Pine Cleanser

Here’s a peek at a product I made using the infusion from this post. The little pine cone and bit of green up there is taken directly from the tree for your viewing pleasure.

This cleansing balm contains green clay and a handcrafted rosemary blossom glycerite made last year. Also added are a couple of emulsifying waxes to help this balm turn milky/lotion-like and rinse away easily.

So far I am loving the feel and how it works on my (mature, sensitive) skin. This will in all likelihood not be the last batch I make

Click the picture below to learn more about making your own glycerine extracts for your cosmetics.

What's in Store for 2021?

Late last year, I asked newsletter subscribers to take a short survey with 2 questions. The first question was: ‘Which things would you like to learn about from LisaLise?’.

The list of choices was

• Plant colorants - natural make-up

• Balms, butters and ‘anhydrous creams’

• Natural cosmetic gels

• Natural cleansers - from powders to potions

• How to make infusions and decoctions for cosmetics

• Naturally flavored and colored lip balms

• Historical cosmetics reformulated for a modern setting

• Creating and making emulsified scrubs

Well guess what.

There was no clear winner. Balms, gels, and working with plant colorants did inch their way ahead of the others, but only slightly. In short - you all seem to have as wide an area of interest as I do!

The list above is written in order of which subject got most votes, but there really wasn’t all that much difference between the top and bottom choices.

The second question on the survey was about your preferred format: video, e-book or live webinar. E-book won out over the other 2 although video did come in a pretty close second.

Thank you!

I am taking your votes and feedback as a guideline and want to thank everyone who took the time to take this survey. I do have a publication in the works as we speak, and hope to be able to share this with you very soon.

Let’s all have a safe and healthy 2021!

Nordic Algae - The New Powerhouse Ingredient For Skincare

I get quite a few introductory ’new product’ emails from ingredients manufacturers, but one from earlier this year caught my interest. The company was called Swedish Algae Factory and they were introducing an all-natural ingredient that was showing some impressive results in initial testing. There was a collection of additional positives as well.

‘Please contact us for a sample if you are interested’, the letter ended.

I was, and I did.

The package arrived with 2 sample pots (pictured above). After trying both the gel and powder form in a few formulas, I became increasingly impressed with this ingredient and asked one of the Founders, Sofie Allert for an interview. Happily, she agreed.

Please join me in welcoming Sofie Allert to the blog.

Sofie Allert and Angela Wulff, Founders of Swedish Algae Factory

Welcome Sofie! Please tell us a bit about yourself.

I am a biotechnologist that fell in love with algae during my bachelor thesis. During my masters, I met a fellow algae nerd, Angela Wulff, a professor at Gothenburg University that just had been on an exhibition where she had sampled algae under the ice in the Antarctica. Together we founded Swedish Algae Factory with the purpose to produce climate positive products from algae.

The main product of Swedish Algae Factory is Algica, a high-tech material derived from an algae group called diatoms, that has several interesting properties for personal care products.

You explained it is mainly algae that grows in high temperatures that has been studied and that interest in Nordic algae has been lacking. What were you hoping to discover by focusing specifically on Nordic algae?

We wanted to show that it was possible to also cultivate algae in colder and darker climates. Algae is an extremely sustainable resource since it can be cultivated on salt- and wastewater and grows extremely fast. If we could cultivate algae in colder and darker climates, algae could contribute even more towards a sustainable society.

Your product wasn’t originally intended for use as a cosmetic ingredient. What made you start to focus on it for skincare?

Algica was, due to its light manipulating properties, originally tested for efficiency increase of solar panels with good results. To commercialize a new material like this for solar panels takes a lot of time and the market is mainly dominated by bigger actors that move forward at a slower pace.

Almost 3 years ago we were contacted by a Swedish personal care brand that had read about us and Algica and wondered if it could be of interest for the personal care industry as a more sustainable ingredient.

We investigated, realized the potential, and started to work actively to promote Algica in the personal care industry. It was more likely that Algica could create a positive impact faster in the personal care industry than in the solar panel industry.

You’ve tested Algica in cosmetic formulations and it is looking like a serious competitor to hyaluronic acid. Could you explain a bit more?

In an externally validated study, we concluded that Algica has at least as good moisturizing properties as hyaluronic acid. The same study showed that the cream with Algica compared to the cream with hyaluronic acid was perceived as more easily absorbed by the skin, provided a smoother feeling and was thereby more liked by all test persons.

We have also compared the anti-pollution properties of Algica and hyaluronic acid in other externally validated studies where Algica was able to block 2,5 times more of the most common pollutant from entering the skin than hyaluronic acid.

Algica has properties that hyaluronic acid does not have. Algica also works as a cleanser, booster of other active substances, and according to a recent in-vitro study, an SPF booster. Algica´s UV-light blocking properties was confirmed back in 2018 by my co-founder Angela Wulff and published in the renowned scientific journal Nature. By early 2021 we hope to have confirmed the SPF boosting effect in-vivo.

