Classes, education

Lovely Lavender Cream: you can make it from the bounty in your backyard

We made a Lavender Cream in class today without a single drop of Lavender essential oil.

Body cream is a combination of water components and oil complements, joined together with either a wax or emulsifying agent.
I have always been curious if it was possible to scent creams without an essential oil, so we decided to give it a try.

We made a recipe of 32 ounces of cream, which, if made as a traditional lotion recipe, would call for a 2 % dilution of essential oil. A 2% dilution of 32 fluid oz. of cream is nearly 20 milliliter of essential oil, which is 2/3 of 1 oz.

We started by infusing olive oil with powdered lavender buds. To this we added jojoba oil, lavender hydrosol, aloe juice and distilled water with some emulsifying wax, rosemary antioxidant and citric acid.

It resulted in a lovely, icing textured lotion that many students commented they wanted to eat, because it smelled so delicious.

We infused 80 grams of lavender buds in oil, which, if made into an essential oil would be around 13 drops.

We soaked this herb with 15 ml of lavender tincture, which it took about 5 grams of lavender buds to make (1:3 ratio).

While this was happening I drew a few diagrams to reveal how people can make hydrosol in their kitchen with basic wares.

In total we used under 100 grams of herbal material in addition to 2 oz of hydrosol, to scent 32 oz of cream. If this amount of lavender buds were distilled, it would make around 16 drops of essential oil…. not even a single millimeter, whereas most recipes call for 2%, or nearly 20 ml of essential oil, for the same volume of cream.  That’s pretty wild, right? Especially when one considers that it would take more than 8 pounds of plant material, and quite a bit of labor, to produce the 20ml of essential oil, and that many people presume this wouldn’t be enough essential oil and would add more.

We were all excited to discover that we can create wonderfully luxurious things from the bounty in our backyards. While it may be difficult to grow 8 lbs of lavender, it is much more realistic and doable to grow 4 oz. of lavender, and a bit perhaps a doubling of that to make your own hydrosol.

If only you could smell this cream!

If you would like to learn to make it yourself, I can send you the ingredients and teach you how to make it 🙂

Classes will be available online soon! Contact me at oilartisan@gmail.com for more information.

To see how to make a simple lotion with just a few ingredients, check out this video I made on YouTube.

#diy

#lavendercream

#beallnatural

#besustainable

 

 

 

 

 

 

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