Quick chemistry lesson: you can’t mix oil and water. What you can do is make an emulsion, in which particles of oil are suspended in water (or vice versa) to produce a cream. Milk is an emulsion, for example, as is mayonnaise. In cosmetics, it’s hard to make an emulsion that is both stable and safe. We use a product called emulsifying wax to help blend oil and water together. Purists will argue that this isn’t the most organic way to go, and they’re totally not wrong—if you want to keep things super crunchy, you might want to stick to products that keep oil and water separate.

However, we find that there are skin benefits to using emulsions. Some plant constituents are soluble in water, whereas others are only soluble in oil. To blend both of those together requires using an emulsifier. And while there are rumored “natural” emulsifiers out there, we’ve found that they’re either not all that natural or not all that good (i.e., they produce pretty icky and unstable results). The emulsifying wax we use is made from organic vegetable sources (mostly olive), and contains Cetearyl Alcohol and a sorbitol-based emulsifier called polysorbate.

Find it in

Chamomile Cleansing Cream

Skin Milk