Aloe vera gel is a gorgeous summer skincare staple, and with the right formulation, it’s also really easy (and inexpensive) to DIY! So, that’s what we’re going to do today.
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Post Overview
What is aloe vera gel?
Aloe vera is a succulent plant with long, fleshy, tendril-y leaves. The leaves are tough and leathery on the outside, but when you slice them open you’re rewarded with a clear, stringy gel that has been used to treat minor burns, bug bites, and dry skin for centuries.
The gel that’s found in side fresh aloe leaves is often referred to as aloe gel, but that’s not what we’re talking about when we talk about aloe gel as a cosmetic product. The clear gel scraped from inside fresh aloe leaves isn’t very shelf stable, so while it is lovely, if you want an aloe gel you can travel with or sell, it’s not what you want.
From the name, you’d think aloe vera gel is just aloe vera and some sort of gelling ingredient, but it’s usually much more accurate to think of it as a gelled product that contains aloe vera—and probably quite a few other things, too.
Ingredients like colourants, fragrance, and solubilizers are very common. And, even if a product is just gelled aloe, it can be gelled with a variety of different ingredients and it’ll need a preservative, so you really can’t make any assumptions about what a product labelled “aloe vera gel” is.
To see what I mean, let’s take a look at three different products that could all be colloquially referred to as “aloe vera gel”.
The first is the sort of aloe vera gel you might pick up at the drug store—a bright green one one made by Banana Boat. The ingredients definitely aren’t just gelled aloe vera:
Water, denatured alcohol, glycerin, polysorbate 20, carbomer, triethanolamine, PEG-4 dilaurate, PEG-4 laurate, aloe barbadensis leaf juice, PEG-4, Benzophenone-4, Imidazolidinyl urea, iodopropynyl butylcarbonate, fragrance, yellow 5, blue 1.
It’s primarily water and alcohol (which helps it evaporate faster). There’s a bit of glycerin to help moisturize and some emulsifiers and solubilizers to mix in the fragrance. Carbomer gels the product, and triethanolmine neutralizes the carbomer. It is preserved with powdered Germall Plus, and coloured green with a blend of yellow and blue dyes. Aloe juice is in there, but appears what looks to be well after the 1% line.
But ok—that product isn’t really called “aloe gel”—it’s an “after sun gel with aloe”. Let’s look at Banana Boat’s “Soothing Aloe After-Sun Gel“:
Purified Water, Aloe Vera Gel, SD Alcohol 40, Glycerin, Polysorbate 20, Carbomer, Triethanolamine, Methylparaben, Imidazolidinyl Urea, Benzophenonee- 4, FD&C Blue No. 1, FD&C Yellow No. 5, Fragrance.
The aloe moves up to second place and the alcohol moves down. I’m unsure about “aloe vera gel” as an ingredient here—there are no products with an INCI of “aloe vera gel” on UL Prospector. There are fewer emulsifiers, but this ingredient list isn’t super duper different from the first one.
For our third example, let’s take a look at a more natural product like the Seven Minerals Organic Aloe Vera Gel. The ingredient list is much shorter:
Organic aloe vera leaf, agar, citric acid, ascorbic acid, potassium sorbate.
It’s mostly aloe vera that’s gelled with agar. Potassium sorbate is the primary preservative, and citric and ascorbic acid will lower the pH. Ascorbic acid (AKA vitamin C) is not very stable so I would not expect it to offer much in the way of skincare benefits, oxidizing over a couple weeks and discolouring to a yellowy orange (though this might not be very noticeable as the usage level appears to be really low).
As I’ve been looking at lots of different aloe vera gels on the market I’ve found quite a few that have percentages in the names (usually very high ones). For example, the Aloe Vera Gel 99.9% from Aloe Pura.
