Happy Feet, Cooling Ice Gel for Heavy Feet

Not only on hot summer days, which are almost over, you'll love this gel after a long exhausting day.

Either after a long business day in an exhibition or on a meeting (a lady does not run through an exhibition in basket shoes!!!) or after a long walking day during holidays (shopping, museum visit, sight-seeing), I love cooling and refreshing my feet after a shower. This Ice gel is a MUST HAVE in my suitcase, no matter whether I'm on a business or a private travel. 

We've combined the cooling and refreshing effects of Menthol and Peppermint essential oils with moisturizing effect of Panthenol in this gel. You may add 0,5% essential oils of Palmarosa or Niaouli against athlete's foot or foot odor.  

First Things First:
For general information regarding hygienic manufacturing practice in cosmetic lab please click here. 
For an introduction to Basic equipment and utensil for a cosmetic lab click here.  

For this project (100 gr Ice Gel) you'll need:

cooled, previously boiled distilled water for the gel (to Balance, ca. 73 gr) 

cooled, previously boiled distilled water for neutralization solution (ca. 20 gr)

2 gr NaOH to prepare the neutralization solution

0,5% Menthol (0,5 gr)

20% Ethanol (20 gr) 

0,5% Peppermint EO (0,5 gr)

0,5% Carbomer 940 (0,5 gr) 

5% Glycerin (5 gr)

0,5% Panthenol (0,5 gr)

1,0% Euxyl PE9010 (Preservative) 1,0 gr

(0,2-0,4%) Ultramarine Blue 1% solution Glycerin 

(optional) disposable pipettes

4* glass beaker (50, 100 and 250 ml)

(optional) Glass rod

Indicator paper roll or sticks

A cream jar or a bottle to fill the gel

Now let's start
One: Prepare NaOH Solution (10% lye-solution) 

Those of you who are familiar with soap making (M&P excluded), should also be familiar with safe handling of lye and lye-water. But Those who have little or no experience with soap making  should read the safety instructions very carefully by clicking the link here.

For this project you need only a few drops of a 10% lye solution. However it would be helpful to prepare a solution available to you for further preparations. So you may prepare 20 ml, 50 ml or 100 ml of a solution and keep it in a tightly closed plastic (PE or PET) bottle. Keep in mind that air contact (contact to CO2 will reduce the effectivity of NaOH solution).

For 20 ml: add 2 gr of NaOH slowly and under considering safety instructions to 18 gr water under stirring. Wait the solution to be cooled to room temperature. Fill it in a well closed bottle.

For 50 ml: add 5 gr of NaOH slowly and under considering safety instructions to 45 gr water under stirring. Wait the solution to be cooled to room temperature. Fill it in a well closed bottle.

For 100 ml: add 10 gr of NaOH slowly and under considering safety instructions to 90 gr water under stirring. Wait the solution to be cooled to room temperature. Fill it in a well closed bottle.

Two: Prepare phase A

Weight 0,5 gr Menthol in a 25 or 50 ml beaker. Add 20 gr Ethanol and mix with a glass rod till Menthol is completely dissolved in Ethanol. Add 0,5 gr Peppermint essential oil to this mixture. Add this alcoholic solution slowly to 0,5 gr Carbomer in a 100 or 250 ml beaker. Stir Carbomer to avoid clumping until Carbomer is completely wetted with the solution. Keep the solution away for almost half an hour until Carbomed is swollen.

If you're equipped with a magnetic stirrer, put your beaker containing the alcoholic solution on the magnetic stirrer, turn the stirrer on and adjust the speed so that a vortex is build in the middle of the beaker. Add Carbomed slowly direct in the middle of the vortex. After you've added the whole Carbomed continue stirring slowly for about 15 minutes till Carbomed is swollen.

Attention: Carbomer does not dissolve in water or alcohol. It swells and builds a hight viscosity paste, which is not transparent and is called mucillage. 

Three: Prepare phase B
Weight 5 gr Glycerin, 0,5 gr Panthenol and water (72,2 gr) in a 100 ml beaker. Mix and then add  preservative

Four: Add phase B under stirring to phase A. You'll have a milky to opaque high viscosity solution.

Five: Add the colorant. We have applied 1% Ultramarine blue solution in Glycerin. The intensity of the color is up to you. You may even decide to apply no color.

Six: You have still no gel. The viscosity of the mixture is around 3,5. You'll need ca. 15 drops of 1% NaOH solution to raise the pH from 3,5 to 7. Add slowly and under stirring drop wise the NaOH solution. You may immediately notice the neutralization even without any indicator or pH-meter via increasing viscosity and appearance. At the end point you'll have a translucent gel. Do not increase the pH further. You may decrease the viscosity by adding more NaOH than needed for neutralization.

Fill your gel in cream jar or a lotion spender. Filling in a bottle is a little bit tricky, but the application from a lotion spender is easier than from a cream jar.

Here are our recommendations of a cream jar or a transparent bottle with a lotion pump.

Happy Mixing and have fun