0 How To Formulate Your Own Leave-In Conditioner

I didn't know making your own homemade leave-in conditioner was so easy! Making a leave-in conditioner follows the same process as making a body lotion. You can make your very own homemade leave-in conditioner in less than 10 minutes!

Basic Recipe:
70-80% Water- The more water you use the thinner you final product. If you use less than 70% water, you will have more of a hair cream or very thick lotion that will need to be put in a jar.
5-6% Emulsifier
1% Preservative
23-14% Oils/Butter

Your final percent needs to total 100%. After you figure out what ingredients you will use, you now need to convert your recipe to ounces. To convert to ounces take multiply the percentage by the number of ounces you want your final amount to be. So if your end product is going to be 16 oz. to figure out how much water you need you, your formula would look like this: 16 x .70 = 11.2 oz. 11.2 ounces is the amount of water you will need.

Remember, all these measurements are by weight so you need do a scale. If you do them by volume your recipe will not be consistent and may not work out right.

FAQ:
What is an emulsifier? An emulsifier is a binding agent. Emulsifiers combine the water with the oils because as we all know water and oil do not mix. There are quite a few emulsifiers on the market to choose from, I like E-Wax personally. Here is a link to emulsifiers from The Herbarie: http://www.theherbarie.com/Emulsifiers-c-7.html .
Do I have to use preservative? Yes. A synthetic preservative to be exact. Here is a link to preservatives from  Essential Wholesale: http://www.essentialwholesale.com/Preservatives Be sure to read the descriptions as not all preservatives serve the same purpose.

Tips:
Get creative! For your water, you can use teas, aloe vera, extracts, and/or milks. You can add clays and herbs as well to provide "slip", conditioning, soothing and/or strengthening properties. Some great herbs are burdock root, hibiscus, nettle, horsetail, green tea, marshmallow root, slippery elm bark, and much more. You can get many of these ingredients from Mountain Rose Herbs: http://mountainroseherbs.com.

How To:

1. Weigh out your ingredients. Make sure you use a scale as all measurements need to be by weight!
2. Heat your oils and wax. Read  up on any additives you use to see if they go in the water or oil phase. 
3. Heat your water/liquid. 
4. Mix heated water and oils together. For this step you want to use either a stick blender or a hand mixer. Mix for about 2 minutes or until mixture becomes thick and resembles a thin well...lotion! 
5. Allow to cool.
6. Add preservative, fragrance and any additives or colorants. 
7. Add to bottles or jars and allow to set.

Done! Once fully set and cool, you can use your Leave-In conditioner! Photo tutorial coming soon! 
Have you ever made lotion? How did it go? Let me know in the comments below!