The label implies it contains 99.9% “bio active aloe vera”, which seems to leave just 0.01% for other ingredients. Here’s the ingredient list:
Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera) Leaf Juice (Organic), Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Panthenol (Pro-Vitamin B5), Disodium EDTA, Sodium Hydroxide, Phenoxyethanol, Potassium Sorbate, Benzoic Acid, Limonene.
0.01% just isn’t enough “room” for any all those not-aloe-vera-juice ingredients to be included at effective levels. It could be that they’ve used a concentrated juice to achieve this number rather than 1:1 liquid juice, but the formulation cannot contain 99.9% fresh liquid 1:1 aloe vera juice and also be gelled to a level that makes sense for the tube it is sold in, neutralized, and properly preserved.
Why should you make your own aloe vera gel?
If you’ve got a thriving aloe vera plant you might be wondering why you’d ever bother making your own aloe vera gel.
The biggest reason is stability. As gorgeous as fresh aloe gel is, it simply isn’t very shelf stable.
And while store bought aloe vera gel is easy to get, they vary widely in composition and aloe vera content and tend to be pretty expensive for what they are.
So, I recommend making your own aloe vera gel so you can maximize the aloe content, choose all the other ingredients, and save some money!
An ideal aloe vera gel should include lots of aloe vera, have a pleasant skin feel, dry down to a pleasant finish, and remain stable for months. Keep reading to learn what you’ll need to make such a gel.
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What do you need to make your own aloe vera gel?
Aloe vera
There are a lot of different “aloe vera” ingredients for sale—juices, gels, extracts, concentrates, powders, and more—so it can be hard to figure out what on earth should you buy!
I recommend purchasing either the liquid juice, or a concentrated powder made from freeze or spray drying the juice. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses.
Aloe vera juice
Liquid aloe juice is a ready to use, water-thin liquid. It’s cloudy and often has a light tangy scent. Because it contains a lot of water it will usually be lightly preserved; I recommend keeping it in the fridge and purchasing it in quantities you can use in 6 months or less.
My aloe vera juice is from YellowBee.
Concentrated dried aloe vera juice powder
This is an off-white powder that will easily dissolve in water, making clear aloe vera juice. It is very concentrated (usually sold as either 100x or 200x concentrated), which means a little goes a very long way. Avoid the temptation to use this super-concentrated-ness to make super-duper aloe-y formulations as this can easily overwhelm them with an electrolyte overdose.
You can use the powder two ways: re-constitute the powder with distilled water and a water-soluble preservative to make your own aloe vera juice to use in your formulations, or add very small amounts of the powder to your formulations. Making your own juice is the best option if you’re making small batches where weighing out <0.2% of a formulation might be a challenge; the using the powder as-is works well for larger batches.
My 100x aloe vera juice powder is from Lotion Crafter.
Avoid these aloe-y things
I do not recommended purchasing brown aloe extracts (often sold as dry brown powders) as these won’t make a clear juice. You’ll also want to avoid oil-soluble aloe extracts and aloe “butters” as these won’t work to make aloe vera gel.
Gelling ingredient
After aloe, a gelling ingredient is a pretty obvious required ingredient for an aloe gel! This is where the bulk of the skin feel of the gel comes from, so it’s important you choose something that feels nice on the skin.
Because aloe vera in rich in electrolytes—and many gelling ingredients are sensitive to electrolytes—you’ll also need to choose a gelling ingredient that will still work with electrolyte-y aloe vera juice.
I experimented with several different options, both natural and synthetic, and three options distinguished themselves in terms of performance, ease of use, and availability.
Natural
If you’d like to use a natural gelling ingredient, I recommend either soft or clear xanthan gum (I haven’t noticed much of a difference between the two, so use whichever one you can get). Soft & clear xanthan gums are more refined versions of xanthan gum that create silky, clear gels that are infinitely superior to the hazy, sticky, snotty mixtures made by regular xanthan gum.
