Ready made Bases
Step 1: Gather all your materials
- Lotion or Soap Gel base
- colour (we find the liquid D&C colours work best)
- Fragrance or Essential
- any other additives (exfolients, etc.)
- Bottles & Caps (have extras on hand in case)
- ziploc bags
- scissors
Step 2: Measure your lotion base
I find it useful to stand the ziploc bag up in a container of some sort and fold the bag over the edges of the container. On your scale hit the "tare" button so you scale shows "0" for the weight. This way we only measure the ingredients.
Pour your lotion/gel into the ziploc bag being careful not to touch the product with your hands (unless wearing rubber gloves) - do not use the plastic bags again (to avoid contamination).
If filling 4 x 8oz Bullet Bottles - measure off approximately 32oz of lotion base into the ziploc bag.
(This is where keeping a journal of your "formulas" comes in handy - once you have perfected your recipe you can quickly refer to your measurements).
Step 3: Add in your drops of colour & fragrance/essential oils.
If mixing a lotion base we recommend no more than 2% fragrance by weight and we find usually 1% is sufficient. If mixing a gel base (eg. shower gel) then only mix in 0.5% of fragrance (much more than this in a gel base can water down the texture - if this happens add a few pinches of salt). So, if mixing 32oz of lotion then you only need for 1% approximately 0.32oz of fragrance which is just less than 2 teaspoons (if not using a scale). I find it helpful to switch to grams at this point for easy calculation (eg 800gms of lotion base needs 8gms of fragrance).
Mixing any more than these amounts can cause skin irritations due to excess amounts of fragrance.
Step 4: Blend ingredients
Seal the ziploc bag and then gently massage the contents until all the ingredients have blended together
Step 5: Pour into bottles
Sanitize your scissors with a 10% bleach solution (mix some bleach into water). Snip off a small corner of the bag and squeeze the contents into your bottles. Try not to touch the actual product as it comes out (to avoid contamination). Tamp down the bottles to get the lotion to settle. If there are any visible air bubbles gently shake the bottle to remove them.
Put on your caps and label your bottles.