welcome to lesson or episode four in your free master class I hope you enjoyed learning how to formulate your natural Emulsion base in the last lesson it was so easy wasn't it I remember the first time I made a formulation my eyes lit up I'd actually made something that I could use myself it felt incredible it felt empowering so now that you've been through that first stage of making an Emulsion you are well on your way to learning how to formulate and then turning your own Botanical formulations into a business in the next episode we're
going to take that Emulsion base that you've made and make it Botanical and this is how you learn how to make your own organic face cream formulation Uniquely Yours lesson five will be one of the most exciting lessons in the master class if you're thinking how do I make my Emulsion orange or pink or smell of lavender or how do I add an ingredient that can help with dry skin the answer is that it's all in the Botanicals that you add to your formulation and in the next episode to show you just how much fun
this is we'll be working with pumpkin with pomegranate and with lavender but before we get to that stage I first want to answer a question that we receive all the time which is how do you choose and research the Botanical ingredients for your formulation the Botanical you choose are the most exciting part of formulating so many plants can be amazing for your skin they nourish they moisturize they soothe and they make your formulation spectacular let's not forget that your ingredients are the formulation which is why it's so important to get this part right and once
you know how to research your ingredients you can add any one of thousands of plants to make it fit with your formulation philosophy once you start to look at how many of the formulations on the market were put together you'll quickly realize that quite a few DIY hom talk formulators don't know how to research their oils their Butters or their extracts the right way also with a dazzling array of plants available for use and skincare it can make your head spin a little bit when you're first starting out plants are now undergoing scientific research all
around the world and scientists are finding the compounds that deliver the therapeutic benefits that people have known about for Millennia many plants such as calendula camomile lavender rose they have huge benefits to offer to you and your skin and they are so exciting to work with just think back to the formulation philosophy that you started developing in your workbook in lesson one in this lesson I now want you to build on that knowledge and learn how to research your ingredients so in today's lesson we'll cover the five main criteria that you need to research when
choosing Botanical ingredients and then in the next episode we'll put that into practice when we continue with our formulation and make it Botanical let's get started [Music] the first criteria I want you to think about is the scientific or Inky name of your ingredients Inky stands for international nomenclature of cosmetic ingredients it's the Cosmetic language that your ingredients are listed in when you look on the jar or the bottle each ingredient has an Inky name and once you know the inky name for your ingredient you'll be able to decipher exactly what's in it let's take
aloe vera leaf gel as an example it's easy to buy a bottle of aloe vera gel and think that you have pure aloe vera extracted from the leaves in your hand however if you just bottled the gel straight from the plant then it would go moldy so it has to be preserved some aloe vera gel manufacturers used naturally derived preservatives whereas others use synthetic preservatives such as parabens the inky name listed by your supplier should tell you exactly what's in your Botanical ingredient which plant species it's been derived from and whether any chemicals have been
added to it you will then list this information on your cosmetic labels when you sell your formulations the second criteria I want you to think about is that of solubility Botanical ingredients are generally either soluble in water in alcohol or in oil when you're choosing the right Botanical skincare ingredient to use in your formulation you need to figure out what solubility it needs to be a facial oil would generally need an oil soluble extract such as an essential oil or a cold pressed plant oil remember I showed you in the last episode if you add
a water soluble Botanical ingredient to a facial oil then it will sink to the bottom because oil and water don't mix so you can see how important it is to check the solubility of your ingredient in our online formulation courses at formula Botanica we talk a lot about different Botanical ingredients that are safe to use on the skin in fact we give you a huge list of ingredients that would allow you to experiment we've done a lot of the work for you and I want to choose one of those ingredients as an example let's talk
about caffeine I've chosen caffeine because a lot of people actually get it wrong when they work with coffee in their body scrubs and they're getting it wrong because they probably followed a YouTube video and haven't thought about their ingredient solubility now imagine that you're trying to add caffeine to a skincare product because you've heard that it can penetrate the skin and works well at combating cellulite you might for instance have created an oilbased scrub that contains coffee with the intention of your customer massaging the scrub into their thighs the only problem here is that caffeine
