If you’ve been disappointed or frustrated by DIY lotions that are heavy and greasy, this DIY is for you! This all-natural, lightweight hand and body lotion is packed with my favourite skin-soothing, moisturizing goodies, making it perfect for winter skincare. I’ve given this formulation a “Sugar Plum Fairy” theme for holiday gifting, but you can easily change that up if you want to. Let’s start emulsifying!

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The heated oil phase is mostly plum oil; our star emollient and a big part of that “Sugar Plum Fairy” theme. What’s really special about this golden oil is its smell—it smells wonderfully of marzipan. It’s a delightful scent that carries through to the finished lotion, mingling with the other ingredients to create something truly special.

If you don’t have plum oil you can use apricot kernel oil instead as they have similar fatty acid compositions, but you will lose that lovely marizipan scent. That’s not the end of the world as this formulation does include fragrance/essential oil—and you might actually prefer it if you want to stray away from the “Sugar Plum Fairy” theme!

A little bit of cetyl alcohol adds some silky, non-greasy body to the emulsion, and everything is emulsified together with Olivem 1000.

The oil phase also contains an ingredient that isn’t oil soluble; colloidal oatmeal. You certainly can put colloidal oatmeal in the heated water phase if you prefer to, but I find it cooks up into a gloopy sort of porridge there, so I like to put colloidal oatmeal in the oil phase.

I’ve kept the water phase pretty simple. It’s mostly distilled water, with vegetable glycerin for added moisturizing, panthenol for even more moisturizing and some skin-soothing benefits, and a wee bit of soft or clear xanthan gum to boost emulsion stability and viscosity.

I’ve chosen Geogard® ECT as the preservative for this formulation. It contains a lot of benzyl alcohol, which is a fragrant alcohol that smells a bit like almonds or marzipan—so I thought it was a good choice for this formulation. If you’d like to use a different preservative you definitely can; Euxyl™ k 903 and TRIstat® ECO would be my top choices as they also include benzyl alcohol. Liquid Germall™ Plus will definitely work, as will phenoxyethanol-based preservatives like Optiphen™ Plus or Euxyl® PE 9010.

Geogard ECT has a pretty short shelf life; the bottle with the white cap is fresh, while the bottle with the pointy cap is older. Notice how the older bottle has gone a bit yellow? That’s a sign you need a fresh bottle.

There are two ingredients in the cool down phase that can be natural or not, so if natural-ness is important to you, take care. The first is the mica, which colours the lotion. Colourful micas always have at least two ingredients in them; the mica and whatever colours it. Many micas are all natural, getting their colour from oxides, but some do contain synthetic colourants. And, if you’re vegan, you’ll also want to watch out for carmine in your micas.

The second is the scent. If you want to make a natural lotion you’ll need to use a natural fragrance oil or essential oil; if you’re ok with 0.4% of something not natural, you can use a regular fragrance oil. Whatever you choose, please have fun with it! If you’re sticking with the “sugar plum fairy” theme, what feels “sugar plummy” to you? And what will smell nice with the marzipany/oaty scent of the lotion itself? I think something vanilla-y, citrussy, or lightly spicy would be lovely. Whatever you use, make sure it is safe for use at 0.4% in IFRA category 5 products. I personally decided to deviate from the all-natural realm and use Bulk Apothecary’s Spicy Plum Pudding fragrance oil.

