Ingredients for preparing ointments and creams

Alraune
  
Cacaobutter There are a lot of ingredients for the preparation of creams and ointments.

There are some basic substances and lots and lots of special stuff.

Let's start with the basic stuff that is needed for simple ointments.


Oil

Any good quality vegetable oil can be used to make your ointments and creams.

  • Almond oil is very luxury for face creams.
  • The most luxury oil is jojoba wax, that is no real oil but a wax, but it acts like an oil.
  • For healing the skin olive oil is perfect because it heals by itself.
  • For dry skin sunflower oil is very good.
  • Rapeseed oil is fine and neutral, it is very liquid and doesn't have a strong smell by itself.
  • Sesame oil is a nourishing oil and it protects a little bit against too much sun.

For the herbal ointments and creams I usually use herbal oils.

Thickener

beeswax
Thickeners are all substances that make a cream or ointment out of the liquid oil and water.

The different thickeners work in different ways. Some are stronger, others weaker. And some are greasy, others give protection to the skin and others have their own healing qualitiy.

You can mix several thickeners in one cream.

  • Beeswax, good protection, a film stays on the skin. Strong thickening.
  • Cocoa butter, made from cocoa beans, rather greasy. Soft thickening.
  • Shea butter, made from the african karite tree. The substance is similar to skin substances. Heals the skin. Soft thickening.
  • Wool wax, made from the wool of sheeps. Very soft but healing effects. Is a soft emulsifier. Soft thickening.
  • Cetyl alcohol, a substance similar to skin substances. White and not greasy. Stabilizes emulsions. Very strong thickening.

There are lots of other thickeners but the above are the most important substances.

Emulsifier

When you want to prepare a cream you need to combine oily and watery substances. Usualy water and oil doesn't connect, they separate as soon as possible.

To help both types of substances to connect, you need an emulsifier.

The emulsifier connects at one side with the water and at the other side with the oil. This ist called an emulsion.

There are different kind of emulsions:

  • When there is a lot of oil around some water, it is called water-in-oil-emulsion (W/O).
  • When there is a lot of water around some oil, it is called oil-in-water-emulsion (O/W).
The most emulsifiers can only build one type of emulsion, but some can do both.

Here you will find different emulsifiers, by and by. We add new descriptions always, when there are new recipes with new emulsifiers.

Lanolin anhydrous

lanolin anhydrous Lanolin is a natural wax, that is produced by the sheeps to fatten their wool. It is brown and sticky. Sometimes it's called woolwax.

Lanolin builds water-in-oil-emulsions and can keep the double of its weight of water.

The resulting creams get rather fatty. They are too much fatty for face creams but very good for medicinal creams.

Beside the emulsifiying effects lanolin has its own healing effects to the skin and it keeps the skin juicy and protects from getting to dry.

Some people are allergic to lanolin and may react badly. They shouldn't use it in creams. When it is used as a face cream, some people get pimples because lanolin closes the skin.

Bad qualitiy lanolin could have pesticides. Therefore it is important to buy good quality.

Important!
Lanolin is selled with and without water inside.

For making creams you need lanolin without water because you want to put the water yourself to the cream. When buying lanolin tell the vendour that you want lanolin anhydrous, what means without water. Other names for lanolin anhydrous are "woolwax without water" or "adeps lanae sine aqua".

Woolwaxalcohol


Eucerin

eucerin

Water

Water is an important part of creams.

Usualy water from the tap is not good enough, because creams made by this kind of water get mildew faster than other creams.

Instead you can take mineral water, sterilized water or special waters like rose water.

Conservation

If you prepare creams, the combination of water and fat makes the cream sensible to mildew and bacterias.

Without conservating substances a cream keeps good about one week, in the refrigerator it could be two weeks.

When you want to keep the cream for a longer time, you need substances to conservate the cream.

Most conservation substances are not very well for the health. I only use two different kind of conservative substances in my creams.

  • Tee trea oil: smells rather strong but is a healing substance as well. Used for medical creams.
  • Grapefruit seed extract: smells only a little bit. Contains PEG, what is said not to be so good. Used for face creams and medical creams.

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