Marigold hand protection cream

This marigold hand protection cream is my first recipe with soy lecithin and beeswax as emulsifiers, which was successful!

I used an infusion of marigold leaves in soybean oil.

Marigold petals have very good skin healing properties (my personal experience!) and is perfect candidate for repairing all small wounds and skin infections. Therefore it is a perfect ingredient for hand protection cream.

I personally have only a good experience and can confirm that what we say is true! That is why I decided it to be the base oil of my hand protection cream.

Instructions

0) Make sure to sanitize well everything you will use in the process of preparation, including all the instruments and pots. For disinfection you can use either chlorine tablets or boil everything (what is heat proof) for 15 minutes. You can use also 70% alcohol. For maximal hygiene always were clean gloves.  All these precautions are better than later watching your nice cream turning green, mainly if you don’t use any preservatives.

1) If you have lecithin granules, dissolve them in rose water – it will take an hour until they get wet through, then just mix them to dissolve completely. If you have liquid lecithin just mix it with rose water directly.

2) In water bath melt cocoa butter and beeswax with marigold oil. Beeswax needs around 64°C  (147°F) to dissolve, pay attention to not overheat (e.g. >80°C, this may happen easily if you don’t use water bath). If you overheat cocoa butter, it will get grainy.

3) At the same time, heat your water phase (lecithin and rose water) to 70°C.

4) If necessary, transfer the oil phase into your stand mixer, if not, just use blender – you’ll probably need a very strong mixing in order to be successful making cream from beeswax and lecithin only! First start mixing the oils and than slowly pour the water phase in. Both phases should be around 50-60°C at this point. Blend until you reach an emulsion (cream consistency). I tried also hand mixing from the beginning, but it is not worthy the effort and the result is uncertain.

5) ATTENTION – It may happen that the water phase starts separating from the oil phase when you stop stirring before your cream cools completely down. Therefore, once your reach the emulsion, you can put the pot in cold water in order to accelerate the cool-down phase, but continue stirring. Do not forget to stir well until the cream is a room temperature, hand stirring is usually sufficient in this phase.

6) When finished, stir in your preservative (if any) and fragrance or essential oils of your choice.

7) Transfer you cream into cream pots.

TIP: Lifetime of a cream without preservatives is between two weeks and a month, provided you sanitize well keep it in the fridge. Some plants or essential oils have antibacterial properties and conserve even longer, rose water is one of them.