There are literally thousands of cosmetic ingredients for sale, so it’s no wonder that shopping for ingredients can be an overwhelming experience for new formulators! Between the sheer number of ingredients and the often fantastical claims made about them, it can be tempting to buy one of everything. That’s a temptation I succumbed to when I first started formulating, and I want to spare you the expense and frustration of spending heaps of money on ingredients and then discovering you don’t have the right sorts of ingredients to make the things you want to make. I spent a positively embarrassing sum on oils, butters, waxes, and essential oils… and then once I started doing more research and formulating I realized I only had ingredients to make butters, balms, and salves and in order to make lotions, creams, and cleansers I’d need more ingredients.
The biggest basic principle to keep in mind when you’re buying ingredients as a new formulator is to keep it inexpensive. How inexpensive? My rule is that you want your ingredients to be inexpensive enough that you won’t be too upset about throwing away failed formulations. I’m definitely not trying to encourage wastefulness, but dangit, I forced myself to use up so many utterly garbage concoctions in my early making days because they contained expensive ingredients that really had no business being in a first-time formulation. You can always buy the alluring, expensive ingredients later! Part of ingredient cost is also (usually) shipping. If possible, stick to ingredients you can order domestically as international shipping fees, duties, and currency conversion can add up very quickly. It definitely can make sense to order from abroad, especially if your currency is quite strong, but do the math before you place the order and get smacked with a giant brokerage/duties bill when your package is delivered. I also can’t encourage ingredient research enough. It is so, so important. A mid to lightweight liquid oil WHAT IT’S FOR All kinds of things! You’ll use liquid oils in body butters, lip balms, lotions, creams, body oils, and more. This ingredient type is so useful that if you really want to buy more ingredients, this is a good place to start. You don’t need ten different mid-to-lightweight oils, but if you’ve got room in your budget I’d recommend getting one lightweight (fast-absorbing) oil and one midweight (average absorption speed) oil. HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED Somewhere around 300–500mL is a good place to start for one or two liquid carrier oils. The per mL cost is always better for bigger bottles, so it can be really tempting to get the bigger bottle because it’s a better deal. Please learn from my mistakes (and waste) and don’t buy 1L bottles of heaps of different oils until you know what sorts of formulations you like to make and which oils you like to use. You’ll generally get 1–2 years shelf life from the oils recommended below. That should be more than enough time to use up 300–500mL (unless you have twenty such bottles!), but if you live somewhere very hot you may want to store them in the fridge to extend their shelf life.
WHAT I RECOMMEND
The idea here is to select something inexpensive and quite neutral—nothing with a strong scent or colour. I also recommend choosing something that is reliably liquid at room temperature where you live so you don’t have to worry about the oil changing state in your formulations. Here are some ideas:
You will almost certainly be tempted by more expensive oils like argan oil, jojoba oil, marula oil, and oh-so-many more, and I definitely can’t fault you for wanting to try them all! If there’s room in your budget it is really lovely to have a luxury oil or two to play with—just keep the amounts to 100ml or less to start with and don’t buy them all
A note on coconut oil: I don’t recommend it as your sole liquid oil unless it’s reliably liquid where you live, but if you’ve got room in your budget for a reliably liquid oil + coconut oil, it’s worth having.
A soft butter WHAT IT’S FOR You can use soft butters in many of the same formulations you’d use liquid oils in—lip balms, lotions, and creams—but they are also essential for making soft body butters. They’re the soft part of a soft body butter! HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED I’d start with around 500g ,less if you aren’t a big fan of anhydrous body butters. WHAT I RECOMMEND Shea butter or mango butter will likely be the easiest-to-get options. Choose shea butter if you like richer products; choose mango butter if you prefer lighter, faster-absorbing products. If you choose shea butter, you’ll need to decide if you want refined or unrefined shea butter. Unrefined shea butter has a nutty, smokey scent that will come through in your finished products if you use much more than 10% shea butter—some people love the smell, other people… not so much. Choose refined shea if you aren’t sure about the scent. Watch out for pseudo butters made from hydrogenated fats. Look at the INCI—if you see the word “hydrogenated”, that’s a pseudo butter. There is definitely a place for them in formulating, but I don’t recommend them as one of the first ingredients to purchase. You’ll also want to avoid blended butters (usually an extract + fragrance + a soft butter like refined shea) as your first soft butter purchase; again, check that INCI. If there are multiple ingredients in the INCI, that’s a blended butter. A brittle butter WHAT IT’S FOR I love brittle butters in balms, lotions, creams, and body butters. Because they’re quite hard (think chocolate bar hard), they’ll bring some hardness/brittle-ness to our formulations (depending on how much you use, of course). For this reason, I especially love brittle butters as the primary ingredient in solid body butter bars. HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED I’d start with around 500g —less if you aren’t a big fan of anhydrous body butters. Compared to liquid oils, butters tend to have longer shelf lives as they contain high concentrations of slow-to-oxidize saturated fatty acids like stearic acid—that’s why they’re solid! WHAT I RECOMMEND Cocoa butter is the easiest choice; choose unrefined if you adore the smell of chocolate (I do!) and refined if you’d prefer not to bring a chocolatey scent to everything you make with cocoa butter.
