I have experimented with a variety of oils in lotions and creams. This time, I decided to work with sea buckthorn berry oil. Here's an excellent profile of this oil by Swift Crafty Monkey. I had bought some of this oil to make the Antioxidant serum and wanted to try making a body cream featuring this oil. With winter approaching, I wanted something ultra moisturizing and thick. So I opted for sesame oil and decided to use Ecomulse, an emulsifier approved for use in organic natural products, to get a thick creamy consistency. When I was researching if there were any body creams that were commercially available with sea buckthorn oil, I came across an interesting product Bee By The Sea. Of course, I went straight to the ingredients and was really surprised to see there's no emulsifier in this product!!!!! Here are the list of ingredients: Aqua, Carthamus Tinctorious (safflower) seed oil, Aloe Barbadensis leaf juice, Honey, Tocopheryl Acetate, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, Cyclopentasiloxane, Hippophae Rhamnoides (Sea Buckthorn) oil, Royal Jelly, Panthenol, Polysorbate 20, Parfum (contains 100% pure sweet almond oil), Retinyl Palmitate, Ascorbic Acid It appears that the product has maybe atleast 10% safflower seed oil and water and no recognizable emulsifier. Sometimes I wonder if people forget to list all the ingredients in their products ... Anyways, back to my creation. I decided to use water, aloe vera juice, and veg. glycerin for my water phase and sesame oil, ecomulse, cetyl alcohol, and sea buckthorn oil for my oil phase. As usual, I continued to have trouble with the ecomulse. Things were going just fine: I had a rich cream until I added the preservative - when the thing started to get unstable. I reheated it and managed to salvage it. The orange color is from the Sea Buckthorn berry oil - it has a lot of Beta Carotene - that gives it the orange hue. The cream looks like a rich butternut squash soup or mango puree. My mango loving daughter saw it on the stove and demanded to eat it :-)
What are some of the purported benefits of this cream? The sea buckthorn oil is supposed to be good for eczema, psoriasis, burns, cuts, wounds. Sesame oil is a rich moisturizing oil also rich in vitamins like sea buckthorn. So my hope is this cream will be perfect for the approaching winter and also ease the bug bites (and resulting scratched skin) that my kids seem to periodically suffer from.
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You're at that time in your life - wise and with the evidence to prove it. We have invented technology that takes us to Mars but we are still struggling to come up with a solution for gray hair. Unless it's the Grecian Formula or Restoria Discreet. I had never heard of these products until someone I know mentioned that he was using Restoria and really liked how his hair was - stayed in place and made his grays look cool. Of course I was intrigued and immediately looked up the ingredients: Restoria Discreet color restoring cream: Water (Aqua), Glycerin, Alcohol Denat., Sulphur, Lead Acetate, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, Lauramide DEA, Fragrance (Parfum), Denatonium Benzoate Lead acetate is is the key ingredient here: How does it work? This is how Grecian Formula describes: "Grecian works with the hair's natural chemistry to produce a similar-acting pigment where the melanin used to be. It combines with the hair's protein inside the hair to gradually "reverse" the graying process and bring back natural looking color. Grecian works for any color hair because you control the process so you determine when you regain your right color. You can even keep a little gray around the sides if you like." Here's how it actually works: lead reacts with oxygen in the air and sulfur in hair protein (keratin) to form oxides and sulfides which are dark. So how safe is this product? 1) The FDA considers lead acetate to be safe if appropriate warnings are posted on the product box: "The safety data submitted in support of this petition included results from trials on humans using the products. In the trials, people using the product under controlled conditions of use were monitored for the amount of lead in their bloodstream. No significant increase in blood levels of lead was seen in the trial subjects and the lead was not shown to be absorbed into the body through such use." The ways of the FDA are mysterious - lead acetate is banned in Europe and Canada because of toxicity concerns. According to this review on lead toxicity, there is NO safe level of exposure to lead. 2) The concentration of lead acetate i hair products like Grecian Formula and Restoria is twenty times that found in lead paint: Lead acetate is also very soluble in water. So imagine this: you apply the cream on your head, forget to wash your hands. You touch stuff, your child's toy that she will stick in her mouth, eat a bagel. Or you have dandruff, scratch your head and get a small lesion on your scalp - now a conduit for this poison to get into your body. Just not worth it. In fact, these products have so much lead you can't just throw them away - they need to be disposed as hazardous waste.
