This recipe celebrates the first of the annual harvest festivals, Lammas or Lughnasadh, which falls on 01 August in the Northern Hemisphere. Lammas celebrates the grain harvest. The combination of oatmeal and wheatgerm oil in this lotion/cream nourishes skin while the water content provides hydration. As with all cosmetics, you should carry out a patch test if you have any concerns about adverse reactions.
Unlike most of my cosmetic recipes, this one does not use essential oils to provide fragrance. The ingredients themselves have a scent. The only fragrance addition is a little vanilla to give a hint of sweetness to the smell of grain.
This is a lighter cream than the cold creams (#14, #21, #22). More than half the total ingredients are water based, so it cannot rely on beeswax alone as the emulsifier.
Another consequence of the higher water content is that this cream is more prone to fungal and bacterial contamination than a cold cream. There are no essential oils, which are natural preservatives. Instead, the recipe is dosed with a natural preservative (Naticide). It has a slight vanilla and almond scent, so works well in this recipe. Naticide is described as “made from essential oil compounds”. I would read that as being a chemically modified natural product. The emulsifying wax is also a chemically modified natural product.
When I use ingredients in very small quantities, say 1-5 ml, I use a syringe to measure them out. The syringes I use have blunt needles, and are sold for refilling inkjet printer cartridges.
This recipe makes between 250 g and 300 g of lotion. It starts with an overnight process so you need to plan a day ahead of making it.
In addition to the ingredients, you will need:
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- A stick blender. (You can use a whisk at a pinch.)
- A set of metric scales capable of weighing to the nearest gramme.
- A container that you can use to put the stick blender in hot water to pre-heat it.
- A sieve of the type that might be used for sifting flour or icing sugar.
- 2 containers in which to heat and mix the ingredients. One container must be large enough to hold the full quantity; the other only has to hold the water phase ingredients. Although the container you will use for mixing has to be large enough to hold all the ingredients, the ingredients must fill it to a depth that will cover the blades of your stick blender. (I use two 500 ml Pyrex jugs. I know people who use Mason Jars successfully.)
- A pan large enough to hold your 2 containers (or 2 pans, one for each). Alternatively, you can heat the containers of ingredients in a low oven set to about 85C.
- Something you can use to stir the ingredients as you heat them up. A small plastic spatula that can cope with boiling water is ideal because you can use it to scrape out very last trace of your lotion into jars.
- A thermometer is useful, but not essential.
- Glass jars or plastic pots to store your lotion.
Ingredients:
Water Phase:
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- 1 heaped tbsp of rolled oats (porridge oats in UK, oatmeal in the US)
- 175 ml oatmeal water
- 25 ml Glycerine
- 10 g honey
Oil Phase:
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- 45 ml Wheatgerm Oil
- 15 g Shea Butter
- 15g Emulsifying wax (olive derived)
- 4 g Beeswax
Cool Down:
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- 1 ml Vitamin E Oil
- 1 ml Naticide
- 15 drops Vanilla Essence
Method:
Start the day before you plan to make the cream. Put the oat in one of your containers and pour over about 250 ml of boiled water. Cover oats and water mixture and leave it overnight. The following day, strain the mixture through a sieve, chasing the liquid through the sieve with a spatula. Measure out 175 ml of the liquid, topping it up with more boiled water if necessary. Discard the oats (unless you have an animal that would like to eat it).
Preheat the oven if you plan to use it to heat your ingredients. You will need to heat the ingredients to about 80C.
Measure the Oil Phase ingredients into the container you will use for mixing your lotion.
Measure the Water Phase ingredients into the second container.
Put a stirrer in the oil phase container so it heats up with the ingredients. (If you put a cold stirrer into the warm oils they will solidify on the stirrer.)
Put both containers in the oven, if that is how you plan to heat your ingredients. Otherwise, put both containers into the pan, then put enough water in the pan to come up to the level of the ingredients. Put the pan over a low heat so the water slowly comes up to the boil, then turn the heat down so the water just simmers.
Put your stick blender in the container you are going to use to pre-heat it, and put the kettle on. Prepare your containers ready to pour in your creme when you have made it.
Stir the oil phase occasionally until the wax and butter have melted. The emulsifying wax won’t melt completely, but at around 80C it will become very soft. Put hot water into the container with your blender to warm it up. Turn off the heat and take out the containers. When it has warmed up, put your blender in the container with the oil phase ingredients and run it as you add the water phase ingredients.
The mixture will thicken as it cools. Run the blender occasionally.
When the mixture gets to a little below 50C, or when you can comfortably hold the outside of the container, add the cool down ingredients and blend one last time. Disconnect the blender and scrape the cream that has stuck to it back into the container.
Pour or scrape your creme into the prepared jars or pots.
Put the lids on the jars or pots and then put them in a fridge until you are ready to use them. You might like to label the pots, including the date you made the contents.
Clean up with hot water and washing-up liquid.