn't have any emulsifying wax on hand, so I tried to be clever and use borax.  Borax is an emulsifying agent. Big, huge fail here. The cream turned out grainy and thin. I guess I need to track down some emulgator at the neighborhood apotheke.

But with the rosewater and rose absolute, the mixture does smell divine.