Natural Preservatives for Cosmetic Recipes

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When I first started making cosmetic products, i.e. lotions, lip balms, sprays, scrubs, etc., I was very hesitant , in the beginning, on which ingredients to use that were all natural and yet effective for preserving all my hard work from going rancid.

After years of working with many types and lots of research, here is a list of helpful and useful natural ingredients that are safe to use for preserving your cosmetic recipes:

thanks so much to  http://eroscent.com/blog/resources-and-guides/natural-preservatives-for-your-cosmetic-recipes/ for the useful tips! They match my own findings!

Making your own natural cosmetics allows you to control the ingredients and produce recipes created specifically for you. The downside to this is that natural ingredients tend to have a limited shelf life. Learning what ingredients are natural preservatives, and how to use them, will prevent rancidity and anti-oxidation in your homemade cosmetics.

Here’s a list:

Benzoin
Borax

Honey 

Jojoba
Vitamin E Oil

Benzoin Resin (also called Styrax) is a less well known preservative and fixative. For centuries, it has been an important ingredient in the making of incense due to its fixative qualities. Benzoin has a rich sweet scent that is quite distinctive. Because it is easily absorbed through the skin, it should be diluted in alcohol before use in cosmetic recipes. Benzoin resin is often found in facial toning and facial oil recipes to improve their shelf life.
Borax is a common ingredient that used to be found on the laundry shelf of most grocery stores. It is a natural cleaner and preservative, and it often found in lotion, cream, bath salt and bath scrub recipes.
Honey is a marvelous natural preservative. One teaspoon to one tablespoon of honey can be added to most any natural cosmetic recipe to improve its shelf life. My personal facial elixir has honey as an essential component, but I also add it to salts, scrubs, facials, creams and lotions.
Jojoba is one of my favorite natural preservatives because, like honey, it is just so very versatile. Jojoba is often combined with those oils that are known for having a limited shelf life, such as almond oil, apricot kernel oil, and rosehip seed oil. Get in the habit of substituting a tablespoon of jojoba oil for the more fragile carrier oils to improve the shelf life of your home made creations.
Vitamin E Oil is another natural preservative that I use quite often. If you are making a preparation for the skin, add a teaspoon of vitamin E oil to prevent rancidity and as an anti-oxidant. Vitamin E oil has the additional benefit of being safe to use for recipes for babies and small children.
When creating my own cosmetic recipes, I tend to use a two-pronged approach. Benzoin and vitamin E in a facial oil, for instance, or jojoba and borax in a lotion. Incorporating these natural preservatives in your own creations will enhance your cosmetics making repertoire considerably.

More on Preserving your Cosmetic Recipes and Formulas:

by from Nature with Love:

Preservative-Free Formulations

It’s important to remember that your preservative-free, natural products will not stay fresh for as long as commercial products do. By making your products in small batches that you use up within a short period of time, your products will stay fresh and you eliminate the need to preserve your products with harsh chemical preservatives. Formulating anhydrous products is another way to eliminate the need for chemical antimicrobial preservatives. Bar soaps typically do not require an antimicrobial but stay fresher when an antioxidant is used. You do have natural antioxidants available to you for this purpose. Switch to the use of natural balms made of oil and butter instead of creams and lotions which require an antimicrobial preservative. Create dry bath products such as bath salts, milk baths, bath bombs, bath teas etc. to eliminate the need for antimicrobial preservatives. Salt scrubs, bath oils, bath melts and other oil based products can stay fresh as long as water is not introduced to the container during use. Again, you may wish to use a natural antioxidant to keep the oils fresh. Minimize contamination potential by choosing your packaging carefully. Dispensing bottles are better than open mouth jars.
Direct sunlight and UV rays, oxygen, heat, moisture and bacteria from your fingers can all be detrimental to your products. Below are several tips for protecting and preserving your preservative free formulations:

• Be sure your hands, work surface, and utensils are clean/sterile when preparing your products. This will help ensure that you do not introduce bacteria or contaminate your batch. Commercial skin care production is undertaken in extremely clean and sterile environments for this same reason.
• Store your products in dark containers or opaque packaging to keep them away from the harmful effects of sunlight.
• Ensure that your packaging is airtight. Natural products can oxidize and go rancid when exposed to air.
• Heat can also be damaging to natural products. Store products in a cupboard or other cool place.
• Because our fingers can be a host to bacteria, try to avoid dipping your fingers into your jars and bottles. Instead, use a clean spoon, toothpick, popsicle stick or other appropriate utensil to obtain the amount that you wish to use. Lotion pumps and PET bottles with turret or disc tops are wonderful for dispensing more fluid ingredients such as lotions and gels.

