Blending techniques for butters & oils
There are many ingredients to choose from, so it is essential to know how to blend the ingredients in a way that preserves their skin-nourishing properties. Butters and oils are the base or foundation ingredients. They can be standalone on their own, for instance, facial oils or a combination of oil, butter, water, and wax as their foundation to create creams and lotions.
There are various blending techniques to achieve different results using different ingredients and how varying their percentages within a formula will alter and produce different results.
Blending Oils
Blending oils is really easy, they can be blended in a beaker or within a bottle. The challenge is how you can achieve the skin-feel you want. There are different skin absorption rate and comedogenic rating.
You also need to experiment with the natural aromas carrier oils. These might affect your choice of essential oils later on. It is your task to choose the oils with the right properties for your formula.
Facial oils are super simple and affordable to make and really effective, too. Facial oils are the simplest kind of facial treatment to make. These water-free facial oils are 100% natural and can easily be made 100% organic too if you choose organic carrier and essential oils.
You can design your own custom facial oils by choosing carrier oils and essential oils that suit your skin type and preferences.
Facial Oil, 50 g
Phase | Ingredient | Function | % | Gram |
A | Grapeseed oil | Foundation | 50% | 25g |
A | Jojoba oil | Foundation | 48% | 24g |
B | Vitamin E | Additive – Antioxidant | 1% | 0.5g |
C | Lavender essential oil | Aromaceutical | 1% | 0.5g |
Total: | 100% | 50g |
Create your own version of facial oil
1. Choose only TWO carrier oils and ONE essential oil.
2. Decide your batch size and work out your formula into percentages and convert to grams.
3. Blend your ingredients and take note of consistency, scent and skin absorption etc.
If you wish to take it further:-
4. Change your choice of carrier oils and essential oils – it is a good idea to change only one ingredient at a time.
5. Change the percentages and record how the new formula differs from your first made.
6. Note down the change on consistency, skin texture, colour, scent and skin absorption and any other information.
Approximate shelf-life: 6-12 months.
Vitamin E, an antioxidant, will help to slow the rate of rancidity.
Carrier oils contain a variety of vitamins and fatty acids. Each oil feels different on the skin and they have different properties such as soothing, anti-inflammatory, regenerating, nourishing, balancing. You might also find useful in below these Essential Oil Guides.
In this ebook, you will learn how to formulate facial oils and serums. Learn how to work with high performance ingredients.
What Will You Learn:-
- Introduction to Formulation Skills and Calculation
- Introduction of High Performance Ingredients
- How to Formulate Facial Oils and Serums with Recipes Based Upon the Formula Flowcharts and Sample Recipes provided.
This 1-page printable table lists essential oils that can be helpful for specific skin types. You can use the recommendation to help you choose which oils you want to try in customizing your skin-care products.
This 1-page printable table lists the common carrier oils that can be helpful for specific skin types. You can use the recommendations to help you choose which carrier oils you want to try in your customized skin-care products.
This 1-page printable chart is perfect for essential oil users as it covers the basic applications with recommendations to help you choose which oils you want to try in customizing your skin-care products.
Warm-Blending Butters and Oils
Butter creams and butters can be a simply combination of carrier oils and butters and do not typically contain water.
The climate of your country will need to take into consideration when designing the formula. If you live in a hotter climate, the butters will melt easily. Choose harder butters such as cocoa. You can also include a small amount of wax, which will help create a solid ‘frame’ to your butters.
When blending with butters, some butters, such as shea butter, can become gritty when heated. Other butters such as mango butter will become smooth through heating. Hence, it is good to experiment with different butters on their own, combine, or mix them with oils, change the percentages to experience different skin feel, colour, scent, and skin absorption.
Body Butter, 100 g
Phase | Ingredient | Function | % | Gram |
A | Shea butter | Foundation | 80% | 80g |
A | Almond oil | Foundation | 19% | 19g |
B | Choice of essential oil | Additive – Antioxidant | 1% | 1g |
Total | 100% | 100g |
Create your own version of body butter
1. Set up double boiler/water bath/bain-marie.
2. Choose ONE butter and One carrier oil.
3. Decide your batch size and work out your formula into percentages and convert to grams.
4. Add your butter to the bowl and gently melt the butter.
5. Allow the butter melt. Once melted, take off the heat and let it cool to 40C (113F). You can speed up the cooling process by placing the mixture in the fridge or freezer.
6. Once cooler, add oil and blend in well.
7. To speed up the solidified of the mixture, place in the fridge and freeze for 10 minutes for it to harden. Take out from the fridge and use an electric whisk for 2 minutes to really fluff it up.
8. Freeze for another 5 minutes, whip for 2 minutes. Repeat this 3-4 times or until you get your desired consistency.
9. Add essential oil.
Note: Alternatively, use a glass rod or whisk to slowly stir the butters but a different consistency will be form. Or simply pour the body butter into a container and leave it to solidify. This way you will get a smooth balm-like product rather than a whipped butter.
This is a basic body butter recipe and can be varied by using different carrier oils and essential oils, for a different skin feel and fragrance.
You can also vary consistency of the body butter.
If you wish to take it further:-
You may want to replace a little of the shea butter with another butter. You could remove 10% shea butter and replace it with mango butter to see the changes.
Experiment 1 | Experiment 2 | Experiment 3 |
80% Shea butter | 70% Shea butter | 60% Shea butter |
10% Mango butter | 20% Mango butter | |
19% Almond oil | 19% Almond oil | 19% Almond oil |
1% Essential oil | 1% Essential oil | 1% Essential oil |
Repeat the formula procedure.
You could repeat this experiment a few times to try on different butter/oil ratios.
Make you take down the change in consistency, skin texture, colour, scent and skin absorption, and any other information.
Approximate shelf-life: 6-months
Don’t worry if your first experiments do not go the way you planned. It is through those failures you learn, and they are the best lessons.
In this ebook, you will learn how to formulate different types of balms and butter creams.
What Will You Learn:-
- Introduction to Formulation Skills and Calculation
- How to Formulate Different Types of Balms and Butters with Recipes Based Upon the Formula Flowcharts and Sample Recipes provided.
