Saturday 9 October 2010

Keeping the wrinkles at bay

I've reached a certain age where the wrinkles are starting to do their thing and I've become more conscious of trying to keeping my face well moisturised.  The Australian sun can be a bit brutal on my fair freckly skin so I decided a few years ago to make my own facial moisturiser.

There were a number of reasons for doing this.  The commercially made, inexpensive light moisturiser I had been using just wasn't cutting it anymore and I didn't want to pay the outrageous prices for the products that would supposedly help my aging skin.  I also wanted to know what exactly I was putting on my face.  Solution, make my own.

I then had the task of finding a suitable recipe and sourcing the raw ingredients to make my moisturiser.  The recipe I am sharing with you below is a work in progress.  This is the fourth variation and I hope (fingers crossed), I might have a winner.  This moisturiser is quite rich, but with this latest tweaking of the recipe, it is more creamy in texture rather than being stiff and oily.  So this is what I got up to today.

RICH CREAMY FACIAL MOISTURISER



Ingredients

3 tablespoons apricot kernel oil
2 tablespoons sweet almond oil
2 tablespoons avocado oil
8 tablespoons rose infused water
1 1/2 - 1 3/4 tablespoons bees wax
2 tablespoons aloe vera gel
15 drops grapefruit seed extract (preserver)
15 drops pure rose oil







Place the oils (except rose oil) and wax in a bowl.  Gently heat over a saucepan of water stirring until melted.  Take off heat.


Meanwhile put rose water and aloe vera gel in a microwaveable bowl or jug and stir well.  Heat in microwave until very warm.  This took about 1 minute in my microwave.
 Slowly pour rose water mixture into oil mixture and using a whisk, stir continually.  As you continue to stir and the mixture cools, it will start to turn creamy.  Keep stirring until cool.  The moisturiser should end up being the consistency of mayonnaise. 
Unfortunately my camera started playing up at this point so I couldn't take a photo of this stage in the process.
 When the moisturiser has cooled, add grapefruit seed extract and rose oil and stir thoroughly until combined.  The colour of the moisturiser will be a very pale green due to the avocado oil.
Pour into storage container.  It's now ready to use. 

  The finished product.








Bye for now,
Anne

3 comments:

  1. Isn't it wonderful making your own skin cream! i love the avocado oil in it. My kids are now my most passionate users, isn't that great. Don't know if you noticed my recipe here on the kitchen blog...I have recently added the "how to" of making calendula oil which is quite handy too. Much love Catherine
    http://anangelinthekitchen.blogspot.com/p/aunty-daisy-make-do-mend-brigade.html

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  2. I like making my own moisturiser. Each time I tweak it, so I guess mine is a work in progress too. Yours looks lovely and creamy. You've given me a few more tweak ideas to try. Thank you.

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  3. This seems like fun. Thanks for the follow request. I look forward to reading more about your journeys as well.

    xoxo ~ Kate
    catchupwithkate.blogspot.com

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