Relevant links & further reading

• Distilled water in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Vegetable Glycerin in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Xanthan gum in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Panthenol (Vitamin B5) in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Olivem 1000 in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Plum Oil in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Cetyl Alcohol in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Colloidal Oatmeal in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Geogard® ECT in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Allantoin in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Coloured Mica in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Vitamin E in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Sodium Lactate in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• Immersion blender in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
• How long will ______ last? What is its shelf life? in the Humblebee & Me FAQ
• Can I use a different preservative than the one you’ve used? in the Humblebee & Me FAQ
• pH
  • pH meter in the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia
  • pH measurement in cosmetic lab: why we dilute samples? from Skin Chakra
  • How to adjust the pH of your cosmetic products from Skin Chakra
  • Why do you create a 10% dilution of a formulation before measuring the pH? in the Humblebee & Me FAQ

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Sugar Plum Fairy Hand & Body Lotion

Heated water phase
224.7g | 74.9% distilled water
21g | 7% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 0.2% xanthan gum (soft) (USA / Canada)
6g | 2% panthenol powder (vitamin B5) (USA / Canada)

Heated oil phase
6g | 2% Olivem1000 (USA / Canada / UK / Germany / Aus / NZ)
27g | 9% plum kernel oil (USA / Canada / UK / Bulgaria / Aus / NZ)
6g | 2% cetyl alcohol (USA / Canada / UK / Germany / Aus / NZ)
3g | 1% colloidal oatmeal (USA / Canada)

Cool down phase
3g | 1% Geogard® ECT (USA / Canada / UK / Germany / Aus / NZ)
0.9g | 0.3% allantoin (USA / Canada)
0.6g | 0.2% purple mica
1.2g | 0.4% Spicy Plum Pudding fragrance oil
0.3g | 0.10% Vitamin E MT-50 (USA / Canada)

To raise the pH
60% sodium lactate solution

Prepare a water bath by bringing about 3cm/1″ of water to a bare simmer on a stove top over low to medium-low heat in a wide, flat-bottomed sauté pan.

Alternatively, you can use a lab hot plate on low. If you use beakers, you can set them directly on the hot plate without a water bath—just take care not to let your oil phase burn!

Weigh the heated water phase into a small heat-resistant glass measuring cup or glass beaker. Weigh the entire lot (measuring cup/beaker + ingredients) and write that weight down for later.

Weigh the heated oil phase into a second heat-resistant glass measuring cup.

Place both measuring cups in your prepared hot water bath.

After 40–60 minutes the oil part should be completely melted and the water part should be thoroughly dissolved. Remember that heating times will vary with your batch size; if you’re used to making 100g (3.5oz) batches of lotion for yourself, expect a larger batch to take longer!

Once everything is hot, remove the water bath from the heat and weigh the water phase. Add enough hot distilled water to the heated water phase to bring the weight back up to what it was before heating, and then pour the water part into the oil part. Stir with a flexible silicone spatula to incorporate.

Grab your immersion blender and begin blending, starting with short bursts so the still-very-liquid emulsion doesn’t whirl up and spray everywhere. Blend for 30–60 seconds before switching to hand stirring. You’ll need to be fairly diligent with the stirring at first or the emulsion will separate, but once the mixture has thickened up a bit and is uniform you can switch to stirring occasionally.

When the outside of the glass measuring cup is just warm to the touch (40°C or cooler, if you have a thermometer) we’re ready to proceed.

Now it’s time to incorporate our cool down ingredients. Because cool down ingredients are typically present at very low amounts you’ll need to use an accurate scale—preferably one accurate to 0.01g. As these more accurate scales tend to have fairly low (100–200g) maximum weights, you won’t be able to put the entire batch of lotion on that scale without blowing it out. So—grab a smaller bowl or beaker. Weigh the cool down ingredients into that, using the more accurate scale. Add a scoop or two of lotion, stir to thoroughly incorporate, and then stir all of that back into the parent batch of lotion. Doing it this way minimizes the amount of cool down ingredients lost to the smaller bowl/beaker.

Once the cool down phase has been incorporated, we need to test and adjust the pH to ensure it’s in a good place for our preservative and our skin.

To test and adjust the pH: create a 10% dilution by weighing 2g product and 18g distilled water into a small bowl or beaker and whisk to combine (wondering why we create a dilution to check the pH?). Check the pH with your pH meter. Depending on the shape of your bowl/beaker you may need to tilt it in order to fully submerge the sensor on your pH meter.

