This Week We Focus On Creating the Best Diaper Ointment - Day 3

Today we’ll focus on the color of this ointment, being careful not to use anything that will cause skin irritation.

Ingredients: High Melt Point Shea Butter, Aloe Butter, Soy Wax, Apricot Kernel Oil, Lanolin, Tamanu Oil, Seabuckthorn Fruit Oil, Calendula Oil Extract.

Colorants or dyes are not a good choice here. Fortunately, some great oils can provide nice color as well as properties that add to the product’s efficacy.

Seabuckthorn Fruit Oil is a brilliant orange liquid oil that adds eye-popping color. Seabuckthorn Fruit Oil also has some regenerative properties for the skin. It doesn’t take much of this oil to have the effect we want. We’ll use just 2%, dropping the percentage of Shea Butter to 30% to accommodate the addition.

MAKE IT:

Here’s a list of ingredients and equipment you’ll need to make this formula.

RECIPE:

PERCENTAGES
30% High Melt Point Shea Butter
30% Aloe Butter
10% Soy Wax
8% Apricot Kernel Oil
5% Lanolin
5% Tamanu Oil
2% Seabuckthorn Fruit Oil
10% Calendula Oil Extract

INSTRUCTIONS:

Carefully weigh all ingredients into a microwave-safe container except the Calendula Extract. Microwave in short bursts (30-45 seconds) and stir between heating bursts. This will help to prevent overheating and get the Soy Wax to melt faster.

You can also use a double boiler to melt the oils just until all have become liquid. Stir the mixture often as it warms, as the stirring will help the solids melt more quickly.

This is what the mixture looked like after one minute in the microwave and being stirred.

Another 30 seconds heated the mixture enough that the soy wax would melt with some stirring.

We have lots of options to package this ointment: jars, round tins, and slider tins.

The Soy Wax takes a little bit longer to melt, and the mixture will get quite hot. The mixture will be clear and very orange. Wait for the mixture to cool below 120 degrees before adding the Calendula Extract.

After the extract is added, pour immediately into jars or tins and let sit overnight to set up and solidify. Make sure you don’t put a lid on the containers until the balm is fully cooled and set.

We have a lot of neat options for containers. For the samples I made, I used our 1-ounce Jar and Cap Set. They are a nice size and easy to work with. I love the slider tins, but they are very small, holding 0.15 ounce of product. They are a good choice for sample or trial sizes. The 2-ounce screw top tin is a good choice for packaging this ointment.

Pouring the melted balm into the jars to harden.

After cooling, the oil was a muddy orange color.

NOTES:

Adding the Seabuckthorn Fruit Oil didn’t change the texture, but the color is vastly improved. The solidified mixture is an opaque orange and pleasing to the eye.

After applying this oil to the skin and pondering what is working and what is not, I decided to add more Lanolin and maybe back off the orange color a bit. The best thing about making your own skincare products is being able to play around with the recipe until it produces exactly what you want.

Tomorrow we’ll unveil the changes to the formula.