Synthetic
For a synthetic option, I recommend Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (Sepimax ZEN). It’s fairly widely available, far more electrolyte tolerant than many synthetic gelling ingredients, and is pre-neutralized so you don’t have to worry about adding triethanolamine (TEA) or sodium hydroxide to your formulation.
How do they compare?
The formulations thickened with soft or clear xanthan gum are a bit softer, a bit stickier, and a bit more hazy than the formulations made with Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (Sepimax ZEN).
I used 1.5% gelling ingredient for all the formulations, but you could use less for a softer/thinner gel or more for a thicker gel. The 1.5% Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (Sepimax ZEN) gel is thicker than the 1.5% soft xanthan gum gel.
Using Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (Sepimax ZEN) also opens up the possibility of including small amounts of oil-soluble ingredients like vitamin E, essential oils, and preservatives that aren’t very water soluble, like Optiphen™ Plus and Geogard® ECT.
Humectant
A small amount of a water-free humectant boosts skin hydration and also helps prevent clumps in the gel. I recommend either vegetable glycerin, propanediol 1,3, or butylene glycol—I’m using vegetable glycerin since it’s the easiest of the three to get.
We’re using just enough to pre-disperse the gelling ingredient; I’ve found that’s 3% for soft/clear xanthan gum and 4% for Sepimax ZEN. If you decide to use less gelling ingredient you can use less humectant; if you decide to use more gelling ingredient you’ll need to use more humectant.
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Preservative
A broad spectrum, water soluble preservative keeps the aloe gel from turning into a hotbed of microbial activity. I recommend Liquid Germall™ Plus as it is very effective, fully water soluble, and easy to use.
If you’d like to use a different preservative, please scroll down to the “Can I use a different preservative?” section towards the bottom of this post.
How can I customize my aloe vera gel?
These base formulations make a lovely moisturizing, skin-soothing treat, but you can also use them as a base for creating all sorts of gorgeous aloe-y body gel formulations! Here are some ideas:
- You could amp up the soothing by including some allantoin or panthenol
- Add some skin-brightening goodness by incorporating niacinamide and/or N-Acetyl Glucosamine
- Make it even more moisturizing by including some hyaluronic acid or another humectant (though I’d avoid electrolyte-y humectants like sodium lactate)
- Add some gentle scent by including some hydrosol (one or a blend)
- Make the gel dry faster by trading some of the water/aloe vera juice for denatured alcohol
- Include a teesny bit of green water soluble dye for a green gel just like the ones from the store
- If you’re using Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (Sepimax ZEN) as your gelling ingredient you can incorporate small amounts of oil-soluble ingredients like vitamin E, essential oils, and preservatives that aren’t very water soluble, like Optiphen™ Plus and Geogard® ECT
For all of these additions you’d reduce the aloe juice or water to make room for the new ingredients and keep the formulation adding up to 100%.
There’s TONS of room to play with and customize this aloe vera gel—just make sure everything you include is compatible with the formulation, and take care not to go overboard with the actives, which can make for a really sticky finished gel.
And, if you’re planning on using this gel on sunburnt skin, make sure you’re choosing ingredients that won’t further irritate your skin—I’d skip the essential oils.
Where can I get all the ingredients to make aloe gel?
YellowBee has kindly put together a collection of the ingredients you’ll need as well as some fun extras like hydrosols allantoin that you could use to customize your formulation. They ship to Canada and the USA, and you can find the collection here!
Otherwise, these ingredients are pretty widely available. Check out my big list of places to shop all over the world to find somewhere that’s local(ish) to you.
The Formulations: Instructions
Regardless of the ingredients you use, the instructions are the same.
If you’re using fresh aloe vera juice I find that’s hazier than re-constituted, which will make for a hazier final gel.
The gel will also clear up as it sits; I find the xanthan versions can take a couple days for enough bubbles to work their way out for the gel to get as clear as possible,
Weigh the gelling ingredient, humectant, and preservative into a beaker. Stir to combine until you have a uniform slurry.
