![]() ![]() It has many industrial applications which are out of the scope of this blog post. Many of these DIY recipes are not preserved and are formulated with ingredients that run the risk of enhancing contamination, such as honey, aloe vera and unpreserved hydrosols.īorax is a mineral (natural, ha?), it is soluble in water and it has been in use for centuries. You can find their DIY beeswax emulsion recipes on blogs, books, eBooks, and even workshops. We have however found that there are quite a lot of natural DIYers claiming that beeswax does work as an emulsifier. This means that, without borax, beeswax is not an emulsifier at all and needs to be emulsified in lotions and creams just like any other lipophilic (oil-loving) ingredient. Borax, also called sodium borate or tetrasodium borate, has been used for decades both in homemade DIY recipes and also at an industrial scale, in combination with beeswax, to emulsify oils and butters in both oil-in-water and water-in-oil formulations.īorax, which is an alkaline material, saponifies beeswax to soap. So it’s not the beeswax by itself that is the emulsifier, it’s the resulting soap. The only and only way beeswax functions as an emulsifier (and you can read it in old cosmetic science and formulation books) is in combination with borax. What it does not do however, is work as an emulsifier. It is still being used by modern (non-vegan) herbalists as a base for their balms and butters. Beeswax is even praised in the conventional and mainstream cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, although they attach it to PEG for better performance, water solubility, non-greasy skin feel, emulsion stability, etc.īeeswax imparts a lovely skin feel and a nice colour to balms and butters, hardness to lipstick and kajal formulations and improves the thermal stability of butters. It has been used for more than a thousand years in balms and even decorative cosmetics. ![]() Indeed beeswax is one of the oldest cosmetic ingredients in our history. Unfortunately though, beeswax is not an emulsifier. Beeswax is a fabulous cosmetic ingredient and is much praised in the natural cosmetic community as an emollient, for its healing and soothing properties, for the beautiful colour it imparts to balms and butters and, much to every chemist’s disappointment, as a natural emulsifier. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |