Lavender and Aloe Face Cream

I’m loving this lavender and aloe face cream recipe right now, it’s one of my best DIY face creams. While I know a lot of people think of lavender as a basic essential oil, I think that they forget that it’s one of the best for your skin.

It’s great for anyone who has sensitive skin, but also speeds up healing, soothes, calms, and also restores your natural glow! It’s also available everywhere, with practically all essential oil brands selling it.

Coupled with the other essential oils and of course the lovely aloe, you’ll find pimples, scrapes, bruises, and chapped skin will vanish from your face faster than ever before. That’s not even mentioning how hydrating and skin-softening this cream is, either!

This, coupled with a great face scrub and face mask recipe, you’ll have stunning skin in no time!

Beginners Face Cream

While I wouldn’t say this is the best natural face recipe to start off with, it’s still relatively simple and if you’re still new making oil in water emulsions this is a great one to try next. It’s also the first time I’ve recommended using Olivem1000, which may be a new emulsifying wax for some of you.

I’ve used this emulsifying wax before and it’s a little trickier to get right (as it can sometimes feel a bit soapy). It’s a lot less synthetic than other e-waxes (NF, BTMS-50, etc), and so thought it would be good to show you how to work with it so your formulations can that little bit more natural.

Gorgeous Aroma

Lavender is one of my favorite essential oils, just because it smells so damn good! Combined with the Geranium and the Orange essential oils, this cream has a heavenly aroma that I just absolutely love. It’s actually becoming one of my favorite blends for that very reason.

It’s also a great blend for anti-aging that can rival even Rose Essential oil (although not quite as good). It’s definitely worth a try, even for its gorgeous aroma alone.

Leaves Skin Soft and Smooth, Day and Night!

This cream will leave your skin ultra-smooth. The addition of cocoa butter is largely the reason for this, but the avocado oil is also a wonderful moisturizer in its own right. The one thing I love most about avocado oil is its ability to be super hydrating but also how it sinks into the skin amazingly quickly.

This means no greasiness and no long wait before your cream starts to sink in. That makes this cream ideal for your morning routine, as you’ll be able to start applying makeup in no time.

Nevertheless, if you prefer to use a facial cream at night, this one will happily suit your needs. But if you’re looking for something more suitable, take a look at our many different facial cream formulations in the DIY natural moisturizers section of this blog!

Want To Ditch Store-Bought Moisturizers Forever?

Get 50% OFF my Face Creams & Moisturizers Course Today!

Supplies For Lavender And Aloe Face Cream

Water Phase

• 30g Aloe Vera Gel
• 40g Distilled Water
• 7.5g Glycerine

Oil Phase

• 13g Avocado Oil
• 3.7g Cocoa Butter
• 5g Emulsifying Wax (BTMS-50, NF or Polarwax)
• 3g Cetyl Alcohol

Other functional ingredients, additives, and botanicals

• 0.5g Preservative
• 3 drops Lavender Essential Oil
• 2 drops Geranium Essential Oil
• 2 drops Orange Essential Oil

This should make roughly 100g, and so a vessel that can hold at least that is necessary for storage. Containers must be made of glass, PET plastic or aluminum.

Notes On Ingredients

Aloe Vera

• Aloe Vera gel makes this cream super soothing. However, to save time you can substitute the aloe vera gel and distilled water for a combined 75g of aloe vera juice instead. 75g chamomile hydrosol would also be a good substitute, but not nearly as good as aloe.

Cocoa Butter

• Cocoa butter is an excellent moisturizer, but it also has other functions in this formula. It’s great for sensitive skin and is a fantastic antioxidant. Nevertheless, you can be substituted for other butters, such as shea, mango, and illipe.
• But keep in mind that as cocoa is the hardest of all the cosmetic butters, using a substitute could result in a looser cream that may be undesirable or more difficult to apply.

Avocado Oil

• Avocado oil is probably my favorite for skincare products. It’s wonderful for dry and mature skin types, speeds up the renewal of new skin cells and is jam-packed full of skin-loving vitamins. It’s also worth noting that it has very fast absorbency, which means no greasiness.
• If you suffer from oily skin, give Melon Seed oil a try instead. Those of you with problem skin, I would suggest a substitution of Hemp Seed oil. Both of these oils behave similarly to Avocado in terms of absorbance whilst allowing you to tailor your formulation to your own unique skin.

Preservative

• Generally, a broad spectrum preservative should be used at 0.5% in a skincare product formulated for the face. Nevertheless, always follow manufacturer guidelines. If your preservative says to use 1%, use 1%.
• A preservative is necessary to inhibit microbial, fungal and viral growth. Without one, your formulation will last little more than a week and could lead to some nasty skin conditions (or even blindness).

Essential Oils

• Lavender Essential Oil, like aloe vera, is extremely calming and soothing. It is a great addition to pretty much any skincare product. If the smell is not to your liking, try substituting for Bergamot, Chamomile, Rose or Sandalwood essential oils.
• Rose and Sandalwood, however, are exceptionally expensive. Whereas Lavender is possibly the cheapest and most readily available essential oil world wide.
• Geranium and Orange both have wonderful anti-aging properties, with geranium helping to restore blood flow to your skin for a healthy glow and orange great for boosting collagen production.

How To Make Lavender And Aloe Face Cream

Step 1: Start by weighing out your water and oil phases, separately, into heatproof vessels. I use two pyrex beakers and have never had a problem.

Step 2: Place both your oil and water phases into a water bath to melt. To do this, simply fill a pan with a couple of inches of water and bring to a boil.

Then, turn down the heat considerably and place your beakers into the water.

Do not allow the water to boil at any time while your beakers are in the water bath.

You want to leave them in until the cocoa butter and emulsifying wax melt. This should take roughly 15-20 minutes.

Step 3: Once the butter and wax have melted, remove from the water bath. Be careful, it is very easy to burn yourself on the hot glass.

Step 4: Mix your water and oil phases. Simply pour your water into the oil/wax. Make sure to do it this way around, as your water phase has a lower viscosity; you’ll lose too much oil/wax to the sides of the beaker if you attempt to pour into the water.

Step 5: You’ll notice immediately that the mixture becomes creamy and cloudy. This is normal.

Using a small hand whisk or an electric milk whisk, whisk your mixture so that your two parts can combine and emulsify. This will take some time and also require the mixture to cool.

Some recipes suggest whisking continuously, but I don’t think that’s always necessary for oil in water emulsions. I like to whisk, leave for 5 minutes and then whisk once more.

I repeat this process until my emulsion has thickened and no longer separates after leaving to stand for 5 minutes.

Step 6: Now that your phases have emulsified, cooled and thickened, it’s time for you to add your last ingredients.

Place your beaker onto a digital weighing scales (preferably one that can measure in very small amounts, a jewelry scale is ideal for this) and hit the T button to reset the scale to 0.

Then, add your preservative until you reach the desired measurement (1-0.5g depending on your preservative and its manufacturer guidelines). I use a pipette that I found on amazon to achieve a precise measurement every time.

Now, add your final ingredient, the essential oil. The scale is not necessary as we’re working in drops.

Step 7: Last but not least, transfer your cream into your chosen container. Ensure that you are using glass, PET plastic or aluminum, as all other materials are not sufficient.

If using glass or PET plastic, I like to get hold of a cosmetic jar that is tinted either dark brown, blue, or green. This is because essential oils are susceptible to degradation in sunlight, and using a tinted container helps to protect them.

Don’t forget to label your formulations. Include the name of the product and the date of manufacture, just so you can keep yourself organized.