Other resources to enhance awareness on toxicity of everyday products, including hair dyes: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2700586/ Where lead hides: http://hydra.usc.edu/scehsc/pdfs/D-1-3-2%20Where%20Lead%20Hides.pdf So what can you do? Read the ingredients and get educated. Throw (or dispose appropriately) toxic products. For your grays? Embrace them. In the next post we'll look at some research on using natural ingredients to slow graying and prevent hair loss. Stay tuned! Photo credit: http://lethow.com/home-remedies/body-odor-removal/ Now that we understand what causes body odor, it's time to talk about how to prevent it. I am not comfortable about plugging sweat glands - sweat cools the body and is a very natural phenomenon that I am not looking to suppress. So now it was about getting effective ingredients to kill the bacteria that produce body odor. I tried several experiments. 1) Baking soda: Or sodium bicarbonate, the ubiquitous household chemical. Baking soda kills bacteria and keeps you dry. The most common DIY deodorant recipes on the internet use baking soda as the key ingredient. Pros: Effective! I made a pretty good deodorant stick using baking soda, arrowroot powder, coconut oil, and cocoa butter. I could walk an hour in scorching heat and still smell pretty good at the end of the day. BUT Cons: After weeks of use, my pits were on fire! Sodium bicarbonate has a high pH - i.e. it is an alkaline substance. Our skin likes to be slightly acidic. Second, the stick stained the sleeves of my tops a yellow color - I was not a fan of that. Third, the physical condition of this stick depended heavily on the climate - what was a perfectly nice and smooth stick i California melted into a gooey mess when I took it with me to India. 2) Acetic acid or vinegar: Vinegar is an acid and the pH prevents bacteria from thriving. Of course it smells a bit like body odor so you need to add things to it even after diluting it heavily for it to do anything. Pros: Not irritating to skin. Cons: At the dilution I was comfortable with, it was not very effective. Lasted only half a day and if I took one of my walks, I could smell myself after. 3) Magnesium oil aka Magnesium chloride: Magnesium is an element needed for our tissues to be healthy. While I was doing my research, this was a reasonably common DIY recipe for body odor. You make up a solution of magnesium chloride, add some essential oils, and voila! Pros: Not irritating, and your body gets a healthy dose of magnesium! Cons: Again like vinegar, not very effective. Gave me protection for only half the day. I tried other recipes with witch hazel and zinc oxide, etc. etc. And then I read a bunch of papers and learned that: 1) Magnesium chloride showed significant anti-microbial activity at low pH 2) some essential oils are better than others for anti-microbial activity 3) zinc oxide is effective for body odor due to its reaction with short chain fatty acids such as isovaleric acid, that are produced when bacteria act on sweat like we saw in this post. Although Zn is found in our cells and is needed for our bodies to function healthily, the non-nano zinc oxide particles are too large to enter our bodies. So I put all this together into a spray formulation - water, vinegar, magnesium chloride, essential oils of lemon, tea tree, and lavender and zinc oxide. Since I am using non-nano zinc oxide, I believe the antibacterial effect will be diminished. So how did this work out? All day, with a 40 minute brisk walk in the sun - smell fine. I can still smell some of the essential oils! It has exceeded my expectations. Plus the goodness of magnesium - a bonus. A couple samples will be sent out to some people for feedback. For now, me and my daughter are sticking to this. I've been trying to make a deodorant for some time now. My tween has officially joined the body odor group :( and I have been attempting to make something strong enough to last through PE and dance. My goal was to make something that would control the body odor using ingredients healthy enough to eat or at the very least, non-toxic. In this post series, I share my thought process as I formulate such a deodorant. But first, we need to talk about the biochemistry of body odor. Yay! Body odor is caused by the breakdown of sweat into foul smelling acids by some of the harmless bacteria our bodies house. Sweat itself is odorless. Propionibacteria live in the ducts of the sebaceous glands of adult and adolescent humans and break down sweat into propionic acid. Staphylococcus epidermidis breaks down sweat into isovaleric acid. To prevent body odor, the cosmetics industry has gone the route of "no sweat, no stink" aka the antiperspirant. Antiperspirants contain an aluminum or aluminum zirconium salts that works to plug the sweat glands and thus prevent sweat from reaching the skin's surfact. The the higher the concentration of the salt, the better it works. Basically the pH of sweat causes the aluminum to precipitate and thus block the sweat gland. There have been associations of aluminum with cancer and Alzheimer's disease. While there might be a connection between the element and these diseases, it is unlikely that they are caused by the use of antiperspirants. This really long paper is an excellent summary of aluminum, toxicity: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782734/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782734/ A less common and less effective product that has been used for body odor is the deodorant. Deodorants work by killing the bacteria that cause those smelly acids to form. Typically, deodorants contain chemicals like alcohol, propylene glycol, and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) as key ingredients. The problem with these ingredients is that they are skin irritants. Often times, deodorants and antiperspirants are used interchangeably - many aluminum containing products are labeled as deodorants: Now that we have covered the basics, stay tuned for part 2 where I explore formulating a deodorant using ingredients that are naturally found in our bodies or derived from plants. Why do I care? For one, why should we use products blindly without caring about what we put on our bodies? I want to be empowered to use products that I will not regret using. As a mother I feel compelled to make good choices for my kids in all respects. Second, nature always has a solution. However, these are not well publicized. In part 2, I will go through scientific literature (published in peer reviewed scientific journals - I love PubMed! - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed) to formulate a deodorant.
I recently purchased a new emulsifier - ecomulse (inci: glyceryl stearate (and) cetearyl alcohol (and) sodium stearoyl lactylate) from lotioncrafter. "Ecomulse is a natural source, self-emulsifier for oil in water emulsions. It contains no ethoxylated ingredients. This system is based on acyl lactylates, which are conditioning to both hair and skin." Ecomulse is also approved for use in certified organic products - one of the main reasons I was tempted to try it. In my previous post, I described my starting trouble with this emulsifier. That led to a series of experiments in the kitchen and a series of products! Before I started making my own creams and lotions, I used to use cetaphil for the kiddos. I liked the feel of the cream - it does feel rich and goes on super smooth. I decided to try and reverse engineer (what's the appropriate word for chemistry???) the cream. Here are the ingredients in cetaphil: Water, glycerin, petrolatum, dicaprylyl ether, dimethicone, glyceryl stearate, cetyl alcohol, sweet almond oil, peg-30stearate, tocopheryl acetate, acrylates/c10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer, dimethoconol, benzyl alcohol, phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, propylparaben, glyceryl acrylate/acrylic acid copolymer, propylene glycol, disodium edta, sodium hydroxide. Wow - that's some ingredient list. Let's see what all those chemicals do for the cream. Water - of course is the main ingredient. Judging by how thick the cream is, I'd say about 60% - 65% by weight. Interestingly glycerin comes next. That indicates that it's the next most abundant chemical in the cream. Glycerin is a triol - C3H4(OH)3 and is used as a humectant - something that draws water from the atmosphere - in skin care products. (as an aside, glycerine can be derived from plants as well as made synthetically. Usually the plant derived glycerine is referred to vegetable glycerine while the synthetic glycerine is just glycerine.) synthetic glycerine is a byproduct of the petroleum industry - propylene which is an intermediate in the petroleum distillation process is halogenated (reated with chlorine) and then hydrolyzing (convert to the triol). I am pretty sure that the glycerin in cetaphil is synthetic as it does not say vegetable glycerin. Anyways, the interesting point is that it's the second ingredient on the list. There are other humectants that come way down at the bottom (so probably only about 1% by weight) - glyceryl acrylate/acrylic acid copolymer, propylene glycol. Petrolatum - petroleum jelly - a byproduct of the petroleum industry. This is an occlusive - prevents water from evaporating from the skin's surface by forming