自製保養品基礎測量 | Why I Don't Measure Ingredients by Weight
People in the formulating world are quite insistent on this subject, and for good reasons, but so are serious bakers. As someone who’d make a loaf of no-knead bread or no-knead pizza dough every now and then, I respect weighing your ingredients, for food and for skincare. However, we all have a busy life and I simply don’t find it essential for homemade skincare. Here are the reasons why:
Inconsistency is tolerable
Granted, ingredients like beeswax, shea butter, menthol crystals or Olivem 1000, which I often use in my DIYs, are impossible to measure accurately by volume. However, with the total quantity that I make at home, sometimes 3 times of a single recipe in one batch, the inconsistency is still quite minimal, be it lip balm or lotion or hair masks. I don’t mind that my balm is slightly harder or softer as long as it maintains some shape and provide the nourishment I need.
Weighing is not always accurate
Measuring skincare ingredients for one single bottle of whatever you are making, often between 15~200ml depending on the product, is way more tedious to weigh than weighing flour for a loaf. When using a digital scale that goes to say two decimals, a tinsy flinch in the wrist or a finger tremble can tip off the desired weight for the formula. Of course, if you had all the lab equipment, pipettes and specialty spoons, you can achieve accuracy. However, I’m not going to dump out my solution and mixes if I accidentally added 0.2 grams of additional niacinamide. Oh, and don’t get me started on ingredients like provitamin B5 d-panthenol - with it’s sticky maltose like texture, the chances of picking up and transferring (from a spoon to a container or from a container to another) an accurate amount, by weight or by volume for DIY, is probably worse than winning the lottery.
I change ingredients all the time
As an active ingredients lover, I try and swap ingredients in my recipes all the time. I do give the process some thoughts before I do so of course. I may switch surfactants with surfactants, when I don’t have one at hand but have the other; try arbutin powder instead of vitamin C powder for a serum; or Olivem 700 with Olivem 1000. I think it’s odd to be stringent with weighing but offer ingredient substitutes at the same time. More often than not, using an ingredient substitutes would change the ratio and texture of a formula anyway.
Yes, it’s laziness, or what I call life
It’s simply faster and easier to scoop and dump ¼ teaspoon of hyaluronic acid powder, collagen powder and niacinamide powder each into a beaker, than having to worry about their granule size and try to measure out 0.82 grams or 1.76 grams. I’m not swearing off the scale. I’m just being practical. If I had 1⅛ teaspoon of allantoin powder left in a bottle, while the recipes only calls for 1 teaspoon, trust me, I’m going to dump it all in. I’m not going to have the last bit of powder to sit on my shelf for three months until I make something else.
Making DIY skincare approachable
Formula Botanica shared The beauty industry has been lying to you for over a century, calling out that the industry have been placing barriers to consumers with fancy lab talks and counter staff wearing lab coats. Although I’m sure that Formula Botanica is not preaching measuring by volume, I’d like to think that not measuring by weight is one less barrier for trying to make skincare at home. If you ever want to be serious about formulating, please pursuit the path with the right information and tools. If like me, in a more art and craft form, you just want to play with ingredients, have some fun, and make something you can use, these are my thoughts and experiences with measuring by volume.
Be sensible
With all that said, I do weigh my recipes sometimes, usually the very first time I try to whip it up, or when trying a new ingredient, to check that I stay within the recommended % range of each ingredient. Also, I would be cautious using ingredients like AHA and BHA, especially when I try to create something a little more potent like an acid peel. Nonetheless, everyone’s skin is different. The percentage limits of ingredients set out by government standards may be fine for someone to use but can still be irritating or even burning for another person. So please, DIY with a grain of salt, a little less prejudice and enjoy the customization you can have with your own skincare.