A wax
WHAT IT’S FOR
We use waxes to thicken our formulations and add some staying power; waxes add some weight and, well, waxiness. To get an idea of what waxes bring to our formulations, compare a lip balm to just straight oil on your lips. The lip balm will have a lot more staying power and substance than just the oil.
HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED
You don’t need a lot of wax to make a big difference in a formulation, so you won’t need a ton of it; 100g will make a lot of balms.
I typically use beeswax around 20–40% in lip balm formulations, so if we average that out at 30%, 100g (of beeswax would make about 70 standard tubes of lip balm!
WHAT I RECOMMEND
Beeswax is my top choice—it’s got a lovely rich, creamy consistency that I especially love in lip balms. It’s also readily available in most places.
For vegan options, candelilla wax and carnauba wax are the two most common options. These waxes are quite different than beeswax—they’re much harder and create products that feel much thinner and oily (vs. rich and creamy for beeswax) on the skin. Sunflower wax is also popular plant-derived option.
A fatty thickener WHAT IT’S FOR Fatty thickeners thicken our formulations without waxiness, and this can come in very useful! I love fatty thickeners in lotions, body butters, and cleansers—places where the waxiness of waxes can be sticky and/or impede rinse-off. Fatty thickeners are an ingredient many new formulators don’t use and I think it’s a neglected category. They’re versatile, inexpensive, and have a long shelf life. HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED 100–200g will be plenty.
WHAT I RECOMMEND The three fatty thickeners that are typically the easiest for homecrafters to get are cetyl alcohol, stearic acid, and cetearyl alcohol. The word “alcohol” in some of these ingredient names can worry those concerned about volatile alcohols in their skincare, but don’t worry—these aren’t volatile alcohols (like isopropyl alcohol) and won’t dry the skin. They’re emollients, and will help moisturize the skin as they thicken your formulations. Cetearyl alcohol is my top choice for a starter fatty thickener as it’s a bit of an in-between of cetyl alcohol and stearic acid in terms of hardening strength and skin feel.
Distilled water WHAT IT’S FOR Distilled water is the basic wet, watery ingredient for all your hydrous formulations. We choose distilled water rather than tap or mineral water as the distillation makes for fewer variables in our formulation. That’s because distilled water is just water with no added minerals or metal ions that can turn up in tap, mineral, or well water. Distilled water is also mildly acidic because it absorbs CO2 from the air, and this helps ensure our formulations are mildly acidic unless we’re introducing some high-pH ingredients. HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED I buy my distilled water in 5L cans, and often pick up two or three at a time as I also use distilled water in my iron and clothing steamer! It’s useful to have on hand and doesn’t expire. WHAT I RECOMMEND Distilled water is distilled water; get it wherever it’s cheap and easy for you may be a near by battery water supplier or petol pump. As you learn and grow as a formulator you can start swapping out some of the distilled water in your formulations for fancier watery ingredients like beautifully scented hydrosols, soothing aloe vera juice (not gel!), or astringent witch hazel. A complete emulsifying wax WHAT IT’S FOR
You’ll use your emulsifying wax in all kinds of formulations—lotions, creams, cleansing balms, and more! Emulsifying waxes bring together oil and water and make creating stable emulsions really, really easy.
HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED
Around 100g will last you quite a while.
WHAT I RECOMMEND
I’d start with a self-thickening non-ionic emulsifying wax for ease of use as a beginner. Emulsifying Wax (INCI: Cetearyl Alcohol [and] Polysorbate 60) is usually the easiest option. If you want a natural alternative, Olivem 1000 is a good option that will work as an alternative to Emulsifying Wax.
If you also want to make hair conditioners I’d look at BTMS-50 or BTMS-25; both are cationic and can be used to make lotions and creams, but their cationic-ness means they also make beautiful hair conditioners (creamy and bar form!).
