With summer approaching, I wanted to share my aloe gel formulation. I did make this formulation natural. I was also able to use a natural green extract for the color, Ellam Pazchai Light Green Water Soluble Powder. For full disclosure, the Ellam Pazchai Light Green Water Soluble Powder (not an affiliate link) was sent to me for free from Essential Whole Sale and Labs. This formulation is quite basic. You can alter it to whatever you have. Note that with that, your choice needs to be able to handle electrolytes.

My other community page has a horrible comment processer. I made this post where you can ask me and other people who have access to the blog. I will replace the link and link it on the side bar. 

With everything cooling down, body butters are coming back. I am going to share how to make body butter three different ways. The three ways we will make it are anhydrous, anhydrous with an emulsifier, and a emulsion-based body butter. An anhydrous body butter only contains oils and butters. This can make them quite heavy. However, that might be something that you want. Since we will be in the cooler months thermal stability is less of an issue. Adding an emulsifying wax has the added advantage of being able to emulsify with the water on your skin, and turn it into a lotion. Emulsion-based body butter is the lightest option. This is due to the large water-phase being the external or continuous phase. A benefit of having the water and the oil phase is you have more options for actives. They all have their advantages, but I encourage you to make each one and see what you like. 

From my Instagram questions and direct messages, I know that many people are looking for more natural formulas. In this post, I aim to create a natural body wash. I will use a blend of Sulfosuccinate, cocamidopropyl betaine, and Capryl/Capric Glucoside.

This is going to be a continuation of the Basic Body Scrub Formulation. In this post I am going to be adding more ingredients to make the formulation more professional. In addition, I want you encourage you to play around with the formulation. 

I was also able to fix an issue with Polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP). PVP is a brittle film former. It is why it can turn white and flak off which is not a good look. By adding more flexible film formers, I was able to make a formulation that does not flake.
Some preservatives can be deactivated by PVP [1], so be sure to check with your supplier.
Gum Arabic is the other film former in this formulation. At 1% gum Arabic does not contribute to the viscosity. You would thing that was not the case but, In my tests, it needed 30% to contribute to thickening. This was one of the formulation challenges. As I was trying to not make the formulation too thick. If it was too thick then it would spray in a stream which is not desirable. However, you want enough styling agents that you get the hold that you want. For actives I have included aloe vera and butylene glycol. I have read that butylene glycol can help with film-formation. We also need it as a solvent for the preservative Euxyl PE9010. This is reflected in the method as well. Let's see the formulation.