Algica is also ocean-safe and verified by ECOCERT and COSMOS.

Algica is harvested in a controlled environment

Algica is grown and harvested in a controlled environment. Could you share a bit about the production process?

We grow our algae in greenhouses to be able to achieve the highest possible quality of Algica. Our systems are mimicking how our algae naturally are growing in nature. We grow them on the bottom of trays in biofilms where we harvest the biofilm in a fashion that is similar to mowing a lawn. We cultivate our algae in a circular process where nutritious water that otherwise would have gone to waste are used to grow the algae. The nutrient- and omega 3 oil-rich biomass that is our by-product after extraction of Algica is used for sustainable feed and fertilizer production and in the future maybe even food.

Thank you Sofie for sharing this information.

Coming Up

In future posts, I will be sharing some of my experiences with Algica. Meantime, if you are interested in learning more about Swedish Algae Factory and their Nordic algae, please visit them here

Testing Beldi Soap

Not long ago, I was introduced to something called Beldi soap.

Rebecca, my colleague at Formulators Kitchen, has been making soaps for years and her interest in Beldi comes partly from her background, and partly from her insatiable desire to understand how things work. (Can you guess why we get along like a house on fire?)

Rebecca (who wrote this shampoo bar book with me) has just published a book about how to make Beldi soap. While she was developing formulas, she asked me if I would mind testing a few of the Beldi’s that are featured in her book.

Three guesses as to my reply.

A Bit About Beldi

Beldi is a type of castile soap originating in Morocco. If you have ever heard of or experienced hammam bathing then you probably already know Beldi soap. It is soft - almost jelly-like - and needs to be packaged in a tub or pot where the contents is scooped out.

Traditionally, the olive oil based soap is applied to moist skin using an exfoliating glove and is then massaged around the skin. It is then allowed to sit while enjoying a steam bath. Finally, the soap is rinsed off, leaving the entire body feeling refreshed and fabulous.

Rebecca told me it is traditionally enjoyed about once a week - kind of like a body mask.

What to do in an everyday home situation with no steam bath? Simply enter the shower or bathtub, apply Beldi, massage skin, then rinse off.

Rebecca's Beldi Soaps

Classic Beldi has a brownish color (like the swirl pictured top left above) one would expect to smell woodsy, but the scent is quite refreshing. Rebecca informed me that her soaps are all her own interpretations of Beldi soaps, so we're looking at a modern version of an age old classic.

I have fallen quite in love with this ‘new’ kind of soap and can’t decide which of this collection of self pampering beauties I like the best.

And because I couldn't possible wait A WHOLE WEEK between testing these, I've been using them daily. (tip: they are great for daily use too)

Rebecca's series of Beldi's incorporates various ingredients and scents - the picture at the top is just a few of the soaps that are going to be featured in her book - artfully arranged by yours truly for your viewing pleasure.

The Antioxidant Jelly Beldi has a deliciously fresh scent, and the Green Avocado Beldi is not only velvety soft on the skin but turns the rinsing process into an herbal spa experience.

There's even a Bling Beldi that has gold!

If you want to know more about Beldi soap and Rebecca's book, then visit her site, Botanical Formulations, right here, or pop straight over to the page where you can get your own copy of the Little Book of Beldi

Now excuse me while I pop off to the shower to finish testing these beauties.

Do Tell

Have you ever tried Beldi soap?

PS: Below is the book Rebecca and I wrote together. Click the picture to learn more.

The Definition of Hand Stirred

Earlier this year, I asked a few colleagues and folks in online cosmetics-making forums what ‘hand stirred’ cosmetics meant to them.

The answers were far more varied than I expected.

Some said hand stirred was like the picture above – a simple, manually operated utensil like a whisk, spoon or spatula – while others described high end stick blenders and homogenizers as acceptable under the term ‘hand stirred’.

It was enlightening to hear how many different utensils were included in the answers.

I asked for opinions to be sure I had the same understanding as everyone else. Why? Because my current work is developing a series of hand stirred cosmetics products. They are going to be featured in a couple of new projects and I will be sharing more about them before too terribly long.

Meantime, my collection of hand-stirring implements has grown to a sizable collection.

What do you consider hand-stirred? Feel free to leave a comment below.

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The Best Mask Ingredients

After having made and used masks of all different kinds over the years, it has become quite clear to me what works best (for my skin), and I would argue that it is probably the same for most other folks - young or old.

A mix of prepared dry ingredients with fresh ingredients seems to offer the best of both worlds and also makes it possible to create numerous variations on a theme with any well-formulated mix of dry components.

Pictured above: a freshly pureed kiwi with a dollop of yoghurt ready to be mixed with powdered dried mint and one of my favorite blends of different clays and herbs from my stockroom.