If you are formulating something that contains water, milk, hydrosols or other aqueous liquids, you will have to preserve the product or use it within 3-4 days refrigerated. It simply is not optional. Water provides a medium for harmful bacteria, mold, yeast and fungi to grow over time. If used, a contaminated product could cause severe health problems, blindness and even death. Your product must be adequately preserved to prevent contamination and microbial growth.
So what are your options and how will your product differ from those found on store shelves?

1. First, even with a preservative, your product is still a healthier alternative to commercial products because the remaining ingredients within your product are natural or gentle.
2. Second, you won’t use unnecessarily high levels of preservatives like most commercial manufacturers use.

Your options will be based on your formulation and what it contains.

Essential oils are the most natural antimicrobials you will find.

Some natural product manufacturers have successfully used oils such as tea tree or combinations of various essential oils to maintain product integrity.
According to Preservatives for Cosmetics by David C. Steinberg, essential oils that have demonstrated antimicrobial activity include;
caraway,
cinnamon,
clove,
cumin,
eucalyptus,
lavender,
lemon,
rose,
rosemary,
sage,
sandalwood
thyme
Unfortunately, the percentage required to adequately protect a product from microbial growth generally exceeds the recommendations for safe amounts of essential oils to use in skin care products.
Grapefruit seed extract or citricidals are another class of antimicrobials that are considered by some to be more natural than the parabens.
Choose your citricidal preservative carefully as some of them have questionable ingredients. A good quality citrus seed extract should not contain additional preservatives.
Parabens are preservatives that are available in small quantities for crafters and small businesses. Paraben based preservatives include Germaben, Germaben II, Phenonip, Methyparaben and other types such as Germall and LiquaPar Oil.
Antioxidants
An anti-oxidant is a preservative that reduces the rate of oxidation in oils that oxidize quickly. Oxidation is a chemical process that occurs when oils or other natural ingredients are exposed to oxygen. Anti-oxidants extend the shelf life of your products by reducing the rate of oxidation of your oils. Use an antioxidant in any formulation which contains fragile oils such as sweet almond, hemp, avocado, flax or evening primrose. You can add antioxidants directly to your oils to help keep them fresh, or you can add the antioxidant to the oil phase of your recipe. Lip balms, lotion bars, creams, lotions, scrubs and any other product containing oils can benefit from the addition of an antioxidant.

T-50 Vitamin E Oil
Vitamin E contains natural antioxidants which extend the life of your products. Gamma tocopherol, a component of Vitamin E, is a great antioxidant for protecting cosmetic formulations. T-50 has a larger amount of gamma tocopherols than other forms of Vitamin E oil.
While the alpha tocopherol in the 250, 1000, and 1400IU/g oils is wonderful as an in vitro antioxidant, studies show that the gamma tocopherol in the Vitamin E T-50 oil is a better antioxidant for oils/lipids in cosmetic formulations. T-50 has a higher content of gamma tocopherols and can be used at a rate of .04% or 400ppm to adequately protect your oils.INCI Nomenclature: Tocopherols

Rosemary Oil Extract
Rosemary oil extract (ROE) also acts as a natural antioxidant. ROE can impart its own aroma into your products, so keep that in mind when using it. As a preservative, add .15 to .5 % of our undiluted Rosemary oil extract to your products.
Our Rosemary oil extract is a 100% pure extract. It has not been diluted in a vegetable oil.
INCI Nomenclature: Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Extract
Anti-Microbials
An anti-microbial is an ingredient or substance that helps to destroy unwanted micro-organisms such as bacteria. In the context of handmade skin care products, an anti-microbial helps preserve a product by keeping the product free of these unwanted micro-organisms.

