Test! Test! Test! We have a test! I have been singing that little phrase all day long. I had a former teacher who would walk into the classroom singing that. I still laugh remembering the panic ensued, particularly if an exam wasn’t on the schedule. I still have not met anyone else who has been able to cause a classroom to erupt into pandemonium like her. It takes a good teacher to keep their students on their toes.
So today I want to issue a test. Okay, more of a challenge. I won’t be issuing grades or anything like that. Instead I am offering a challenge to all of our readers. This week Tonya has been talking about lotions and how to go about making a lotion from scratch. So my challenge is for you to post in the comments field a recipe in percentages.
In honor of this challenge, I will be moving Freebie Friday to Saturday. So this allows any comments AKA recipes you formulate to be included in the drawing for the giveaway tomorrow. Yippee! I am afraid I can’t quite say what will be in the goodie box for this week. I can say it will be with lots of fun stuff. Since we no longer have anyone working in our blog kitchen in Utah, we decided to send the partials out to our winners. While this means the containers are partials, they are not anything below MMS quality.
So if you need to, review Tonya’s posts and share your formulations you want to try. Don’t forget… percentages, percentages, percentages! Have fun and I will see you all tomorrow!
Okay this challenged my math skills, but it wasn’t too difficult, once I thought about it.
This is one of my go to light lotion recipes:
78% Water
.26% Citric acid
2.6% Glycerin
4.2% Emulsifying wax
.78% Stearic acid
5.98% Grapeseed oil
5.9% Shea butter
.5% Vitamin E
.78% Germaben II
1% Fragrance oil
Now that I know how to do this, I can make exactly the amount that I want…no more estimating and having some lotion left over (not that that is a bad thing 😉
I don’t make lotions (yet) so I took Taylor’s challenge and twisted it. This is my soap recipe converted to %.
OUNCES %
coconut 4.5 12.61
lard 2.5 7.00
palm kernel 9.0 25.21
sweet almond 3.0 8.40
hemp 2.0 5.60
castor 3.0 8.40
H2O 7.2 20.17
NaOH 3.5 9.80
fragrance oil 1.0 2.80
___ ____
35.7 100
Total the ingredient amounts to get 35.7 ounces. Divide 35.7 into 100 and you get 2.801. So I multiplied each individual ingredient amount by 2.801 to get it’s percentage. Now any one can use Tonya explanation to calculate any total amount they want. (and I agree with Tonya the metric system is much better, but I learned in ounces, and I haven’t changed my recipes) but if I get a new soap mold that holds 740 grams.
% GRAMS
coconut 12.61 .1261 X 740= 93.31
lard 7.00 .0700 X 740= 51.80
palm kernel 25.21 .2521 X 740= 186.55
sweet almond 8.40 .0840 X 740= 62.16
hemp 5.60 .0560 X 740= 41.44
castor 8.40 .0840 X 740= 62.16
H2O 20.17 .2017 X 740= 149.26
NaOH 9.80 .0980 X 740= 72.52
fragrance 2.80 .0280 X 740= 20.72
And with a little rounding off of calculations I get 739.92 grams.
I admit I actually like math but I’ve never applied this concept to turning a recipe into percents. Thanks Tonya for the idea and Taylor for the challenge.
This is one recipe that I have done in percentages. Water – 35.3%, Aloe Vera Juice – 35.3%, Silk Amino Acids – 0.9%, Glycerin 0.9%, Germaben II – 1% Emulsifying Wax – 2.7%, Stearic Acid – 5.4%, FCO – 5.4%, Meadowfoam Oil – 2.7%, Emu Oil, 1.4%, Evening Primrose Oil, 1.4%, Shea Butter, 1.4%, Cocoa Butter, 1.4%, Jojoba 0.4%, Vitamin E – 1.4%, FO – 1.9%, Vitamin A – 0.9%.
Another recipe that I like is : AKO – 18.8%, Phenonop 1.3%, Cclomethicone 2.7%, Dimethicone 1.3%, EWax – 8.1%, Distilled Water 67%, Lactic Acid 0.7%.
One more that I like is the following: Wheat Germ 2%, Emu 2%, Neem 3%, Evening Primrose 1%, Arnica 1%, Rosehip Seed 1%, Sweet Almond 5%, Meadowfoam, 5%, Avocado 5%, AKO 5%, EWax 5%, Stearic Acid 2%, Glycerin 2%, Aloe Vera Gel 60%, Germaben II-E 1%.
I will usually create my recipes in ounces or grams and then convert them to percentages to see if I have the ratios to where I want them. This helps me to get the better lotions this way. Cindy
Okay, here is mine.
Hydrovance…………4%
E-wax………………..5%
Stearic Acid…………5%
Water………………..68%
Cocoa Butter………..4%
Olive Oil………………5%
Rice Bran Oil………..5%
Jojoba………………..3%
Preservative…………1%
caren
The nuns made me sit on my hands to prevent me from counting on my fingers:
That being said,
Grams
457.1 water
28.6 glycerine
28.6 emulsifying wax
85.7 mango butter
57.1 rice bran oil
28.6 avocado oil
Ounces
16oz water
1oz glycerine
1oz emulsifying wax
3oz mango butter
2oz rice bran oil
1oz avocado oil
Percentages
66.6 water
4.1 glycerine
4.1 emulsifying wax
12.5 mango butter
8.3 rice bran oil
4.1 avocado oil
Sadly, my percentages don’t quite add up?????
Your percentages don’t quite add up due to rounding.
The percentages should be:
66.66 water
4.16 glycerine
4.16 emulsifying wax
12.5 mango butter
8.33 rice bran oil
4.16 avocado oil
This will help you get closer to 100%. Sometimes adjusting the recipe a bit, or starting from the percentages side, makes the numbers more easily navigated. I like whole numbers but not all situations can use whole numbers. If you worked on this
formula it might be easier to weigh:
5 grams glycerine
5 grams emulsifying wax
5 grams avocado oil
10 grams rice bran oil
13 grams mango butter
68 grams water
This does some rounding and you may adjust one or another up or down a single gram until you get a formulation you like better. Does that help?
Light as Spring Lotion (Theory, not yet tested) to make 150 gm
5% Conditioning Emulsifier 7.5 gm
3% Stearic Acid 4.5 gm
3% Hydrovance 4.5 gm
2% Isopropyl Myristate 3.0 gm
2% Mango Butter 3.0 gm
10% Sweet Almond Oil 15.0 gm
5% Apricot Oil 7.5 gm
5% Macadamia Oil 7.5 gm
6% Rice Bran Oil 9.0 gm
57% Water 85.5 gm
1% Germaban II 1.5 gm
0.5% Lemon Verbena FO 0.75 gm
0.5% Hydrogen FO 0.75 gm
65% Distilled water
10% Aloe Vera Juice
5% Honey (or humectant of choice – hydrovance, glycerin, IPM)
10% Olive Oil
2% Cocoa Butter
5% Ewax
0.3% Liquid Germall Plus
100% TOTAL
2% fragrance/”goodies” (optional)
TIP: For a 100 gram test batch – just convert %s to grams! How easy is that?
Better yet, make a 300 gram (10.5 oz.) test batch – easier to measure LGP at 1 gram instead of 0.3 gram.