Day One: Making a Healing, Soothing Sunburn Lotion
Day Two: Making an easy Spritzer & Skinsicles
Day Three: Infusing Oils
Day Four: Soothing Massage Oil
Making an Easy Spritzer
There are a variety of ways to make a spritzer to spray on sunburn relief.
1.You can go the all natural, but sometimes separates route
2.You can go the mostly natural and doesn’t separate route
A note about Aloe Vera ‘Gel’ – When you crack open an aloe vera plant, a gel comes out. However, within a few minutes, the enzymes in the gel break down into a watery substance. The product Bramble Berry sells is this final product – a watery aloe vera substance. In order to get an aloe vera gel, thickeners are always added. If you have an aloe vera gel-gel, check the ingredients and see what thickener is in there. Because aloe vera gel is 95-99% water and the ‘gel’ present immediately after cutting is a complex web of polysaccharides that breaks down without a synthetic gelling agent, natural aloe vera ‘gel’ is a liquid as shown above in the photo.
All Natural, sometimes separates:
4 oz. Aloe Vera Water
2 oz. Witch Hazel
1 oz. Distilled Water
30 drops German Blue Chamomile Essential Oil
15 drops Lavender Essential Oil
15 drops Egyptian Geranium Essential Oil
Optional: Germaben II preservative .3 oz.
Examples are packaged in Bramble Berry Brushed Aluminum Bottles
Instructions: Add all the ingredients together. Whisk together to emulsify the mixture. Pour into sprayable containers.
You an also add some baking soda to this mixture to make a thin soothing mixture to apply like a cold poultice.
Mostly Natural, won’t separate
4 oz. Aloe Vera Water
2 oz. Witch Hazel
1 oz. Distilled Water
30 drops German Blue Chamomile
15 drops Lavender EO
15 drops Egyptian Geranium Essential Oil
.5 oz. Polysorbate 20
Optional: German II Preservative .35 oz.
Examples are packaged in Bramble Berry brushed aluminum bottles.
Mix the Polysorbate 20 with the essential oils. Add to Aloe Vera and water mix. Stir well. Mixture may get cloudy and tends to stay cloudy.
You can also use Peppermint Essential Oil to make a cooling spray. Some people find this soothing (not so much myself).
See that all natural blue color? It’s the azulene content in the Blue Chamomile (German) Essential Oil. It’s healing goodness to the nth degree.
For extra cooling goodness, pop these recipes into the freezer and making a soothing ice cube with the skin loving ingredients. They both freeze to a mostly-solid. They don’t pop out of ice cube containers well but larger containers, like small flexible tupperware, are great for making Skin Soothing Popsicles.
Check in tomorrow to learn how to infuse oil using calendula petals to create a healing skin oil.
I have an aloe allergy….can I just replace the aloe water for more distilled water? Will that change the amount of witch hazel or other ingredients at all?
You can 100% replace it with Distilled Water. I used Aloe because it’s so wholesome for skin and has a history of helping with sunburns =)
I made the second recipe using Phenonip since that was the only preservative I had, and my German Chamomile is a cheaper version that is blended with jojoba oil, but it still had a great fragrance and pretty blue color. I added peppermint eo and it turned out great! Very hydrating and cooling, especially after a day in the sun AND in the pool when you come out red AND with dehydrated skin LOL!I will definitely be making more of this for our upcoming trip to the coast, I can see me using LOTS of it!!!
Yum! That sounds like a great combo. I love the idea of the Peppermint EO for cooling. Nice job! =)
If I have lavender and geranium, but no chamomile should I up the amount? Thanks!
The azulene in the German Chamomile is where you get some of the relief (in my experience) from sunburn. It will still be an amazing lotion but the Chamomile is where some of the cooling love comes from. That said, if you don’t have any and want to make the lotion without it, yes, add the same amount of Lavender and/or Geranium in the Chamomile’s place.
I love this tutorial! This will be helpful for my boyfriend, he's very pale and turns super red in the sun… I call him "my lobster" (shhh… don't tell him I told you)
🙂
This sounds so lovely. Unfortunately, my hubby is allegic to aloe vera. I found out the hard way. But this would be lovely for a few of my friends.
These Skin-sicles are the coolest things I have ever seen! We have none of the materials to make them, which means now we HAVE to get some. This is too cool to pass up! Thank you Anne-Marie! This rocks.
Love the name "skinsicles"! Kids would really like these.
Wow! I bet those skinsicles feel awesome! I might make one just to put on my arms on a super hot day. Aaaah!