Weigh the aloe vera juice or distilled water and aloe vera concentrate into a separate beaker.
Add the aloe vera juice to the gum slurry. Stir, cover, and leave the mixture to hydrate for a few hours.
Once the gelling blobs have swelled up, stir the mixture until it is uniform and smooth. If there are still some firmer jelly blobs just re-cover the mixture and let it hydrate for even longer before stirring again.
When you have a smooth, uniform gel, you’re done. If you have the ability to pH test, you can do that now—if made as written the pH should fall in the 4.5–5.5 range.
Package the gel in a squeeze bottle (you could use a jar if you’re really good at not spilling things). I found it helpful to use a piping bag to fill my bottles as the gel was too thick to pour nicely into a narrow-ish opening.
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The Formulations: Ingredients
Gram amounts are for a 300g batch.
Xanthan gum + liquid aloe juice
4.5g | 1.5% xanthan gum (soft) (USA / Canada) or xanthan gum (clear) (USA / Canada / UK / Aus / NZ)
9g | 3% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1.5g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)
Xanthan gum + 100x aloe vera juice powder
4.5g | 1.5% xanthan gum (soft) (USA / Canada) or xanthan gum (clear) (USA / Canada / UK / Aus / NZ)
9g | 3% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1.5g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)282g | 94% distilled water
3g | 1% 100x aloe vera juice powder (USA / Canada)
Xanthan gum + 200x aloe vera juice powder
4.5g | 1.5% xanthan gum (soft) (USA / Canada) or xanthan gum (clear) (USA / Canada / UK / Aus / NZ)
9g | 3% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1.5g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)283.5g | 94.5% distilled water
1.5g | 0.5% 200x aloe vera juice powder (USA / Canada / UK | NZ)
Sepimax ZEN + liquid aloe juice
4.5g | 1.5% Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (USA / Canada / UK / Australia)
12g | 4% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1.5g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)
Sepimax ZEN + 100x aloe vera juice powder
4.5g | 1.5% Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (USA / Canada / UK / Australia)
12g | 4% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1.5g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)279g | 93% distilled water
3g | 1% 100x aloe vera juice powder (USA / Canada)
Sepimax ZEN + 200x aloe vera juice powder
4.5g | 1.5% Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (USA / Canada / UK / Australia)
12g | 4% vegetable glycerine (USA / Canada)
1.5g | 0.5% Liquid Germall Plus™ (USA / Canada)280.5g | 93.5% distilled water
1.5g | 0.5% 200x aloe vera juice powder (USA / Canada / UK | NZ)
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Other questions
Can I use a different preservative?
Yes, but if you’re a brand new maker I’d recommend sticking with Liquid Germall™ Plus.
Here are some things to consider if you want to use a different preservative:
- Look at the INCI for your preservative and research it.
- My Preservatives table is useful!
- Make sure the pH of the final product is compatible with your new preservative.
- Part of the reason I chose Liquid Germall™ Plus is because it’s effective over a really broad pH range; not all preservatives are.
- Remember that many natural preservatives will cause the pH of the formulation to drop so you may need to raise it.
- Other natural preservatives will raise the pH of the formulation and require you to lower it after adding the preservative in order for the preservative to work.
- If you use xanthan gum as your gelling ingredient you’ll need a preservative that is readily water soluble as this aloe vera gel is almost entirely water.
- If you’re looking for a natural alternative I don’t recommend preservatives based around benzyl alcohol, which includes Geogard® ECT and Euxyl™ k 903, as benzyl alcohol is not very water soluble. You could include a solubilizer in order to get these preservatives to blend in better, but these can negatively impact skin feel.
- Geogard Ultra™ is water soluble, but causes downwards pH drift so it requires you to build an in-situ buffer system with sodium citrate, sodium hydroxide, and possibly citric acid—I’ve included instructions from the manufacturer in the free Humblebee & Me DIY Encyclopedia entry on it.