If you’ve made the formulation as I have, the pH should be around 3.5 range, so we’ll need to raise it. For a 300g batch, I found 6g of a 60% sodium lactate solution was sufficient to raise the pH to around 4.6–4.7. Add the sodium lactate and make a fresh pH testing solution to confirm the pH is in the 4.5–5.5 range.

Once we know the pH is in all that’s left to do is package it up! I recommend using pump-top bottles or squeeze tubes rather than jars so people aren’t dipping their fingers into the lotion—this will help prevent spoilage. I used five 50mL (1.69fl oz) bottles with treatment pump caps.

Use as you’d use any hand/body lotion. Enjoy!

Shelf Life & Storage

Because this lotion contains water, you must include a broad-spectrum preservative to ward off microbial growth. This is non-optional. With good manufacturing practice and proper preservation, this formulation should last at least a year. Even with a preservative, this project may eventually spoil as our kitchens are not sterile laboratories, so in the event you notice any change in colour, scent, or texture, chuck it out and make a fresh batch.

Substitutions

As always, be aware that making substitutions will change the final product. While these swaps won’t break the formulation, you will get a different final product than I did.

• As I’ve provided this formulation in percentages as well as grams you can easily calculate it to any size using a simple spreadsheet as I’ve explained in this post. As written in grams, this formulation will make 300g.
• To learn more about the ingredients used in this formulation, including why they’re included and what you can substitute them with, please visit the Humblebee & Me Encyclopedia. It doesn’t have everything in it yet, but there’s lots of good information there! If I have not given a specific substitution suggestion in this list (panthenol, allantoin, colloidal oatmeal) please look up the ingredient in the encyclopedia before asking.
• You could use Propanediol 1,3 or butylene glycol instead of glycerin.
• You can use soft or clear xanthan gum.
• If you only have regular xanthan gum use half as much, replacing the other 0.1% with more distilled water.
• Alternatives for Olivem 1000 include Montanov 68, Montanov 82, Emulsifying Wax NF, and Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG-100 Stearate.
• To substitute the plum oil, I’d recommend oils with a fatty acid composition close to plum oil, like sweet almond oil, apricot kernel oil, or peach kernel oil. You will lose the marzipan scent note from the plum oil, but you will still get a bit of it from the benzyl alcohol in the preservative.
• You could try cetearyl alcohol instead of cetyl alcohol, though it has a richer skin feel.
  • Behenyl alcohol, cetyl palmitate, or myristyl myristate could be good options if you have them.
• If you’re like to use a different preservative, please review this FAQ and this chart. Make sure you check and adjust usage levels and pH as needed for whatever you use.
  • Euxyl™ k 903 and TRIstat® ECO are both good options, and both also include benzyl alcohol so they have a similar marzipan-y/almondy scent.
  • Liquid Germall™ Plus will definitely work.
  • Phenoxyethanol-based preservatives like Optiphen™ Plus and Euxyl® PE 9010 are also good options.
• The mica is optional; replace it with more water if you don’t want to use it.
•  You can use a different fragrance oil or essential oil, but:
  • Make sure it will pair nicely with the scent of plum kernel oil (if using).
  • Ensure it is approved for use at 0.4% in IFRA 5A and 5C products; learn how to check that here.
• You can leave the scent out if you want to (replacing that 0.4% with a bit more distilled water) but I do find the Geogard ECT starts to smell more “chemically” after a couple weeks, and it’s nice to have something to cover that up.
• For pH adjusting:
  • You can use a sodium hydroxide solution to raise the pH, but you will need to figure out how much you need on your own by making small additions and testing to see where you end up
  • If you change the preservative, my “2g of sodium lactate per 100g of lotion [aka 6g for a 300g batch]” guideline goes straight out the window—you will need to test the pH of the formulation after adding the preservative to figure out if it needs to be adjusted and go from there