Homemade face creams

As a family we have been working on ways to cut back on our plastic use and to switch to chemical free cleaning and beauty products. I’ve chosen to do this very gradually as it can be very overwhelming when you think of all the things that you buy in plastic packaging and containers and how many different products we use all around the home. I plan on sharing a few of the changes and swaps we’ve made so far in a blog post soon but for now I just want to share these face creams with you.

So I’ve called them face creams in the title but although they look like a cream in the pot they are really more of a facial oil. When you scoop a little out of the pot it starts to melt to an oil and they feel like an oil on the skin. Doing further research on diy skincare since making these I have discovered this is because you need to use an emulsifier to make a creamy texture and that is something I’m going to experiment with on my next batch.

I did a little research on face creams and the different oils in them before I got started. I also wanted to know what the difference between day and night creams were. Usually night creams have a richer, creamier texture than day creams to moisturise your skin more whilst you are sleeping. They also don’t have spf in as obviously you don’t need it and then the other difference I found was that the anti-ageing night creams contain retinol which increases your sensitivity to sunlight so are not used in day creams.

I used olive oil, coconut oil and shea butter as the base of both of my creams. I found the shea butter on amazon and I went for this one specifically as it was in glass and aluminium packaging as opposed to plastic but then it was posted to me in a plastic jiffy bag so that was a slight fail 😀 .

The three ingredients I added to my night cream were: frankincense oil as this is anti bacterial and anti aging. It’s scent can also reduce anxiety so is great for just before going to sleep. Lavender oil as it has anti fungal properties and can reduce inflammation and redness. Again it is also a soothing smell for bedtime. Lastly I added Bakuchiol booster by Bybi which I purchased from boots and is a plant based retinol alternative. Even though this works in the same way as retinol it doesn’t increase your skins sensitivity to the sun so you can use it in the day but I kept it just for the night cream.

I made both of the bases for the creams by melting the shea and coconut oils (I found it easier to measure them in liquid form rather than solid) and then measuring out 1 tbsp (15ml) of each of the 3 oils (shea, olive and coconut) into a bowl. I then added the essential oils, so for the night cream I added around 6 drops of frankincense, 6 drops of lavender and 3 pippettes of the bakuchiol. I used these measurements as I was using my previous face cream tubs washed out and these held 50ml. I left them to cool for a little while, the oil mixture was still liquid but had just started to turn thicker (as in the picture above). I then used an electric whisk to fully blend all the oils, I just mixed them until they went opaque (as in the picture below) and then poured the mixture into my clean tub to fully set.

To make the day cream I used the same method above but I used different essential oils.

After some research into natural sun protection I chose carrot seed oil as I had read that it had a spf of 38-40 but I have since read that this isn’t true. After looking around online I’ve seen as many websites claim that it has a spf as I’ve seen websites that say it doesn’t. Next time I will look for something else as spf is important in a day cream for me and even if carrot seed oil does have an spf factor I wasn’t really keen on the smell (it smells very carroty 😀 ) and had to add a lot more of the other essential oils to cover it. The other oils I used were rose hip as it’s very easily absorbed into the skin and the fatty acids contained in it are good for dry skin. And grapefruit oil primarily for the smell as I wanted something refreshing to wake me up in the morning but it is also has antibacterial and antioxidant properties.

Here are some items that you might want to use for this project:

I found my first attempt at diy beauty products really interesting and I’ve enjoyed looking into the benefits of different essential oils. I’ve been using the night cream every night but I’ve only been using the day one a couple of days a week as the texture is oily. When I’ve looked more into emulsifying the oils and making a cream I will share my attempts with you all!

Lianne x

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