Using Vitamin E Oil

[tjturner]

Not sure if this is in the right section. Just wondeing if anyone has used Vitamin E oil before in making creams

 

[lsg]

I use vitamin E in all my lotions and creams.

 

[Hazel]

I use Vitamin E in creams, lotions and lotion bars. I generally use it between .5% to 1%.

BTW, I moved this thread to the Bath & Body Forum.

 

[tjturner]

I made some vitamin E cream yesterday and was just wondering is it normal to see little bits of the oil sitting on top of the cream in the jar.

 

[Hazel]

You shouldn't be seeing any oil on top. Although, if it's just oil, it's probably not a big deal and you could just stir the cream every time before applying it. I've had this happen before but it wasn't just bits of oil. It was a big puddle.

I'm not sure what I did wrong. I thought maybe I had let the water phase and oil phase cool too much before incorporating them together. But I'm not really sure that's the reason.

What was your recipe? Could it be you need a larger percentage of ewax?

 

[tjturner]

This is the recipe that I used but I only used 1/2 the recipe to see how it turned out

Moisturizing Vitamin E Cream

4oz sweet almond oil
1oz beeswax
2oz water
10 drops vitamin E oil
10 drops lavender essential oil

Melt the oil and the wax in a double boiler, remove from heat, add water and stir thoroughly.

Add vitamin E, essential oil and stir continuously until cool. This cream is very moisturizing and emollient.

After you have added the essential oil and the cream is still warm enough to pour, carefully pour it into slave jars or metal tins.

** I couldn't pour the cream as it went think but put into a jar and it looks ok to me

 

[Hazel]

Beeswax isn't an emulsifier. That's why it's separating. Also, you should use a preservative when mixing oils and water unless you keep it in the frig and will use it within a few days.

I recommend swiftcraftymonkey's site if you want to learn how to make lotions and creams. Her site is awesome. Here's the link to the site

http://www.swiftcraftymonkey.blogspot.com/

Here's a couple of links to her lotion tutorials.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1020026/lotionm ... torial.pdf

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1020026/introdu ... hingie.pdf

eta: I should mention that there is a way of making cream with beeswax but you have to add borax and lecithin to get it to "emulsify". I put it in quotation marks because it won't stay mixed for an extended period of time. But it is possible to use beeswax. I used beeswax and lecithin (didn't have borax) for my first attempt at lotion making. I was very disappointed with the results which is why I bought ewax.

 

[fiddletree]

ditto what Hazel said.

When I first started playing with creams, I used beeswax in the place of an emulsifier for about a year (before I learned how to 'properly' do things), and I actually never had any separation. I don't have a clue why not, because I should have. I think it is because I mixed incredibly well, and didn't expose to heat fluctuations. Just to say that these types of creams CAN work, but don't always. And too much beeswax can block pores, in theory.