Every quarter Formula Botanica runs a formulation challenge for its student and graduate community – this month we launch our challenge to make an anhydrous body scrub using ingredients that are inspired by food. Our students post their photos and formulations up in the classroom and the supportive community inspires and encourages others to take part. We’ve provided our sample formulation of our antioxidant rich Green Tea and Lemon body polish is this post to get you started.
Some of the previous Formulation Challenges include:
How to Make an Amazonian Lip Balm
How to Make a Night Time Facial Oil
Formulation Challenge
We previously challenged our students to make a whipped body butter and the results were brilliant! Following on from that challenge, we are asking our students to make an anhydrous body scrub or body polish with ingredients inspired by foods. A “ flavour of the month” so to speak. With this challenge you can really let your imagination run wild and prepare something that is inspired by your favourite foods or even seasonal and local produce.
For this challenge we want you to make an anhydrous (waterless) body scrub inspired by food. This means that we want you to use some key ingredients that are also foods. This doesn’t have to apply to all of your ingredients, for example preservatives, antioxidants etc, just the theme or “flavour” of the product.
The challenge with an anhydrous body scrub or body polish can often be keeping your exfoliant suspended in your base. If you have too much oil, the scrub will separate. If it is too dry it will be very difficult to use and more like bath salts instead. So play around with the balance until you find a texture you like.
Our sample formulation: Green tea & Lemon body polish
For this months formulation challenge I wanted to go back to basics and make something simple but fun. A body scrub or body polish, especially one that uses salt is the perfect way to add an invigorating, spa like touch to your daily shower routine. It’s the extra step to feeling really refreshed and pampered which we all need now and then. Making your own body scrub or polish is also very cost effective.
In order to achieve this feeling and with the theme of food based beauty, I chose to make a Green tea & Lemon salt scrub for this sample formulation. If I ever want to feel refreshed or a bit more healthy, I drink a cup of green tea with lemon, this inspired me to use these ingredients to make my invigorating body scrub.
Body Scrub vs Body Polish
A body scrub and a body polish both have a very similar function on the skin and the terms are generally used interchangeably. Our body polish formulation uses nourishing ingredients such as mango butter to leave the skin soft and smooth as well as the salt to stimulate the skin.
You will have to adjust the amount of oils in your formula, depending on the texture you want. I wanted this scrub to be relatively dry to better showcase the salts. I also wanted this scrub to be green, so I used green tea wax to give it a natural green tint. In my first trial I used 2.5% green tea wax, the scrub became black! I reduced it down to 0.2% and this gave me the colour I was looking for.
Lets look at the formulation:
| Phase | Ingredients | Weight (grams) |
| A | Dead Sea Salt | 47.30g |
| A | Epsom Salts | 27.00g |
| A | Lemon Rind | 7.00 |
| A | Green Tea extract powder | 1.00g |
| B | Mango Butter | 2.00g |
| B | Lecithin | 1.00g |
| B | Green Tea wax | 0.20g |
| C | Sesame seed oil | 8.00g |
| C | Safflower oil | 3.00g |
| C | Vitamin E | 1.00g |
| C | Olive Squalane | 0.50g |
| C | Lemon Essential oil | 1.00g |
| C | Preservative Eco | 1.00g | Total: 100.00 |
Method of Manufacture:
- Weigh and mix all ingredients from Phase A
Start by combining the Phase A ingredients in a bowl or glass beaker, stir until the salts are fully mixed together.
- Melt the ingredients in Phase B
In a different beaker start to melt the ingredients for Phase B, the wax, butter and lecithin in a bain marie until they are fully liquid.
- Combine Phase B and Phase C ingredients
Once Phase B has cooled below 40C you can start to slowly add the Phase C ingredients starting with the carrier oils. If you work too fast, the butters can become grainy, so slow and steady is best. if graininess and clumping does occur, you have return the beaker back to the water bath, although this is best avoided when using heat sensitive oils such as sesame oil.
- Add the rest of the phase C ingredients and stir
Now that the carrier oils have been added and their is no clumping from the butters, we can add the rest of the ingredients such as essential oil and preservative.
- Combine the Phase B/C ingredients with the Phase A ingredients
Slowly pour the liquid ingredients in to the dry ingredients from Phase A and combine. You are looking for a mixture that has the texture of wet sand.
- Transfer to a jar and label
Transfer the scrub mixture in to the clean jar and add a label.
Now it’s your turn! Either try making our Green tea & Lemon salt body polish, or design your own formulation. If you are curious as to how Formula Botanica teaches organic cosmetic formulation in our courses, register now for our sample class by adding your details below.
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Brooke Medhurst is a Tutor at Formula Botanica. Find out more about the Formula Botanica Team.
