As a home made cosmetics maker, you have probably encountered a situation where one of the ingredients is missing or is very scarce. Perhaps you simply want to replace a hard-to-find or otherwise undesirable ingredient with another. Cosmetics production is often compared to food preparation. However, cosmetic recipes are often much more specific than recipes used in cooking. Ingredients cannot be simply replaced like “I’m out of carrots, so I’ll replace them with other vegetables.”
This article discusses the practice and benefits of substituting ingredients in homemade cosmetics. It highlights the challenges of matching recipes to personal preferences and available supplies, stressing the importance of experimenting with alternative oils, emulsifiers, and fragrances. The text also addresses the complications posed by allergies, particularly nut allergies, and suggests organising ingredients into groups based on their function to simplify finding suitable substitutes within the same category.
You must be more specific when substituting ingredients in cosmetics. In this article, I will tell you which ingredients you can substitute, and which are essential for a successful result.
Substituting ingredients challenges you to experiment
It is rare that a cosmetic recipe perfectly matches your own preferences. If I use a ready-made recipe, I usually replace at least two or three ingredients.
I often want to try new oils or emulsifiers, or I have found a new essential oil fragrance blend. Trying out new ingredients is quite exciting. For me, it is one of the main reasons to make cosmetics.
A classic situation in my case is that I do not have the necessary ingredient in my cupboard. My cosmetic ingredient inventory is quite massive. There are a huge number of cosmetic ingredients. It is completely impossible to keep them all in stock. That is why it is good to learn how to replace ingredients with other similar products.
Allergies limit the choice of cosmetic ingredients quite a lot. If you have sensitive skin and allergies, you need to think carefully about which ingredients you allow in your product. For example, people with nut allergies cannot use oils pressed from nuts. Some people with nut allergies are also irritated by apricot kernel oil and peach kernel oil. Sometimes there are only very few permitted ingredients left. Such a situation is challenging for any cosmetics manufacturer.
Treat ingredients in groups
It makes it much easier to replace ingredients by dividing them into groups according to their intended use. When you deal with cosmetic ingredients in groups, it is easier to find a replacement product.
I divide the most typical cosmetic ingredients into four different groups. The basic rule is that when you replace ingredients, only replace them within the same group. There are exceptions to this rule, which I will tell you about in a moment.
Liquids
In a product that uses water-based ingredients, most of the product is usually water. You can replace some or all the water with hydrolate, aloe vera juice, or your favourite herbal infusion. Replacing liquid is easy and usually always successful. Especially in facial toners
However, problems can arise if you use liquids that contain a lot of salts. For example, coconut water can be used in facial toners, but I do not recommend it in emulsions due to its mineral content.
Hydrolats increase the acidity of the product, which is usually a good thing. However, you should measure the pH to make sure that the product is at the desired pH level.
Oils and Butters
Replacing oils is also quite convenient. It is rare for a product to fail technically due to the wrong choice of oil.
However, oils are not the same. There are significant differences between oils that you will notice when you use the product. If you want an oil that is well absorbed into the product, choose an oil with linoleic acid. If you want the cream you make to protect your skin from drying out, choose an oil with palmitic acid and palmitoleic acid. The best cream is created from a mixture of different oils.
If you want to replace an oil containing linoleic acid, choose one of the seed oils. All seed oils are rich in linoleic and alpha-linolenic acids. If you want to replace an oil containing palmitic acid, choose one of the vegetable oils.
Most oils contain a balanced amount of linoleic acid, oleic acid, and palmitic acid. By comparing the fatty acids contained in the oils, you will find many options for the cosmetics you are making.
A good way to choose a replacement oil is to use an oil from the same plant group. If you don’t have blueberry seed oil but you do find raspberry seed oil, use it. The same applies to plum, apricot and peach stone oils. They resemble each other because they are all rose seed oils.
Emulsifiers
Emulsifiers are needed when you make a product that contains both water and oil. An emulsifier binds water and oil into a smooth emulsion.
Replacing an emulsifier is challenging. In Finland, we don’t have a very comprehensive selection of emulsifiers on hand. Our circle of cosmetics enthusiasts is so small that it is not worth it for us to maintain such a large selection.
The most common emulsifier is Olivem 1000. It is a very popular and easy-to-use emulsifier. If you don’t have If you have no previous experience in the production of cosmetics, I recommend starting with the Olivem 1000 emulsifier to make emulsion creams.
Emulsifiers have very different properties and there are big differences in their handling and dosage. Therefore, it is not a good idea to change the emulsifier in a product unless you have experience with the behaviour of different emulsifiers.
What to do if Olivem 1000 is almost gone and is not quite enough to make a cream. You can add a little thickener to the emulsion to make the cream suitably solid.