- You could try Euxyl® K 712 (INCI: Water & Sodium Benzoate & Potassium Sorbate) or your own blend of Sodium Benzoate & Potassium Sorbate
- I’d include a chelator like sodium phytate or Tetrasodium Glutamate Diacetate alongside a natural preservative. These will raise the pH, so be sure to test and adjust as required.
- If you use Polyacrylate crosspolymer-6 (Sepimax ZEN) as your gelling ingredient you can use less water soluble preservatives.
- I’ve been experimenting with using Optiphen™ Plus and Euxyl® PE 9010 (INCI: Phenoxyethanol & Ethylhexylglycerin) this way and it works well!
What pH should my aloe gel be?
We’d like the pH of our aloe gel to fall in the 4.5–5.5 range; mine was 4.6. If you have strips or a meter to test it, great, but aloe vera juice is naturally acidic, so there’s a good chance your gel will fall in this range without any adjusting.
My liquid juice from YellowBee has a pH of 3.2–4.6, and the 100x powder I have from Lotion Crafter has a pH of 3.5–5. It makes sense that the liquid juice is more acidic than the powder because it contains added citric acid.
How should I use my aloe vera gel?
To use, smooth some gel over any skin that could use a bit of soothing, moisturizing goodness.
Gifting Disclosure
The aloe vera juice, glycerin, Liquid Germall™ Plus, soft xanthan gum, and Sepimax ZEN were gifted by YellowBee.
Links to Amazon are affiliate links.
Thanks Marie, just right when I was about to purchase another jar of aloe vera gel and wondering if I could DIY instead
Anyway, I usually mix my store-bought aloe gel with jojoba/argan oil to create emulsion and hence a quick face lotion, but the gel mostly has carbomer in it (otherwise the oils and the gel won’t emulsify). Considering that you use xanthan gum, do you think your aloe gel recipe, mixed with any oils, will make a creamy face lotion too?
Hi Nath! If you use one of the Sepimax ZEN versions it should have a similar effect as Sepimax ZEN has similar emulsifying abilities. That said, I have palm-mixed many emulsifier-free watery serums with my water free Vitamin C suspension over the years without any issues—it doesn’t get creamy but it works just fine 🙂
Hey Marie!! I haven’t been on here for quite a while (used to read your blog religiously in high school) and I gotta comment on how nice your new blog format looks! I appreciate how you delve into more details and the handy lil table of contents at the beginning of the page. Very nice surprise
I have seen multiple body butters and hand creams/butter that use Aloe Vera Gel. An example is Sweet Wild Orange by Lush. Would I be able to use this gel in one? I was thinking for the Water Phase 60% gel and 40% distilled water.
Hello Marie,
Thank you for taking the time to provide indept information of formulation. Going to make this right away, I alway wonder why the gel we get from the store looked green and never seem to work for me, now I know!
Major blob situation averted… I made test gels last night with Xanthan Soft & Sepimax Zen. I wanted to see the results before adding aloe vera juice and other pricey ingredients. I pre-dispersed the gelling ingredients then I added the water. Every batch (made with both gelling ingredients) developed yucky blobs that looked like they would never dissolve. I thought I did something wrong so I repeated the process and ended up with 4 test batches. Some had smaller blobs, but all had them. Finally I gave up, covered them with cellophane, and left them on the counter. Happily, the next morning the blobs mixed right into the rest of the gel. I’m so glad I did not toss them and waited it out!
Xanthan Soft & Sepimax do indeed make very nice gels. I can’t wait to try making them with all the goodies. Thank you for highlighting these ingredients, Marie. I probably would not have tried them otherwise. I had only used regular Xanthan before, so they are quite an upgrade for me! I actually don’t mind the stringy texture of regular Xanthan. What I do mind is the smell. Even with a lot of fragrance, regular Xanthan smells like spit to me!
