Posted by Danny Stanzl on 2nd Jan 2023

Using Glyceryl Oleate in your Formulations

Glyceryl oleate is a wonder ingredient in your formulations. Instantly turn drying formulations into soft and moisturising products

Simplicity of Formulation

The beauty of Glyceryl oleate is the ease of use when adding to a formulation.

For emulsions, you simply add the ingredient to the oil phase and heat with your oils.

For surfactant blends, you can add during your production, you just need to heat your mix in order to incorporate the Glyceryl oleate

Using Glyceryl oleate in a Shower Gel

In our Video Sequence we make a simple shower gel formulation to show you how easy it is to include Glyceryl Oleate.

Our Shower Gel formulation is SLS Free and includes Coco glucoside, Decyl glucoside, Cocamidopropyl betaine, Water, Glycerine and Sodium benzoate & Potassium sorbate as the preservative.

Weigh and combine your Shower gel ingredients

Firstly we combine all of the ingredients excluding the Xanthan Gum, Glycerine and Preservative.

You will see later in the Video Sequence why we add these at the end.

Warm your ingredients and melt your Glyceryl oleate

We have used a microwave in our example to mix the ingredients on a small scale. You can also use a double boiler, especially if you wished to scale up production.

When melted mix to ensure the ingredients are fully emulsified.

When mixing do your best not to incorporate any air.

Add you water to your Hot Shower Gel

Add distilled water to your Shower Gel mixture. In this example we have added cold water to the hot mixture and it mixes without problem. If you was to scale up your production, it would be easy and more reliable to add hot water (the same temperature as your Shower Gel mix).

Mix your Xanthan Gum and Glycerine into a Paste and add to your Shower Gel mix

Mixing Xanthan Gum into water is difficult and hard to disperse. Mixing Xanthan Gum into Glycerine is easy and it will readily mix into a paste.

When your paste is complete, combine your Xanthan Gum paste into your Shower Gel mix, stirring to ensure it mixes properly.

At first it will appear runny, the beauty of Xanthan Gum is the plastic nature. As the ingredients cool and the Xanthan Gum hydrates, your Shower Gel will thicken. It normally has thickened after 3 days.

Add your preservative

Add your preservative to your Shower Gel and mix thoroughly. In this example we have used Sodium benzoate & Potassium sorbate.

You have now successfully made a Sodium Lauryl Sulphate Free Shower Gel with skin refatting Glyceryl Oleate

Some things to remember

In our example above it was illustrative, so please do not follow exactly the weights and measure shown. Please see the individual item pages for the suggested usage levels.

We used Sodium benzoate & Potassium sorbate in the example shown. This preservative will work provided it is properly dispersed within the Shower Gel, however it only works under pH 5.5, so you should check your formulation with a pH testing strip to ensure it is under pH 5.5. The pH of a Shower Gel, Shampoo or Face Wash can be easily adjusted by the addition of a little Citric acid or Lactic acid.

Links to the products used in this video can be found below.

Want to learn how to blend cosmetic skincare products? Then why not book your place on one of our courses?

Cosmetic Product Making course, learn how to make skincare products from natural and raw ingredients
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Lavender essential oil from Naturallythinking, sourced from Bulgaria for purity
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