Roses are Red, My Skin is Soft

I've just made my first batch of moisturising cream and thought I'd share some pics with you. I've been making a Rose Cream for dry skin.

The first thing was to measure out all of my oily ingredients - this includes shea butter, along with lovely nourishing and softening plant oils - sweet almond and olive. Also added here are emulsifying agents to bind these oily ingredients with the watery ones coming up next (a bit like the egg in home-made mayonnaise).

Then I made up my herbal infusions - Rose for its softening qualities and its ability to help your skin cells retain moisture and Alchemilla for its soothing and healing properties for dry skin. I mixed these with other water soluble ingredients - including quarternised honey for its amazing moisture-binding abilities and other, practical ingredients (water-based emulsifier, preservative).

Both mixtures need heating up before you add the oily ingredients into the watery ones.

Then you stir it and stir it...

...until it turns into a cream!

Final touches were some vitamin E oil - a powerful antioxidant - to slow down any inadvertent skin aging that might be going on. And the wonderful borage oil, which contains very high doses of the rare fatty acid Gamma Limolenic Acid - a fantastic, health inducing nutrient. It works at a cellular level, helping prevent skin from drying out and helping improve the abilities of the cells to absorb oxygen and withstand disease. These are very nutrient rich and quite heat sensitive oils, so you add them towards the end when the mix is just hand-warm.

And finally, a touch of Rose de Mai essential oil went in for that extra rosey goodness and beautiful scent. This is added last of all, when the cream is pretty much at room temperature, so none of it evaporates off and so it isn't damaged at all by the heat.

And I have to say, I'm dead chuffed with the result. Smells gorgeous, soaks in beautifully and having dry skin myself, I am very happy to be my own first guinea pig!