Te escribo desde Perú, aquí no consigo el conservante Germall Plus, en su lugar voy a usar benzoato de sodio y sorbato de potasio, en que porcentaje debo hacer la mezcla y si debo agregar algún otro ingrediente. Pense que podía usar Sharomix 705??
Love it, I made the sepimax and xanthan gum soft version using 200x Aloe Vera Powder. It has been helpful for me, because my babybum suddenly became itchy. But I am looking forward to using the gel in formulation.
Just curious as to if there would be a reason that hydroxyethylcellulous (HEC) wouldn’t be considered as the thickener?
I have standard Xanthan Gum and yes, it’s sticky [good for some things but not everything] and HEC at home.
Hydroxyethylcellulose flat out didn’t work, splitting into a hazy blobby layer at the bottom and watery thin liquid on top :/ I did try it 🙁
Hi Marie,
I have Sepimax Zen, Natural Xanthan Gum and cationic Guar gum in stock. I know that Natural Xanthan gum can get quite stick and snotty, so thats not a choice. Amongst Sepimax zen and Cationic Guar gum, Sepimax zen is 20 times more expensive than cationic guar gum here in India. I was wondering if I could atleast use the gums at 50-50 maintaining a PH above 5 by adding sodium lactate instead of glycerin. (Cationic guar gum starts piling over the PH of 5). Is there a downside to using Cationic Guar gum to gel ?
Hi! Sepimax ZEN is anionic and not compatible with cationic ingredients, so I’m afraid it’s not a good idea to blend the two :/ Xanthan is also anionic, so it would be better suited as a cost reducing alternative to pair with Sepimax ZEN from a charge point—though you’ll have to experiment to see how much you can use without a dramatic negative impact. Happy experimenting!
A couple questions/comments
First is regarding the 200x recipe w/ xanthan. To make reconstituted aloe vera juice using 200x strength powder, the ratio of powder to water should be 1:199, so if you want your total formulation to contain 95% aloe vera juice, I believe the percentage should more accurately be .475% 200x Aloe Powder and 94.525% DI H20. Because at .5% powder to 94.5% water you are technically creating a concentrate.
Second thing is I saw you mentioned sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate as an alternative preservative to the Germall Plus. When I went to your preservative table, I noticed you mention not to use sodium benzoate in conjunction with citric acid. I assume this warning has to do with the accidental creation of benzene in a product—but hasn’t this been disproven as a risk at the percentage we often us of sodium benzoate alongside citric acid as a pH adjuster in a formulation?
Hi Marie, I was just wondering if you could use fresh aloe vera instead of store bought juice/powder? I have a massive aloe plant and was wondering how I could safely make it into a product other than soap (ideally I would be able to incorporate it into a lotion).
Specific question, sepimax zen is marketed as a non micro plastic “polymer” and biodegradable , but I came across a website called beat the micro bead and lists Polyacrylate Crosspolymer-6 as a microplastic. What do I believe and what does this mean exactly ?
I would trust the company that actually makes the ingredient. Websites that list “microplastics” tend to do so based on extremely broad and often faulty assumptions, like “anything with the word ‘polymer’ in it is a microplastic”.
Manufacturers don’t usually say if something is a microplastic, but are very happy to boast about when something isn’t.
There’s some helpful (though a bit scattered) discussion here: https://chemistscorner.com/cosmeticsciencetalk/discussion/couple-questions-on-polymers/
Hii Marie,
You have helped me a lot
But My gel started smelling bad.. after 2-3 days.. what may be the reason? Also xantham gum is sticky and not absorbing fast.. any solution to it?
How much niacinamide and hyaluronic acid to add in 300g batch?
Hi. I would love to learn how to use fresh Aloe Vera as I have loads of it growing in my garden. I already use it in soap making.
I would love to try making this at home. I have always had a lot of aloe plants, and I prefer making my own homemade recipes for things. This sounds like a good one to try.