If you want to make an oil in water lotion (what we normally make), you must add a preservative. If you change every millilitre of water in the lotion to being honey or aloe or a hydrosol, those are still water based ingredients and you must add a preservative. If you make a body wash, shampoo, conditioner, or any other product that contains water or a water like ingredient, you must add a preservative.
If you have a product into which someone might put their wet hands - for instance, a sugar scrub - you will need to add a suitable preservative. (Click here for more information on water activity and preserving!)
Let's go back a step...What is a preservative? Preservatives help prevent microbial growth in our products, which can cause separation of our emulsions, speed up rancidity of our oils and butters, and cause weird smells and colours.
Vitamin E is NOT a preservative. It is an anti-oxidant that can help retard rancidity, but it is not a preservative that will prevent microbial growth.
Citric acid is NOT a preservative. It can be used as an anti-oxidant that can help retard rancidity, but it will also mess with the pH of your product (making it more acidic by 1 pH at 0.2% or so).
Grapefruit seed extract is NOT a preservative. (I've gone into greater detail about this in this post.)
Essential oils are NOT preservatives. They might have some anti-microbial features (like eugenol), but none of them have been proven to be effective preservatives in our products. (More about this tomorrow!)
I know this sounds harsh, but this is the reality. I don't care how many blogs or suppliers out there try to convince you that you can make products that don't contain preservatives, you can't make a water containing product without a preservative, and writing to me to ask for my blessing to make a water containing product without a preservative is pointless. It's like asking your vegan friend to grill you up a tasty steak - it's not going to happen.
Related posts:
Preservatives - a whole bunch of posts on the topic
Why use a preservative?
Mechanisms of rancidity
Storing products in the fridge
If you really want to make products without preservatives...
The importance of preservatives
9 comments:
Susan - I just started making liquid soap, and the formulators and blogs all state that the resulting pH in liquid soap is around 9.5-10 so you don't need to add a preservative? Correct or no?
PS - I'm really hoping that someday you do a series on liquid or cream soap making. Thanks.
Hi Kathy! I'm not talking about soap (as defined as being a product that is saponified by adding lye to oils and creating soap...not syndet bars!) when it comes to preservatives. Just the things that have a pH of 8 or lower.
Which doesn't mean that one can raise the pH of your body wash, shampoo, and so on to 8 to avoid using preservatives!
I would still use preservatives in liquid soap. I've read too many articles about contaminated liquid soap and definitely preserve cream soap, it has enough free oils in the mix to cause really interesting things to grow. Ask me how I know. Ick.
Hi Tyger Mae! How do you use preservatives in liquid soap? Which ones do you recommend? (Remember that I know absolutely nothing about soap making!) I really need to learn more about this topic!
Thank you for reminding people to use preservatives-it's for the their health and safety! Far worse to have green lotion, or giving a contaminated gift to a friend!
Hi
I am attepting to make a herbal hair oil for myself. One item I would like to include is Hibiscus Extract: INCI: Glycerin (and) Water (and) Hibiscus Sabdariffa Flower Extract.The extract contains the preservative potassium sorbate, and sodium Benzoate. Since it contain preservatives should I add another preservation because of the water?
Hi Shahn. What is in the hair oil? Is it all oil except for this hibiscus extract? If so, how do you plan to emulsify the water soluble hibiscus extract into the oil? I don't think you will find a way to include this product into an anhydrous product without a lot of work. I'd have to see that recipe to offer more advice.
If you are making an emulsified product, you will have to add a preservative to the entire product. There isn't enough preservative in the extract to preserve your entire product. Just add it to your cool down phase - which is where we generally add extracts - and add the preservative with it.
How I usually add preservatives to my liquid and cream soaps is I wait until the very end after it is diluted and cooled down. I like to use the maximum rates as I don't know how it will be used in the end. It is such a small amount compared to the product I feel it isn't as much a problem as it would be if some nasty started growing. I have been using Liquid Germall Plus. I had been using Optiphen, but I found I didn't like the reaction with my skin. I've found you have to be careful which preservative you use for liquid and cream soap as some will work great but others just fail. It helps to do research and know the ph of the resulting soap.
Hi
Here are my ingredients: powdered aloe, hibiscus,hawthorn herb,fenugreek, herb, garlic oil, blackseed oil, horsetail herb,sulfur, and macademia oil.
Thanks
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