At-home DIY, emulating the best anti-aging cream (or lotion or serum)
As always, I avoid fragrances. If you don’t like the smell of a particular ingredient, avoid it, but fragrances will always work against you, unless they are an active ingredient that has a beneficial activity and happens to smell nice (like apocynin, a.k.a. acetovanillone, or mint, an antiviral).
Utensils you will need
Plastic jar for 50 grams or more of cream. Should give you space for mixing using a spatula
Scale: I suggest you use a scale and manage your ingredients by weight, rather than volume, this is what formulators do. It’s hard to measure volumes when you are dealing with thick or viscous materials. Scales are very inexpensive and precise these days. A scale with a 1000g x 0.1g resolution will be suitable and convenient.
Plastic Pasteur pipettes
Spatulas (plastic or metal)
Isopropyl alcohol 70%
A roll of paper towels
Transporting tube or similar, 50mL
Figure: 50mL transporting tube
Figure: Plastic Pasteur pipette
Figure: plastic spatulas
Ingredients:
Carrier base:
For the base choose a nice unscented cream containing some petrolatum or mineral oil that you find pleasant to the touch and to massage into your skin. You choose it. All of them already contain some kind of preservative, so they will be safe to use. Keep your hands clean, wear gloves, and keep the gloves clean if you do.
If you prefer a serum to a cream:
Base liquids and gels
Fresh coconut water filtered through a strainer (or reconstituted from powder, freeze-dried if possible) 30mL. You can buy coconut water in the supermarket. You will need to add preservatives. Preservative (% as indicated in the instructions). I use Optiphen Plus.
To jellify the liquid, you can use an active like collagen peptides or fucoidan. Or you can start with a gel, like Sea kelp bioferment.
If you prefer a lotion: mix serum and cream until you get the texture you like. Both have preservatives, so you don’t have to worry about stuff growing in them.
Liquid/gel actives
Sea kelp bioferment 10mL
Hops extract 5mL
Glycerol (unless your base cream already contains some)
Pomegranate seed oil
Solids:
Niacinamide
Collagen peptides (from fish)
Alpha Lipoic acid
Vitamin A as retinyl palmitate. or retinyl acetate.
A mix of oil-soluble antioxidants that includes natural vitamin E, astaxanthin, etc.
Special actives
Epidermal growth factor
Centella asiatica extract
Soy isoflavones
Carnitine
Carnosine
CoQ10
Glutathione (reduced)
Cholesterol or liquid crystal
Anti-oxidant protein mix (ROS Terminator)
Why each ingredient?
Look for each in my glossary.
I don’t like using derivatives of natural chemicals that don’t exist in nature: some people may develop an allergy to the natural chemical after being exposed to a similar (but not identical) artificial chemical. I think that is what may have happened with a synthetic vitamin E containing a mix of stereoisomers, or idebenone, a modified Coenzyme Q. I know that ingredient companies like to offer “novelty” ingredients. I abstain, especially when the modified chemicals are essential to life.
We are emulating this antiaging cream (now unavailable)
Water, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Sorbitol, Butylene Glycol, Sea Kelp (Lactobacillus/Kelp Ferment Filtrate) Bioferment, Cetyl Alcohol, Glyceryl Stearate, PEG-100 Stearate, Stearyl Alcohol, Sesamum Indicum (Sesame) Seed Oil, Prunus Amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) Oil, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Cholesteryl Oleyl Carbonate, Cholesteryl Nonanoate, Cholesteryl Chloride, BHT, Sodium Hyaluronate, Hydrolyzed Collagen, Soy Isoflavones, Resveratrol, R-Alpha Lipoic Acid, Ubiquinone, Beta Glucan (Yeast), Carnitine, Carnosine, Centella Asiatica (Gotu Kola) Extract, Cocos Nucifera (Coconut) Fruit Juice, Niacinamide, Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) Seed Oil, Tocotrienols, Tocopherols, Astaxanthin, Lycopene, Xanthophyll, Beta-Carotene, Lecithin, Glutathione, Resveratrol Dimethyl Ether, Pyrus Malus (Apple) Pectin Extract, Sh-Oligopeptide-1, Superoxide Dismutase, Polysorbate 20, Dimethicone, Carbomer, Citric Acid, Aminomethyl Propanol, Phenoxyethanol, Methylparaben, Propylparaben
Mixing a simple anti-aging cream
To a transport tube containing 40grams coconut water, add 0.5gm of Optiphen Plus
add 0.5 gm of niacinamide
add 0,5gm of retinyl palmitate
- We will start by making an aqueous solution of the water-soluble solids. In this case, I will be dissolving Vitamin A and niacinamide in coconut water preserved with Optiphen Plus.
Before applying the anti-aging product
Especially with skin care that should penetrate the skin, it helps to have clean pores. Not that you must do it all the time, but when you start your new treatment. How could this help you? As we age, our pores look larger (because they are): proteins, polysaccharides, and lipids that make up our skin have been lost. You will give your skin a better chance if your pores are ready to absorb the actives you are applying. I use pore strips at least on my nose, where the pores look so large.