Faffing about with lanolin and ending up with a "cleansing cream"

This project was a fiddly business!

And the resulting "cream" does not have the light and silky feel of something like Nivea would make, that's for sure. It's actually quite heavy and at first I was pretty crestfallen about that. But stay with me here, because in the end it turns out to be doing wonders for my (ahem) mature skin.

This version is adapted from Sarah Garland's "The Complete Book of Herbs & Spices". I say "adapted" because, well, at first I was winging it, then I realized I was, in fact, fucking it up, then I referred to the book. And I wasn't even trying to make a damn cleansing cream, I was trying to make a moisturizing balm for my feet .. but then .. well, I'll start from the beginning, okay?



I've made balms a-plenty over the years ..

Standard recipe: 3 parts healing/soothing herb-infused oil of choice, one part (or more for a firmer texture) beeswax. Melt together, pour into container(s), cool. Hey presto, balm!

But this time I wanted to add lanolin, because nothin' heals cracking feet like lanolin. And that's where it got tricky. In my naivete, I thought that because it is so sticky and thick, lanolin would count as a wax, not an oil. So when I guesstimated my ratios, I counted it as such and added less beeswax than I normally do.

I started out with:

6 tablespoons of herb infused oil - (2 tablespoons each of comfrey leaf, plantain leaf and calendula blossom.)

1 tablespoon of lanolin

1 tablespoon of grated beeswax

My current method is ultra simple - everything goes into a mason jar and is gently heated on a coffee cup warmer plate like the one shown here. I like the cup warmer much better than the double boiler method - it takes a while, but it melts the waxes nicely and never gets overly hot. You can ruin a herbal oil with too much heat!





Once everything was nicely melted together I poured it all into a tin and waited for it to solidify.

And waited.

But it never did turn into the nice smooth balm I was aiming for, it just glommed into a gooey sticky ointment-y mess. Not what I wanted at all. Frigging lanolin!

So I scooped it out, put it all back in the jar and melted it all back down, adding a tiny bit more beeswax, testing it on the back of my hand, (still sticky) adding more beeswax, testing (still sticky!!) on and on it went til the light bulb went on over my head in a brilliant Eureka! moment.

I wish.

It was more like fer fuck's sake how do I turn this into something I can use??

That's when I consulted the book and found the recipe for the cleansing cream. Pretty much the same as above, plus 2 ounces of a strong herbal infusion and a half teaspoon of borax. Not having the time or inclination to faff about making an infusion, I decided to use rosewater instead (now that was brilliant!). All I had to do now was heat the rosewater, dissolve the borax into it and combine with the oily/waxy/lanolin-y mess. No problem! Fortunately I have two of those cup warmers, so I put the rosewater on to heat, sprinkled the borax into it .. and it clumped together. I stirred. It stayed clumped. Raggin' fraggin'!!

Gawd, what a fiasco this was turning into.

It took some doing, but I got the damn stuff dissolved, got out a plastic bowl I don't care about and once both jars were at about the same temperature I gradually combined the liquids, beating with a spoon like my life depended on it. And at this point I was so frustrated that it felt like my life did depend on it.

By now, Paul was looking over my shoulder. It's pretty cool the way the oils and rosewater, beaten together, turn into something that looks kinda like mayonnaise. I scooped it into the container. He stuck his finger in and rubbed some on his hand. Raised an eyebrow approvingly. Sniffed, again approvingly.

Me? I hated it at first. Too freaking heavy, I thought. Not rosy enough, I thought. It certainly wasn't going to work as a foot cream ..

but then before bed I rinsed my face, then rubbed the stuff on, then washed it off with a cloth and oh my. Oh my!! That's a really nice cleansing cream. And it's quite satisfactory as a straight (albeit industrial strength!) hand and foot moisturizer/barrier cream too.

Would I make it again? Probably. But I'd use about half the amount of lanolin, or maybe even less, and adjust the other ratios accordingly.

For those of you who have also been making infused oils, I should mention I made the comfrey, calendula and plantain oils differently this time - I actually used dried herbs, which as we all know I rarely do. And I used sunflower oil, rather than the usual olive, for the plantain and comfrey leaf. Steeped for 6 weeks, out of the light, in glass jars. I'm quite pleased with how well they came out, especially the comfrey, which we all know can be such a pain to work with ..

and lastly, speaking of comfrey, here's a nifty if labour intensive way to play around with it that I tripped over recently.

A happy accident.