a film. Dicaprylyl ether and dimethicone are emollients - skin softening a soothing agents. Next is our emulsifiers - glyceryl stearate, cetyl alcohol, peg 30 stearate to keep the water and oil (sweet almond) together. Oils are added to lotions to prevent water from evaporating from the skin. Tocopheryl acetate is the ester of acetic acid and tocopherol aka vitamin e. It's an antioxidant and commonly added to skin care products at 1% to prevent oils from going rancid. Acrylates/c10-30 alkyl acrylate crosspolymer is used to increase the viscosity of an emulsion - probably accounts for the nice thick consistency of the cream. Probably also functions as an occlusive? - forms a barrier on the skin to prevent water from evaporating. Dimethoconol is also an occlusive. Then comes a long list of preservatives - benzyl alcohol, phenoxyethanol, methylparaben, propylparaben. Tetrasodium edta is a chelating agent - meaning it binds to metallic ions in an aqueous environment and is used in skin care products to improve preservative efficacy (0.1%). And then finally sodium hydroxide - likely to balance the ph of the resulting cream. Phew - so in my experiments, I did not use any of the polymers (occlusives) as I am inspired by natural products (a long post on that coming). Ecomulse (when I could get it to work finally) produces a pretty nice emulsion - feels really smooth. This was really my inspiration to try and create the cetaphil like cream. I started with 10% glycerin and got a cream so thick and erm .... super sticky. I then went down to 5% glycerin - this was creamy and not sticky. I am a glycerin fan - it does wonders for the skin. My question is how come Cetaphil does not feel sticky given the second ingredient is glycerin??? How? The 10% glycerin cream sits on my end table to be used as a foot cream. My next attempt was to play around with the oil concentration to make a "silky light" facial lotion. Started with 10% and went down to 5%. The 10% oil lotion feels like cold cream - a bit heavy. The 5% one feels a lot lighter so that's what I'm going to go with. Another thing I found out - since I wanted the lotion to be light, I started with 5% Ecomulse. And ended up with a very thin colloidal cloudy thing. I had already blended the water and oil phase by then - but decided to throw in 2% more of the Ecomulse in the mixture and heated it again. This is a serious no-no in lotion making - adding a second dose of emulsifier after blending is not done. But guess what, I ended up with beautiful lotion in minutes!!! My goal for this facial lotion was to make it silky, light and smell like the Saffron Elixir serum - ylang ylang, grapefruit, and sandalwood. I love love love this essential oil combination I concocted. So far, the lotion is light, and smells the way I wanted it to. Need to test for a few days to see how my face feels.
My overall take on Cetaphil - it works OK for eczema if you diligently use tons of it. It feels really good - it glides and is non-greasy. I do not approve of the ingredients (part of my natural products post coming soon). My daughter had eczema and I was advised by her dermatologist that the only way to manage it was to go through a pound of Cetaphil (or equivalent) in 3 weeks for the rest of her life!!! Heck no - she now has a smooth and glowing face thanks mostly due to vegetable glycerin. I have been making emulsified body butters for a while for the kids. What's an emulsified body butter? It's a thick cream made of water, oils, and a butter such as shea, cocoa or mango butter. Of course this needs an emulsifier to keep it all together. I set about making a batch of emulsified body butter - 70% water phase, 12.5% oils, 6% butter, 8% ecomulse - an organic emulsifier from lotioncrafter (inci glyceryl stearate (and) cetearyl alcohol (and) sodium stearoyl lactylate). The preservative i generally use is Neodefend (also from lotioncrafter) (inci gluconolactone and sodium benzoate). I add this to the heated water phase and had no issues with emulsifying wax nf (cetostearyl alcohol) from mountain rose herbs. I did the same thing and ended up with a runny mess that then separated. So instead of this I get this: I scoured the internet for what might have gone wrong and got a vague idea that it could be the preservative - it's probably a bit too acidic for the Ecomulse. I went back and made a face lotion without the NeoDefend and the lotion emulsified beautifully in no time after mixing the oil and water phases. I ended up using Optiphen preservative (INCI Phenoxyehanol and caprylyl glycol) in the cool down phase. The Ecomulse seems to be creamier than Emulsifying wax but definitely needs more TLC.
