Blackcurrant and Lychee Cleansing Jam
This is a face jam, it cleanses and contains finely ground lychee seeds, which provides a nice scrubby texture and visual appeal. It contains Sucragel AOF BIO and 1% sucrose stearate for added stability. As discussed in a previous post here, Sucragel is an emulsifier or group of emulsifiers that allow for an oil in glycerine emulsion. These emulsions are good for easily making thick oil cleansers that wash off. They are particularly gentle and suited for most skin types, but especially normal to dry skin types. When washed off they turn milky which makes them luxurious.
For the colour I have used alkanet root infused in light olive oil. I have also used kokum butter and blackcurrant seed oil, though it could be substituted for strawberry seed oil or any other fruit derived oil.
Because I used Kokum butter, which is a very hard butter, and because I used sucrose stearate - which comes as a powder- I need to use the hot processed method. Which means that both the oil and the and the emulsifiers are weighed and heated separately to 70-75c before combining.
You can make this by hand and I have shown in this post how that can be done in small batches. If you are making larger batches, you can do this with an overhead stirrer or a hand whisk. These methods are better for larger batches. The following way of working is more effective if you prefer to work by hand and if you are working with batches of up to 100g.
The Formula
+-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | PHASE | TRADE/COMMON NAME | INCI | W/W % | 100G | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | A | Sucragel AOF | Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil Glycerin & Aqua & Sucrose Laurate | 25.00 | 25.00 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | A | Sucrose Stearate | Sucrose Stearate | 1.00 | 1.00 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | B | Kokum Butter | Garcinia Indica Seed Butter | 5.00 | 5.00 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | B | Alkanet Root Infusion | Alkanna tinctoria Root Extract, Olea europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil | 63.50 | 63.50 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | B | Blackcurrant Seed oil | Ribes nigrum (Blackcurrant) Seed Oil | 2.00 | 2.00 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | B | Vitamin E | Tocopherol | 0.50 | 0.50 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | C | Natural Fragrance | Parfum | 1.00 | 1.00 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+ | C | Lessonia Lychee 500 | Litchi Chinensis Seed Powder | 2.00 | 2.00 | +-------+-----------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------+-------+-------+
Equipment
· Two beakers
· A small, soft, and preferably seamless, silicone spatula
· Spoons and pipettes to measure
· Accurate scales
· Double boiler for heating your ingredients
The Method
Combine phase A ingredients and heat to 70c, stirring occasionally to ensure the sucrose stearate has melted.
Combine phase B ingredients and heat to 70c (I heated the Kokum until it melted and added the rest of the oils.)
When both have reached 70c, take off the heat and give the phase A ingredients a good stir.
Stir phase B ingredients and then put a few drops of oil into phase A and well by hand.
Drop more oil in and stir again.
Keep an eye on the temperature of the oils, around ½ way through the process you will notice the oils are cool enough to add the fragrance to the phase B oils. I prefer to disperse the essential oils/fragrance in with the oils before adding them to the Sucragel. But again this is a preference and you can probably add them at the end.
When you get 1/2 way through adding your oils, you can start increasing the amount of oil you add until all the oil is incorporated into the gel.
When you have your gel you can add the Lessonia and stir well.
As you progress you will see the gel start to take form, it will thicken with each inclusion of oil and will go opaque until final viscosity is reached.