Question About Hydrosols

[Crownite]

Hey Everyone!

I've been experimenting with hydrosols in lotions. I was wondering if there's any drawback to using hydrosols in the cool down phase instead of the water phase of my product? Any skin reactions from doing so, etc.

I did forget to mention (probably should have called this post 'questions about hydrolyzed proteins') but I added hydrolyzed oat protein to my cool down phase of my lotion. The ingredient book I used tend to put hydrolyzed proteins in the water phase. My lotion texture felt incredible and I could almost immediately see the change in texture of my lotion just from adding it.

 

[Cellador]

I don't think it really makes a difference in your recipe, but adding the hydrosols in cool down might affect a couple of things....
One, it might mess with the emulsion stability. Part of the reason we heat & hold is to make the water & oil phase temperatures roughly the same to help with the emulsification process. Plus, if your emulsion is already complete, the new water amount might ruin the emulsion.
Also, are your hydrosols already preserved? If not, the inclusion of the hydrosols in the heated water phase might help to reduce some of the bugs that could spoil a lotion. It won't kill them all or anything, so still use a preservative regardless.
But from what I understand, hydrosols don't lose any of their beneficial properties when they are gently heated. There's really not any reason to add them at cool down instead of the heated phase.

 

[Crownite]

I don't think it really makes a difference in your recipe, but adding the hydrosols in cool down might affect a couple of things....
One, it might mess with the emulsion stability. Part of the reason we heat & hold is to make the water & oil phase temperatures roughly the same to help with the emulsification process. Plus, if your emulsion is already complete, the new water amount might ruin the emulsion.
Also, are your hydrosols already preserved? If not, the inclusion of the hydrosols in the heated water phase might help to reduce some of the bugs that could spoil a lotion. It won't kill them all or anything, so still use a preservative regardless.
But from what I understand, hydrosols don't lose any of their beneficial properties when they are gently heated. There's really not any reason to add them at cool down instead of the heated phase.

Thanks Cellador. I always use a preservative because I have tendency to use my products, even oil based body butters, in the shower. For this particular lotion I put the hydrolyzed protein (I said hydrosols...sorry, it was late lol) in the cool down phase just to see what the effect would be. But I didn't know if there was any reason NOT to put it in the cool down phase.