Based on feedback I've got from a few wonderful folks, I seem to make my face lotions a bit oily. So I have made a batch of face lotions with varying degrees of oils. These will go out to testers. What is a moisturizer and why does a bottle of moisturizer have so many ingredients? The goal of this post is to give you some guidance on what kind of moisturizer or cream to choose for your skin needs.
It was not till recently that I became super conscious about what I put on my skin. For many years, I picked a lotion that was attractive looking and within my skin care budget without a thought to ingredients. That's because I did not realize that skin is very absorbent and what you put on it will end up in your blood. Recently I did an audit of all the products in my home and was shocked to find 1) Most of my soaps, scrubs, lotions have a minimum of thirty ingredients 2) Many of the ingredients are harmful 3) The skin care and cosmetics industry is totally unregulated and companies put all kinds of things in their products. Below are a few examples: Biore pore unclogging scrub Notice all those things? There is an excellent database where you can plug in all those chemicals and get toxicity studies and other detailed information. For instance: About peg-12 dimethicone: peg-40 dimethicone is a synthetic polymer composed of peg (polyethylene glycol) and dimethicone, a silicon-based polymer. Due to the presence of peg, this ingredient may contain potentially toxic manufacturing impurities such as 1,4-dioxane. About diazolidinyl urea (formaldehyde releaser): diazolidinyl urea is an antimicrobial preservative that works by forming formaldehyde in cosmetic products. People exposed to such formaldehyde-releasing ingredients may develop a formaldehyde allergy or an allergy to the ingredient itself. In the u.S. Approximately 20% of cosmetics and personal care products contain a formaldehyde-releaser and the frequency of contact allergy to these ingredients is much higher among americans compared to studies in europe. I am not an alarmist - however, my general philosophy is to go simple. So when it comes to products, I want the least number of ingredients and no stress about whether they are harmful or not. To make things worse, some companies are getting smart and not listing all the ingredients in their products. Take Oil of Olay Complete for example: The full list of ingredients can be found on the P&G website and are as follows: Inactive ingredients Water, glycerin, isohexadecane, polyacrylamide, C13-14 isoparaffin, laureth-7, cyclopentasiloxane, PEG/PPG-20/20 dimethicone, steareth-21, stearyl alcohol, sucrose polycottonseedate, behenyl alcohol, tocopheryl acetate, cetyl alcohol, DMDM hydantoin, iodopropynyl butylcarbamate, steareth-2, triethoxycaprylylsilane, disodium EDTA, aloe barbadensis leaf juice, oleth-3 phosphate. DMDM hydantoin is a preservative and has a toxicity rank of 7/10 - a formaldehyde releaser. The point is, I was horrified and outraged that big companies can be so irresponsible and make chemical soups with potentially hazardous chemicals that can end up in my cells. I get that the concentration of these things is really small, but we use these products daily, sometimes more than once a day for years and then it does not take much imagination to wonder if the cumulative concentration of these chemicals might be higher than desirable in our blood. The last product I want to talk about is Pond's cold cream. This thing has been around for decades - now it is a sad toxic pot of crap. Next time you pick up a product, please look at the ingredients and make good choices for your health.
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