My simple lotion recipe and instructions are a good place to start making skin care products. But if you want to go beyond the basics, you will need to have a good digital scale and a hand held electric mixer.
Any hand held electric mixer will do and you wouldn’t need it for many of the recipes. So far, I only use it for recipes with beeswax/borax as the emulsifier or with certain additives like zinc oxide. For these recipes such as the water-resistant sunscreen or diaper rash cream, I tend to make small batches and I find that a cordless mini mixer is much more suited for this task. The one I use is the Norpro Cordless Mini Mixer
Finding the right digital scale among the plethora of mid-sized scales was a long and arduous task. When shopping for scales, the three main considerations are weight capacity, resolution, and price. And of course, the higher the capacity and smaller the resolution, the more expensive it gets. Many of the $20 – $80 scales at your typical kitchen retail store and even Amazon were not suitable for craft, mainly because its resolution were not small enough and if they were, they had a small weight capacity. After perusing through hundreds of models, I finally settled on the Jennings/JScale CJ4000. I’ve had it for several years now and I’m very please with it. The scale has a 4000 gram capacity (8.8 lbs) with a 0.5 gram (0.02 oz) resolution, suitable for all my skin care creations. Measurements can be displayed in three different units: grams, oz, lbs. In addition to the typical backlit LCD display, tare, and zero functions, this scale has a stainless steel platform (easy to clean) and a protective cover (easy to keep clean) that can double up as a bowl. I also like that it comes with an A/C adapter although you can run it off batteries. It has a compact design and easily stows in my kitchen cupboard. I also use it for cooking and as a postal scale. Overall, this scale has the best combination of weight capacity and resolution for its price, about $45.
