Hey Makers! It's Charlotte and today I'm here with Matt, our in house skin and hair care expert.
We are so excited to talk to you about the basics of understanding skin and hair care ingredients
so we brought a couple of them with us
Matt, let's talk through what makes up the basics
in terms of formulating your own skin and haircare products.
The majority of most formulas is going to be water, generally you'll want to start with
distilled or some kind of filtered water just to limit the amount of
bacteria in the product to start with.
And why not just use let's say, the water that comes out of my sink?
The water that comes out of your sink doesn't have as strict limits on bacteria and mold.
And the distilled water actually is removed of ions which
feed the bacteria that would otherwise grow like in your tap.
Got it. So if you want to make safe, long lasting products - stick with the distilled water.
Correct.
Well what else do I put in there? I've got water, that sounds like it's the bulk of my formula.
The next thing you're going to want to add is your oil phase. Which is
usually constructed of plant oils and so you'll usually combine those with butters
or waxes and then heat those up until they're one fluid consistency.
And then... Wait a minute! Aheh oil and water ... I think you guys have all heard
the saying that oil and water don't mix very well together so... how do we get
those two things to stick together to make a finished product, like let's say a cream.
So in that case, you'll want to use an emulsifier which we have pictured here. These pellets are
called Emulsifying Wax which is offered on our website. These wax pellets act as
the vinegar in your oil and vinegar solution - they allow the solution to stick together.
So when you combine this waxy material with your oils and your butters and blend
those into your water, you get a finished cream that can vary in texture based on
how much wax you're using, how many oils you're using, things like that.
And you can have a very light, fluid texture or even something very thick and nourishing.
Yeah exactly. So rule of thumb you guys, more water typically equals a lighter formula. Less
water and more oils and butters is going to give you a thicker, heavier cream. Is that right, Matt?
100%
Okay. I've got it down. Alright, so I put these two things together
umm I can emulsify them together using the emulsifying wax.
How do I keep my formula fresh and safe for a long period of time?
So what you're going to want to use to keep your formula fresh and prevent any kind of
bacterial contamination from growing if you're going to use your preservative.
Recently, there's been a lot of innovation in the preservative market to keep up with new consumer
demand for skin friendly and plant-derived materials that are better for your products.
At Makesy we only source plant-derived or eco-cert/comsos approved materials which
are two governing bodies that manage natural composition for ingredients.
Very cool you guys. So Matt, you know, uh preservative do I need to
use it in every single product I make when it comes to skin and hair care?
Or do I just need to use it in some products?
If your product contains water, you're going to want to use a preservative. If it's an oil blend,
you don't need a preservative per se you can use an antioxidant. A very common one
that provides also great skincare benefits is vitamin E or also known as tocopherol.
Now I've got oil, I've got water it sounds like I can emulsify something using these ingredients.
But when I'm making skin and hair care products I really want the product to be
efficacious and do something for my skin or my hair.
So what do I put in the product to give it the juice. What you want to add to have really
noticeable benefits are called active ingredients. And what these are is they're usually extracts or
some kind of concentrated ingredient that really provides concentrated benefits to the skin.
And you want to use these in very small percentages because they are very potent.
And they will be used from 1-2%.
Any favorites that you have?
Coming back to our vitamin E, I really like tocopherol as an active ingredient.
It provides essential fatty acids to the skin as well as acts as a potent
antioxidant which helps prevent aging and signs of wrinkles and things like that.
Matt is the king of actives around here and the more you guys learn about actives,
I think the cooler you will find them to be. So,
thank you guys so much for watching, you understand the basics
of different categories of ingredients that we use when formulating skin and hair care products.
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Thanks for watching!