has moderate water solubility and low oil solubility so the chance of it doing anything in an oilbased scrub is pretty minimal and that means you've now ended up with a body scrub that doesn't do what it says it will so now you see why you must always consider the solubility of your ingredients your third criteria is your in ingredients dermal limits chances are that you've chosen the plant you're interested in because you've heard about its skin benefits but some plants can also cause skin reactions when used in high quantities when you know your ingredients dermal
limit you know the maximum percentage that your formulation should contain of that ingredient to avoid skin sensitization or reactions however gentle and beneficial some natural ingredients can be some of them can cause skin reactions which is why you've got to stick to known dermal limits once you learn to work with dermal limits you will formulate confidently knowing that you're creating safe formulations some ingredients can be used neat on the skin such as most carrier oils whereas some ingredients should be used in small quantities of less than 1% of your formulation such as most essential oils
often your ingredient suppliers will be able to tell you the recommended percentage to use and you will then need to do further research on any dermal limits this is why we provide our students with a limits guide once they start working with essential oils it's so important to get this right the fourth criteria that I want you to think about is that of the chemical compounds inside your plant each plant contains hundreds of different chemicals many of which can benefit the skin which ones are you most interested in I mentioned the example of caffeine which
you can obtain from coffee grounds or from cocoa powder for instance it can feel overwhelming so when you're first starting out I don't recommend that you start to think too complicated if you're leaning towards a particular plant then research the main compounds that it's known for examples include allantoin in comfrey chulin in chamomile or elic acid in pomegranates keep it simple and research that chemical compound in detail so that you can get a feel for what it does and how it works on the skin the research part isn't as complicated as it sounds but it
does require time and a little bit of detective work on your part finally the fifth piece of information you need to uncover about your ingredient is one that I feel very passionate about given that I'm a biologist and environmental scientist it's your ingredient sustainability in a world where we're in a climate and ecological crisis where we're rapidly losing our biodiversity and destroying habitat after habitat we need to be extremely careful about the origins of our Botanical ingredients huge demands from all sorts of Industries including the Cosmetic sector is seeing certain plants being overh harvested certain
aromatic trees in particular are facing widescale ecological pressure take the example of Rosewood essential oil the Brazilian rosewood is different to the Rosewood used for Timber and grows in the South American rainforest the tree is felled completely and the logs are then floated down river to a Distillery each tree yields about 1% oil by weight of wood which is not much when you consider that an entire tree has just been cut down logged areas have not seen much regrowth either if you see a company selling rosewood oil they are most likely selling a fake or
heavily adulterated version I often see natural skincare Brands create formulations that they claim contain Rosewood essential oil always question any business that claims to be selling rosewood oil to you and don't drive the industry any further so with just this single example you can see how important it is to check where your Botanical extracts come from and to question your suppliers having gone through these five points on your checklist you might have noticed that I've missed several others out but I can't cover everything in this episode I also don't want to overwhelm you at this
stage because when you first start out just getting to grips with these basic criteria is more than enough in fact to get you started we've provided you with our ingredient research form in your workbook for Lesson Four I now want you to choose just one Botanical ingredient that you're interested in and use today's workbook activity to research it and then come and tell us in our Facebook group which ingredient you've chosen once you get to grips with this way of researching your ingredients you'll find that your approach sets you apart from many others as many
formulators make perfectly lovely products but they don't know which Botanicals to use taking the time to understand exactly how your ingredients work will make all the difference thankfully we've done a lot of the hard work for you we've worked with hundreds if not thousands of cosmetic ingredients over the years and that research forms part part of our courses the courses we teach so you can gain the knowledge you need to create beautiful formulations that sell so in the next episode we've already done the research for you and you just need to follow along for now
and when you create your own Botanical face cream like this one you can incorporate your own researched Botanicals so in lesson five you'll watch me add four fantastic Botanical ingredients to our Emulsion base to create this gorgeous face cream before we then preserve it in lesson 7 I'll see you in the next lesson [Music]
