Pro's of Formulating Your Own Products:
Cheaper [one 8oz bottle of your homemade spritz can cost as little as $3.00]
More control over what goes in your products
Ability to tailor the products to suit your needs
Con's of Formulating Your Own Products:
Most of the products you need can only be found online
One of the joys of formulating my own products comes from the realization that sometimes they are just as good and often better than [both for your hair as well as performance-wise] most store bought products that are chock full of hard to pronounce ingredients and chemicals.
I have been formulating bath, body, and hair care products as a hobby for well over ten years. Although soaping is my first love, I enjoy the instant gratification of making skin and haircare products. I like to use a mix of herbal infusions, and essential oils in my formulations, as they are a lot more effective versus synthetic ingredients. The key to successfully formulating your own products lies in the ingredients you choose, the stability of your end product, and the ratio of raw ingredients you decide to use.
Today we are going to focus on formulating an effective, stable moisturizing spritz. We are going to start off with a basic formula consisting of a humectant [draws moisture, and allows for better moisture retention], water, then build from there to give the product more therapeutic properties. In order to create a stable emulsion [aka a product that won't separate] when formulating with water, we must add water soluble ingredients. The other alternative would be to add a emulsifier which helps bind oil-soluble ingredients to water molecules which results in a stable emulsion, but we will get to that at another time. For now, lets keep it simple, and focus on water soluble ingredients that are easy to obtain and use.
How To Formulate:
To start, formulations should always be comprised of percentages, as this allows you to convert your recipe into whatever quantity you need while still maintaining the same integrity [effectiveness, quality, etc]. In the end, your formula should always equal 100%. Also keep in mind that using fluid or volume measurements is not an effective way to produce stable products, which is another reason using percentages is beneficial.
Some vendors [like this one] will list the recommended percentage in the description of the product in order to give you an idea of the most effective way to incorporate the ingredient in your formula. Here are some basic recommended percentages for the use of humectants:
- Glycerin 2-5% - One of the more popular humectants
- Honeyquat 2-5% - I like to use this in place of honey in my hair formulations, its much easier to work with.
- Sodium Lactate 2-10% - This is actually purported to improve moisture retention better than glycerin, it's actually a bit cheaper, and doesn't leave that sticky, hard residue that glycerin sometimes leaves behind.
Working With Percentages:
These percentages indicate the amount of product to use. For instance, if you decide to make a spritz using sodium lactate as your humectant, your formula may look like this:
90% Water10% Sodium Lactate
To break this into an recipe which yields 8oz, we need to first turn those percentages into decimals by taking each percentage, and dividing by 100. Your formula should now look like this:
90/100 = 0.90 [water]10/100 = 0.10 [sodium lactate]
We aren't done yet, in order to find out how much of each product you need to make 8oz, multiply the new numbers [the decimals] by 8. Your formula should now look like this:
0.90 x 8 = 7.2oz water0.10 x 8 = 0.8oz sodium lactate
Now we know that we need 7.2 ounces of water, and 0.8 ounces of sodium lactate to make an 8oz product. As you can see, having a digital scale to accurately measure your ingredients is essential.
Tip: You can use other liquids like Aloe Vera, or Herbal Tea's to take the place of water in your formulas.
Whenever you add additional ingredients to your formula, you have to account for it in percentages. Here is an example:
Whenever you add additional ingredients to your formula, you have to account for it in percentages. Here is an example:
86% WaterYou can see that I reduced the amount of water to make up for the addition of Silk Amino Acids. Keep in mind that your end formula should always equal 100%
4% Silk Amino Acids
10% Sodium Lactate
How Do I Mix My Spritz?
Easy, just dump everything in a jar and either shake vigorously, or use a stick blender to thoroughly incorporate the ingredients.
Preserve Your Mixes: This is one of the most critical elements of working with water-based products, as the potential for bacteria sky-rockets anytime you introduce water into the equation. Here are a few natural ways to preserve your kitchen concoctions:
Grapeseed Extract: Water soluble, completely natural, recommended usage .2%-1%
Get To Formulating; Here Are Some Great Additions To Moisturizing Spritz's!
- Silk Amino Acids: Water soluble, adds sheen, strengthens, and repairs. Recommended usage: 1.0%-10%
- Aloe Vera Liquid: Water soluble, softens hair, adds sheen and luster, can offer a slight hold. You can use as much of this as you like, but beware that too much can make for hard hair. I typically use no more than 15% in my formulation. But if you hair loves Aloe, than by all means, up the ante.
- Panthenol: I am sure you have seen this in most conditioner ingredients, this offers an incredible amount of softness, strengthens hair shaft, and improves manageability. This ingredient is also water soluble. Recommended Usage: 2%-10%
- Herbs; Infuse Your Water With Some Of These Herbs [2-5tbsp is more than enough];
- Rosemary: Imparts shine, offers light conditioning, helps stop hair loss, also purported to help with thinning
- Nettles: Purported to stimulate hair growth, and help with dandruff issues
- Horsetail: Offers conditioning properties, imparts shine, and strength
- Coltsfoot: Rich in minerals, strengthens hair, improves elasticity, improves manageability of the hair
How To Infuse Water:
Boil water, add herbs, then turn off stove. Allow herbs to steep covered for about 30 minutes. Remove herbs and you have herbal infused water!
Resources:
My favorite place to buy organic herbs - [Mountain Rose]
Favorite bottle resource - [Sunburst Bottle]
Favorite place for raw ingredients [Ok. I lied; there are three: FMNWL - The Herbarie - Texas Natural Supply]
What's gonna be in your next moisturizing mix?
