Oil and water are two common ingredients in bath and body products; however, the addition of one or the other, and the quantity added, can have a big impact on how your bath and body product can turn out. Although the process is more complex than this blog post allows for, I hope that the following information will help you to understand the basic difference between adding oil or water to your bath and body products.

Oils for Bath and Body Products

You need to make sure that you choose the right type of oil for your bath or body product. Oil is a general term that can have several meanings in the world of both aromatherapy and bath and body product making. An oil can be:

• an essential oil

• a basic carrier oil

• a herb infused oil

• a butter (butters contain natural oils).

Make sure that you know exactly what a bath and body recipe is referring to when it states oil; most likely, it will be a basic carrier or herb infused oil – but it might mean a variation of butter or even essential oil too (sometimes people drop the word essential from in front of the word oil).

Water for Bath and Body Products

You might think that water is simple; after all, water is water, isn’t it? Not when it comes to making bath and body products. First of all, don’t use water direct from the faucet or tap. Use distilled water; distilled water has many of the impurities removed through boiling the water and condensing the steam from it.

Secondly, you can also use aromatic hydrosols as your “water” component in bath and body products. Hydrosols are distilled in much the same way as essential oils – and add aroma to your product.

Adding Oil and Water to Bath and Body Products

Bath and body products vary in consistency and texture; some of these differentiations are due to the variables in quantity of each ingredient added. For example, some butters are naturally harder than others (as they contain various amounts, and different types, of natural oils); therefore, your end product will be affected by this factor. In addition, the amount of a carrier oil which you add into such a bath and body recipe may “soften” up the end product.

Water is added into some bath and body recipes and not in others; in general, you will find that water is an ingredient in most lotion and cream recipes, but is not present in oil-based recipes such as butters and bath melts.

Finally, oil and water don’t naturally mix together; this is where the addition of an emulsifier, or solubol, (depending upon product)  is useful in bath and body products which contain both ingredients. Emulsifiers help to bind oil and water together in, for example, a lotion; solubols help to “disperse” the water and essential oils in a spritzer mix.

Learn to Make Your Own Bath and Body Products

If you would like to learn more on how to make your own bath and body products, consider either the Sedona Aromatherapie Basic Butters, Balms, Creams and Lotions Course, or the Sedona Aromatherapie Basic Bath Products with Essential Oils Course. Both courses are home study and start at just $59.99 each.

Enjoy!