Help me make this recipe!

[mrsmatt0511]

We're adopting a 4-year-old boy from AFrica, and I love the shea moisture body lotion from target. These are the ingredients:

Deionized water, raw butyrospermum parkii (shea) oil, theobroma cacao (cocoa) seed butter, mangefera indica (mango) seed butter, olus oil, argania spinosa (argan) nut oil, centhera beinnis (evening primrose) oil, borage officinalis oil, simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) oil, rosa rubiginosa serrata (frankinsense) oil, chamomile extract, myrrh extract, lonicera caprifolium (honeysuckle) flower (and) lonicera japonica (Japanese honeysuckle) flower extract.

They say it's 100% natural - but why do they have water in in with no preservative? I thought if you had water you HAD to have a preservative?

And what's raw shea oil? I've never seen that?

I'd LOVE to try to recreate a shea butter lotion that I could use in a pump-able bottle. For a couple of years I've made my own body butters, lotions, etc, and have sold them, but never in a pump bottle.

Wouldn't the shea butter/oil separate from the oils in the pump?

any thoughts on where to start?

 

[judymoody]

There would have to be a preservative in there somewhere as well as an emulsifier to keep it stable. I can't say why the complete ingredients aren't listed. I doubt Target would market an unpreserved product.

"All natural" is a meaningless term, IMO

If you like the product, I'd keep using it.

If you want to try making your own - swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com is the place to start. I don't see any reason why a product would be more likely to separate in a pump bottle as opposed to another kind of container if it's formulated properly.

 

[freyacat]

Japanese Honeysuckle is a source of parabens, so there's some preservative action there.
Can't see an emulsifier though, so no idea how it's staying together.

 

[mrsmatt0511]

It says no parabens, and it does say to shake well as natural ingredients tend to settle or separate - so maybe there's no emulsifier?

They would HAVE to have a preservative, right? with the deonized water?

Yes, I do like the product and I think I'll use it on our Africa-born-son, but I just wanted to try to attempt my own.

 

[lsg]

If you want to make your own product research what each ingredient contributes to the product. I would then create a body butter that needs no preservative.

 

[kikajess]

Whenever I had a cold as a kid, my mom had us drink Chamomile tea. I always thought it tasted horrible. I doubt it adds any pleasant scent. But it worked to help get rid of our colds. Maybe the chamomile extract has some antiviral properties that work as a preservative.

 

[freyacat]

I looked into this a bit more as silly me was just quoting others when saying that honeysuckle contains parabens. Reminder to self to always do more research...

Anyways, Japanese honeysuckle is sold as a preservative under the name of Plantservative. http://www.chemicalsources.net/Plantservative-WSr-Honeysuckle-1029-2848.htm

However, there has been controversy on how this preservative works with some saying that it has paraben like actions http://chemicaloftheday.squarespace...-responds-to-japanese-honeysuckle-claims.html

I tend to trust these guys who say that the honeysuckle is an less than average preservative and we're not 100% certain on why it works.

http://personalcaretruth.com/2010/07/honeysuckle-extract-the-new-paraben-debate/
http://personalcaretruth.com/2010/07/honeysuckle-plant-extract/#!