Another emulsifying wax I love is Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG-100 Stearate. It doesn’t thicken our emulsions, so you will need to pair it with a fatty thickener to create stable emulsions. If you’ve got some cetearyl alcohol you can absolutely choose to buy Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG-100 Stearate instead of Emulsifying Wax, you’ll just have to remember to modify and formulations that call for self-thickening emulsifying waxes.
If you’re thinking about buying more than one emulsifying wax I’d prioritize them in this way:
A self-thickening non-ionic emulsifying wax (Emulsifying Wax,Olivem1000)
A self-thickening cationic emulsifying wax (BTMS-50 or BTMS-25)
Glyceryl Stearate (and) PEG-100 Stearate
A broad-spectrum preservative
WHAT IT’S FOR
Broad-spectrum preservatives keep gross, fuzzy, slimy lifeforms from taking up residence in our formulations. As a general rule: you’ll need to include a preservative in your formulations that contain water, and in formulations that are likely to be contaminated with water as they’re used. There’s a lot to know about preservation, and there are exceptions, but that’s a pretty good starting rule of thumb.
HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED
30g is a good place to start.
WHAT I RECOMMEND
Liquid Germall™ Plus (INCI: Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate) is a very easy preservative to start with. It has a broad effective pH range, is compatible with the vast majority of formulations, and in my extensive experience working with it, it performs very well. You are unlikely to need to test (or adjust) the pH of your formulations solely becuse of Liquid Germall™ Plus.
I think it’s a great idea to branch out to different preservatives as you learn and grow as a formulator, but I recommend starting with Liquid Germall™ Plus because it’s practically fool-proof. With Liquid Germall™ Plus you won’t really have to worry about your creations spoiling, giving you one less thing to worry about as you work on learning other elements of formulation.
A humectant
WHAT IT’S FOR
Humectants hold onto water. In our formulations, they help keep ’em from drying out, and on our skin, they slow the evaporation of the water in the formulation for longer-lasting hydrating. They’re good moisturizing ingredients and I love them!
HOW MUCH YOU’LL NEED
100mL or so is a good starting point if you’re mostly planning on making lotions. If you want to make body washes and hand washes I’d start with 500mL
WHAT I RECOMMEND
I highly recommend vegetable glycerin. It’s inexpensive, widely available, and very effective. Glycerin can be tacky, but I’ve had great success formulating with up to 30% glycerin in lotions without creating body glue It’s worth remembering that perceptions of tackiness are a lot like perceptions of spiciness—one person’s mild can be another person’s unbearable.
A BLENDED SURFACTANT PRODUCT
What it’s for
Easily creating foaming/lathering cleansing products. When working with surfactants it is generally recommended to blend surfactants of different charges for a milder finished product, but this means you end up needing at least two or three different surfactants, and that can be more than you might want to invest in as a new maker. Blend your surfactants and store them in an air tight container or a jar
You can use this to create foaming face washes, body washes, and hand washes.
How much you’ll need
250mL each is a good starter amount.
What I recommend
I highly recommend CAPB, SCI,SLSa or Foaming Apple.
I like to pre-prepare a paste of SCI and Cocamidopropyl Betaine (2 parts SCI to 3 parts Cocamidopropyl Betaine) and store it in the fridge. That way I can skip the dissolving step when I need to include Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate (SCI) in a liquid product.
Optional ESSENTIAL OILS & FRAGRANCE OILS The essential oil category is a lot more nuanced than is often represented by Pinterest-y DIYs, which is why I haven’t put them in the “must-buy” part of this post. You don’t need essential oils to learn to formulate; they’re fun and interesting, but they aren’t a must-have to get started. Essential oils are naturally occurring compounds that are extracted from plant matter. Because they’re complex chemical blends made by plants for jobs like attracting pollinators and discouraging predators, they aren’t always super compatible with our skin. A chemical compound that a predator finds off-putting may smell lovely to humans but also give you a rash—bummer. Different essential oils have different maximum allowable usage rates, which is then further complicated by maximum allowable concentrations of individual chemical constituents that can be exceeded in an essential oil blend without exceeding the individual usage rate of any one essential oil. CLAYS If you like clay face masks, a powdered clay or two is a lovely thing to have on hand. If you’re only going to get one clay, I’d recommend white kaolin clay. It’s gentle, smooth, creamy, super versatile, and easy to work with. French Green Clay is also great, though its green colour can be limiting (you wouldn’t want to use it in most makeup, for instance). Bentonite clay is also really popular, though I’m not crazy about it.
Comments