Step-by-step cold process water in oil emulsion

Water in oil emulsions are quite intimidating but the patience is really rewarding. A few decades ago, W/O emulsions and creams were associated with sticky, unpleasant skin feel that we were forced to use as a topical drug or disgusting suncare but the new generation of W/O emulsions create a silky and pleasant skin feel and sometimes you can't really distinguish the product as a W/O emulsion at the first touch.

Today we are going to share a step-by-step instruction for creating a lovely light-feel cold-process W/O emulsion that is so light and silky you can use it even during the hot summer days.

A few points before we jump to the tutorial:

• As for most W/O emulsifiers, you need to add the water phase to the oil phase very slowly and gradually
• As for all W/O emulsions, the pH of the water phase is measured and adjusted before blending the two phases. Since we are using a preservative system that reduces the pH, we first increase the pH of the water phase by adding l-arginine.
• As for all cold process emulsions you need to compensate for the lack of thermal energy with mechanical energy
• You can certainly hot process the emulsion. In that case swap the cedarnut oil with another oil with a low iodine value

We had technical hiccup during the shooting. The geranium hydrosol that we show you is actually neroli hydrosol

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1- Blend the oil and water phase in separate beakers

2- Prepare a 10% dilution of phase A and measure the pH. For this preservative the pH of the water phase should be between 8,3-8,45 so that at the end the pH of the emulsion is in range of 5,2-5,5.

3- Slowly add the water phase to the oil phase. Blend completely before you add the next portion.

4- When all of the water phase is added to the oil phase add the preservative. As an alternative you can add the preservative to the oil phase from the beginning (only when you cold-process)

5- Take your stability and micro kit samples and fill the rest in a suitable container. This emulsifier creates low viscosity emulsions and the finished product can be filled in bottles with lotion pump or in airless bottles

You can watch the video here

Stay safe and creative