Grapefruit Seed Extract
Grapefruit Seed Extract (GSE) is a citrus seed based anti-microbial used as a preservative in skin care products. GSE is made with the extracts of citrus seeds and pulp. It is blended with vegetable glycerin to make it non-irritating to the skin and mucous membranes when used in formulations. GSE is even safe enough to use as a disinfectant for drinking water when necessary.
Our Grapefruit Seed Extract is professional strength. It is 60% GSE in 40% vegetable glycerin. It is not the usual 33% found elsewhere. Please be sure to take that into consideration when using a recipe that simply calls for “GSE”. GSE has a shelf life of 7-9 years. It is said to be anti-microbial, anti-septic, anti-bacterial, astringent and does also have some antioxidant activity.
Use GSE at .5 to 1% to preserve most formulations, or use at 2% to create anti-bacterial creams, salves, rinses and soaps. Please note that adding 2% GSE to your products does not mean that you can market or label the product as an “anti-bacterial” product.
Wear gloves while handling Grapefruit Seed Extract. GSE can be irritating to the skin in its undiluted form.
INCI Nomenclature: Grapefruit (Citrus Grandis) Extract (and) Glycerin

Germaben II
Germaben II is a convenient, ready-to-use broad spectrum anti-microbial preservative for personal care products such as shampoos, conditioners, lotions, creams, body sprays and other formulations. It is highly effective against gram positive and gram negative bacteria, yeasts and molds and does not need any additional preservatives. It is a clear, viscous liquid with mild odor. It is soluble in both oil/water emulsions and aqueous formulations up to a level of 1.0%. At 1%,
Germaben II provides 0.30% Germall II, 0.11% methylparaben, 0.03% propylparaben, and 0.56% propylene glycol. Germaben II should be added slowly to your product under gentle agitation before the addition of fragrance oil.
Recommended usage rates are provided only as guidelines for proper preservation. All new formulations should be challenge tested to ensure preservative efficacy.
INCI Nomenclature: Propylene Glycol (and) Diazolidinyl Urea (and) Methylparaben (and) Propylparaben

Germaben II-E
Germaben II-E was developed to protect formulations that contain ingredients that inactivate parabens. It is a liquid preservative system that contains 20% Germall II, 10% methylparaben, 10% propylparaben, and 60% propylene glycol. It is used to preserve water-in-oil and oil-in-water emulsions but should not be used in aqueous formulations. It is readily soluble at 1.0% and should be added to the emulsified product under gentle agitation before the addition of fragrance. Germaben II-E is a complete preservative effective against gram positive and gram negative bacteria, yeasts and molds. It is compatible with almost all cosmetic ingredients including surfactants and proteins.Recommended usage rates are provided only as a guideline for proper preservation. All new formulations should be challenge tested to ensure preservative efficacy.
INCI Nomenclature: Propylene Glycol (and) Diazolidinyl Urea (and) Methylparaben (and) Propylparaben

Liquid Germall Plus
Liquid Germall Plus is a broad spectrum, water soluble preservative for oil-in-water and water-in-oil emulsions and water soluble formulations. It is highly effective against gram positive and gram negative bacteria, yeasts, molds and commonly found organisms. It is compatible with most cosmetic ingredients and has no known inactivators. Liquid Germall Plus is effective at low concentrations of 0.1 – 0.5% (the higher % should be used in conjunction with high protein and complex formulations). It remains active through a pH range of 3-8. It should be added during the water phase or to the emulsified portion of the formulation at a temperpature of 120F or less. Liquid Germall Plus has a safe toxicology profile and has been evaluated as safe for both rinse-off and leave-on formulations. It is a good choice preservative for shampoos, conditioners, lotions, creams, body washes, body sprays and other such formulas.
Recommended usage levels are meant only as a guide for proper preservation of your product. All new formulations should be challenge tested to ensure that your preservative is working properly.
INCI Nomenclature: Propylene Glycol (and) Diazolidinyl Urea (and) Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate

LiquaPar Oil
LiquaPar Oil is a clear, liquid blend of isopropyl, isobutyl and n-butyl esters of para hydroxybenzoic acid. It is a very stable and effective preservative against gram positive and gram negative bacteria, yeast and mold. LiquaPar Oil is readily incorporated into various types of formulations, including anhydrous products, without heating. It is a good choice for salt scrubs and bath oils where no water is present but may be inadvertently introduced to the container during regular use. The recommended usage rate is 0.3 – 0.6% however, in complex formulations, 0.1% Germall II may be required for adequate preservation.
Recommended usage rates are meant as guidelines only. All new formulations should be challenge tested to ensure proper preservation.
INCI Nomenclature: Isopropylparaben (and) Isobutylparaben (and) Butylparaben