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oldragbagger

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Two projects tonight.........

The first was a modified version of my usual recipe to a really high percentage of olive oil. Would almost qualify as Castile. (Unless you're Dr. Bronner, then it's way past Castile.) Used LabColor for the first time. Was surprised to see Mauved Pink come out of the jar ugly dark blue, but by the time I poured into the mold it had already started to change, and now (2 hours later) is quite pretty. I am also going for my first ungelled batch. I soaped at a much lower than usual temp, about 80 degrees. It is now sitting, in an hdpe mold under the air conditioning vent in the kitchen and, as of yet, has not started to gel. It is Love Spell FO from Peak.

I then made my first body butter and to my surprise, do not like it. I used a recipe from the candle and soapmaking forum on about.com. It is mango butter (they used cocoa, that is the only thing I changed), shea butter and jojoba oil. The recipe worked fine, in the freezer, out of the freezer, whipped up into a nice mousse-like consistency. It was actually quite lovely. But what I don't like is that it feels so greasy and lays on my skin. So I must be using way to much, or something, but it is not absorbing and I feel slippery. I will probably end up incorporating it into a batch of soap at some point. Maybe if it was winter and the wood stove was running and I was dried to parchment, like usual, it would feel great and my skin would drink it right up. I don't know.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to. Hope I don't end up with a partial gel.

We're back to school tomorrow. Another year begins.
 
i made a lotion and am having the same problem. it feels really oily once it is on my skin. i put it on right before bed though and even 18 hours later, my skin is so soft. i am a lotion freak and use it all the time on my hands but i don't like my own lotion for my hands. i don't know what i did wrong either...
 
krissy said:
i made a lotion and am having the same problem. it feels really oily once it is on my skin. i put it on right before bed though and even 18 hours later, my skin is so soft. i am a lotion freak and use it all the time on my hands but i don't like my own lotion for my hands. i don't know what i did wrong either...

Wow, Krissy. Maybe we need to buy a bucket load of chemicals and mix it with that and some water. Maybe then it will feel more like the store bought stuff we've probably both gotten accustomed to over the years.
 
LizRNBSN said:
I think you can add corn starch to the butter to decrease the greasyness.
Thanks, Liz. Maybe I'll remelt, add the corn starch and try whipping it up again. How much corn starch ppo would you say?
 
my ds is allergic to corn products so i cant even have cornstarch in the house. does anyone know an alternative that i can get at the store?
 
I personally like plain old whipped shea butter with a little aloe gel as a lotion. It's not as greasy feeling and leaves my skin soft, especially in the winter when I have a really hard time with my hands.
 
NatureandNurture said:
I personally like plain old whipped shea butter with a little aloe gel as a lotion. It's not as greasy feeling and leaves my skin soft, especially in the winter when I have a really hard time with my hands.

Thanks for the idea. I'm sure I will love this in the winter. We have radiator heat (which is dry enough to start with) and supplement that with a wood burning stove. It just sucks every last bit of moisture right out of your skin.
 
krissy said:
my ds is allergic to corn products so i cant even have cornstarch in the house. does anyone know an alternative that i can get at the store?

Im not sure whether you could get it at the local grocers,but natrasorb is tapioca or wheat starch(different varieties).Snowdrifts bodybutter recipes include it...

http://www.snowdriftfarm.com/form_whippedbutters.html
 
How much oil % to butter % are you using in the body butter? After some trial and error I found that I really like 70% butter to 30% oil. If there's more oil in it than that it feels too greasy for me, and if it is any less it is too hard. :lol: I use 70% Kokum Butter, 30% Meadowfarm Seed Oil, and I really like it for those occasional dry spots. I've used jojoba in the same recipe instead of Meadowfarm before, but for whatever reason, I find the Meadowfarm to feel less greasy to me than jojoba.

For lotion you could try substituting some of your e-wax with BTMS (also known as conditioning e-wax) to make it feel less greasy. That's what I do now and it has really made a huge difference. If my lotion calls for 5% e-wax, then I'll add 3% as e-wax and the remaining 2% as BTMS. BTMS has a powdery feel to it that helps to cut down on the greasies. Some people use all BTMS for their e-wax amount, but that is way too powdery for me.


IrishLass :)
 
krissy said:
my ds is allergic to corn products so i cant even have cornstarch in the house. does anyone know an alternative that i can get at the store?

Would arrowroot be a possibility? I have no idea what that is but I ran across a recipe for deoderant that said to use either cornstarch or arrowroot.
 
I was going to suggest arrowroot powder too. I wish I could pinpoint where I read about it but it was an alternative to cornstarch. It's much more expensive though.
 
IrishLass said:
For lotion you could try substituting some of your e-wax with BTMS (also known as conditioning e-wax) to make it feel less greasy. That's what I do now and it has really made a huge difference. If my lotion calls for 5% e-wax, then I'll add 3% as e-wax and the remaining 2% as BTMS. BTMS has a powdery feel to it that helps to cut down on the greasies. Some people use all BTMS for their e-wax amount, but that is way too powdery for me.


IrishLass :)

that interesting. I just made a lotion and used E-Wax and Cetyl Alcohol as emulsifiers. I find the lotion too waxy. It takes ages to rub in and feels slightly greasy for quite a while. I used Coconut Oil and Plum Kernel Oil. My safety assessment only has BTMS and Cetyl Alcohol listed, so I was going to get some BTMS anyway. Could I replace all of the E-Wax with BTMS ?

BTMS already contains Cetyl Alcohol, so could I omit that one as well ?

Oh and regarding Corn Starch, it can be replaced by Tapioca Starch. Tapioca Starch is available at Chinese / Asian supermarkets (Wing Yip here) and cost about the same.
 
Got a partial gel, darn it. Just a small spot in the middle but I had hoped for none.
It's softer than soft over 24 hours later. I probably won't try and cut this one for a few days. I'm sure it's the increased OO, although I don't think my last 100% OO castile was this soft.
Boy, you never can tell, can you?
 
No you sure can't , soap does what it wants when it wants , seems to be especially true when you really really want it to work out just the way you planned it , fickle stuff , I tell ya :wink:

Kitn
 
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