Thickeners
Ingredients that are not directly emulsifiers but still increase the viscosity of the product are called thickeners. There are two different types of thickeners in natural home cosmetics.
• gums, which affect the water phase
• fatty alcohols, which affect the oil phase
When you want to replace a gum or fatty alcohol in a product, always look for a substitute from the same product group. Gums cannot be replaced with fatty alcohols and vice versa because they function differently in the product.
Many people are already familiar with xanthan gum. Xanthan gum is a very common and easy-to-use thickener for water-based products. It stabilizes the actual emulsifier and makes the emulsion feel less greasy. Xanthan gum has been refined into grades that are well suited for cosmetics.
There are different types of xanthan gum. Regular xanthan gum does not create an aesthetically beautiful result for, for example, facial toners. Shampoo may also remain uneven and cloudy. Therefore, I recommend purchasing only translucent xanthan gum for products that are intended to be transparent.
In emulsion creams, you can use whichever grade of xanthan gum you want.
There are many alternatives to xanthan gum. Examples of other gums
- Konjac gum
- Locust bean gum (carob powder)
- Guar gum (used especially in hair products)
- Acacia gum
- Sodium Alginate (a gum processed from seaweed)
Fatty alcohols are also quite familiar to many home cosmetics manufacturers. Familiar fatty alcohols are
- Cetearyl alcohol
- Stearyl alcohol
- Cetyl alcohol
Cetyl alcohol is a mixture of cetearyl alcohol and stearyl alcohol. It is the mildest fatty alcohol of all. Fatty alcohols thicken products that contain oils and fats. They cannot be used in completely fat-free products.
You can use these fatty alcohols in parallel and replace them with a fatty alcohol from the same group if you wish. You can also replace part of the emulsifier with fatty alcohols in an emergency. The result may not be the same as an emulsion made with an emulsifier, but you will get a slightly higher viscosity in the product.
Moisturizing ingredients
There are many natural moisturizing ingredients. The most well-known moisturizing ingredients are
- Glycerol
- Allantoin
- Hyaluronic acid
- Pentylene glycol
- Sodium PCA
- Propanediol
It is possible that some essential moisturizing ingredients were left out of the list. There are so many of these and more are becoming available all the time.
Moisturizing ingredients work in the skin by storing moisture in the skin either from the skin itself, from the surrounding air, or both. Each moisturizing ingredient works slightly differently. If you want to replace one of the compounds listed above with glycerol, for example, pay special attention to the dosage. For example, allantoin can only be used at 0.2% and glycerol at up to 5%.
All moisturizing ingredients are water-soluble, so they can only be used in emulsions or toners.
Active ingredients
When replacing active ingredients, you should consider the intended use of the ingredient. If you want to add antioxidants to your product, you can choose from many different options. Antioxidants are also abundant in vegetable oils. For example, sea buckthorn oil is particularly high in carotenoids.
Skin soothing agents
- Oats extract and colloidal oatmeal
- Centella or Gotu Kola
Pore-tightening ingredients
- Tannins such as acorn extract and green tea extract
- All rose family (Rosaceae) plants and their extracts
Skin brightening ingredients
- Azelaic acid
- Niacinamide
- Vitamin C
Collagen boosters
- Vitamin C
- Seaweed extracts
When you want to replace an active ingredient, first check the recommended use and then correct your recipe with the correct amounts.
Fragrances
Essential oils are commonly used as fragrances in home made cosmetics. All essential oils can be replaced with another essential oil. You can also leave out essential oils if you wish and it will not affect the composition and stability of the product in any way.
When using essential oils, you need to pay special attention to the dosage. Essential oils cannot be used in very large quantities. In products designed for the face, essential oils can be up to 1%. In products intended for the eye area and lips, you can only use 0.5% essential oils.
Some essential oils are stronger and more allergenic than others. in others. For example, everyone’s favourite rose essential oil is very allergenic. You can’t add the same amount of rose essential oil as, for example, sweet orange essential oil. The same problem exists with lavender essential oil.
If you are not very familiar with essential oils, start carefully and only with the most common essential oils. The safest essential oils are citrus oils such as orange, lime and lemon.
Substituting ingredients is often challenging but quite interesting and fun
Be brave and try new ingredients. Only by experimenting will you learn to tweak ready-made recipes to your liking. When you start working on a completely new recipe and don’t have all the ingredients, first make just a small batch and see if the ingredient changes work. Write everything down, including mistakes. I also take pictures of all failed products.
Only by experimenting will you develop and learn new things about cosmetics manufacturing. There are no foolproof recipes for many situations. That’s why the courage to experiment and substitute ingredients will ultimately reward you handsomely.
Have fun making cosmetics!