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Better crafting through chemistry: Stearic acid (updated for 2025)

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Stearic acid in a tin plate, which is a white flaky solid.

Oh, stearic acid, how we love you as a thickener! Inexpensive and multi-functional, you make a lotion become a decadent cream! Stearic acid is a saturated, long chain fatty acid with 18 carbon molecules, which is to say it is a chain of carbons and hydrogens with a carboxyl group (that COOH you see at...

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Basic instructions for lotion making (updated September 2025)

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These are what I consider to be the basic instructions for making lotions for most types of emulsifiers, including Polawax, emulsifying wax, Incroquat BTMS-50, Simulsol 165/Lotionpro™ 165, and more. Always check how the emulsifier you’re using needs to be used as this method won’t work for other emulsifiers, like Olivem 1000, Montanov 68 MB, Varisoft...

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Polyphenols: Hydroxybenzoic acids – benzoic acid, hydroxybenzoic acid, gallic acid (Updated 2025)

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A bottle and plastic shot glass sit on a grey background, both filled with a yellow, clear, oily liquid - apricot kernel oil

Hydroxybenzoic acids are polyphenols we find in our oils. They have the benzene ring with an acid – COOH – on the end, making them carboxylic acids. They offer all kinds of properties to our formulas – as you’ll see in a minute – and most work as anti-oxidants to slow down rancidity of oils....

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When lotions go wrong! (Updated 2023)

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A collage of diagrams demonstrating different ways a lotion can fail. The top image is of a successful lotion, with micelles containing yellow oil floating in a sea of blue water.

Original post shared 2009. Slowly updating it for 2023 with new information and diagrams. This is definitely a work in progress as there’s so much more to share!  At one time or another, we’ve all experienced epic lotion failure and asked ourselves what we did wrong. We call it separation, but do you know why...

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Emollients you will love: Cranberry seed oil (updated December 28, 2021)

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Cranberry oil – INCI: Vaccinium macrocarpon (cranberry) seed oil – is an interesting oil. With 3 to 6% palmitic acid (C16), up to 2% stearic acid (C18), 22 to 26% oleic acid (C18:1), 30 to 38% linoleic acid (C18:2), and 20 to 38% linolenic acid (C18:3), you’d expect it to have a short shelf life...

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