Vegetable Waxes
Plant waxes such as carnauba, candelilla and jojoba are popularly used ingredients in soaps and cosmetics. A vegan alternative to beeswax, they are used to add hardness, shine and a smooth finish to body care products. Solid or flaked plant waxes such as carnauba are procured by boiling the leaves in water and skimming the surface to remove the waxy material. Liquid waxes, such as jojoba are made using hydraulic pressure, the same method employed in nut and vegetable seed oils.
Flower or Floral Waxes
What are floral waxes? They are plant waxes, made from flowers. Floral waxes are usually produced from delicate flowers such as tuberose and jasmin in order to retain their fragrance. Steam distillation would destroy the fragile scent molecules. Freshly picked, carefully selected flower heads are mixed with a solvent to produce a concrete. When mixed with a high proof alcohol and then chilled, the concrete separates into a fragrant liquid and a waxy solid. (To make an absolute, the alcohol is removed from the liquid via evaporation, leaving the absolute.) Floral waxes are less expensive than absolutes and add emolliency, scent and color to creams and lotions. Recommended use rate is up to 10%.
Beeswax
This hive product is the result of the intense labor of an army of bees. It takes about 160,000 bees to produce 60 pounds of honey that only yield about 1 pound of beeswax. To make beeswax, the comb-building bees engorge themselves with honey. After several hours, they begin to excrete a white, odorless wax from glands beneath their abdomens. Comb-builders use the wax as building blocks or as the infrastructure of the hive.
Please click here for a look at our nut & veggie oil fat properties chart. This is a list of some of the more commonly used oils and fats (in soaps AND lotions). The chart is broken into saturated and unsaturated properties, and the components within those properties. This will be useful in your lotionmaking, as you will now know what oils/fats are good for what purpose.
For now, though, let's just concentrate on what the properties are and what they can do for your skin.
Saturated Fatty Acids
Contain no double bonds, which means they are very resistant to rancidity. They also increase the melting point of the oils. Usually, these oils are solid at room temperature. (see melting points). Most have a greasy feel or drag.
Unsaturated Fatty Acids
Contain one or more double bonds, which means they have less viscosity than saturateds. Most are liquid at room temperature. This allows for greater absorption to the skin, without the greasy feel or drag. Within unsaturated fatty acids, palmitoleic and oleic acids have only one double bond. Oils high in these properties are very resistant to rancidity. Linoleic contains two double bonds - not a good hedge against rancidity, and in essence, a short shelf life. Linolenic contains 3 double bonds - very unstable. Iodine value is a measure of the double bonds present in each oil. The higher the value, the more unsaturation present.
Familiarize yourself with the chart and try to get a feel for the properties. If you've made CP soap, you're probably familiar with most of these oils, and have a good idea of how they work in CP formulation.
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