Thread: Homemade aftershave Balsams

I have tried many commercial aftershave balsams over the last years. Although some were good, most of them were of poor quality according to my opinion, regardless the marketing promises. The fact is that there are plenty of excellent raw materials in the market, such as butters, oils, extractions, that can be used for making natural, very high quality aftershave creams and balms. So I thought to give it a try.

First successful attempt:

Dense, rich cream
½ cup of oils and butters (25% cocoa butter, 25%mango butter, 25% sweetalmond oil, 25% grape seed oil)
½ cup of chamomile infusion
14g beeswax
Few drops of essences (neroli, lavender) and preservative (optiphen)





Very calming and with excellent hydration properties. Leaves the skin a bit oily at the beginning, but after 5-10 minutes it is absorbed and regulated.
I will use it mostly after aggressive and irritating shaves and preferably in autumn-winter.

cool !
good idea

Sounds good. I have the stuff to make some already. I wonder if you lessen the oil, if the oily feeling will go away.

Originally Posted by sharpy

cool !
good idea

Thanks sharpy!

Originally Posted by Mvcrash

...I wonder if you lessen the oil, if the oily feeling will go away.

Your are right Mvcrash. I did it:



A lighter version of the previous recipe:


23gr oils and butters (mango butter, cocoa butter, almond oil, grape seed oil)
126gr chamomile infusion
6.5gr emulsifying wax
Few drops of essence (neroli) and preservative (optiphen)





This is more a balsam than a cream. It is absorbed faster, comparing with the previous one, but maintaining the calming and the hydrating properties. Not oily as the other. Much better for standard uncomplicated shaves. Better to use in Spring and Summer.

A few days ago I receive pure unrefined shea butter directly from Ghana, Africa.







Since then I am trying to make a cream to be used as an aftershave balsam. Most recipes found in the net are actually whipped creams and not real creams. Whipped cream is a mixing and whipping of several oils with shea butter. The goal is to make the hard shea butter easy to suffuse on the skin. But since these mixtures are 100% fat material the result is not so pleasant for the face. Very oily and not absorbing at all.


So, I tried in many ways to make a real cream. To combine water with shea-butter-containing-fat. Many attempts failed. In fact I have used more than half of the shea butter in many recipes without having any success on making the cream. I am not an expert, but it seems that shea butter is having difficulties to emulsify with water.


In the end, after many failed attempts I came to this particular recipe. Note that shea butter must be only a small part of the oil part of the recipe otherwise it will not emulsify into cream.




The recipe is the following:

1 cup of water
(I used chamomile infusion)

1 cup of oils
(I used 1/3 grape seed oil, 1/3 coconut oil, 1/3 almond oil)

1/3 cup shea butter

1 table spoon emulsifying wax

30 drops of preservative
(I used optiphen)

30 drops od essential oil
(I used jasmine)



Preparation:

Put the oils, the shea butter and the emulsifying wax in a microwave friendly pyrex.
Put the pyrex in the microwave.
Heat the mixture interrupting the microwave every 30 sec – whipping for a while - and then again in the microwave. In that way the wax and the butter will melt without overheating which would destroy shea-butter’s skin nutrition elements (this is what they say )

Now the water is at room temperature, but the oils are at high temperature.
Wait until the oils come at room temperature.

Then put the water in a bowl and start the hand mixer machine. Slowly add the oils in the bowl.
A milk-like thing will be created at once. Continue at low velocity for 2-3 minutes.




Add the preservative and the essential oil.




Then leave it in peace for a while.



After 4 hours the cream is ready. Its consistency is what we need for a rich aftershave balm.







Easy to suffuse, easy to be absorbed.




Thank you