How to Easily Make Face Creams with Terpenes and CBD

Did you know that skin care is essential for looking your best? Have you ever tried using cannabinoid or terpene creams?

In the following post we’re going to explain the importance of the ingredients in skin cream that truly benefit your skin every time they’re used. We’re also going to show you how to make hydrating facial cream with CBD and terpenes; high quality and efficiency.

This cream does NOT contain THC, parabens, artificial colouring, pesticides, herbicides, toxins nor heavy metals.

How to Make Skin Creams using CBD and Terpenes

If you’ve used different types of creams, then you know that their properties and efficiency can vary enormously. Some creams work much better than others but, do you know why? The secret is in their ingredients.

The Benefits of Making Homemade Cream

In many cases, the ingredients found in “commercial” creams tend to be made up of synthetic and artificial ingredients derived from animal products (such as animal fats), so their efficiency can agitadorsometimes be compromised even though they’re mostly low-cost materials.

If you’re making your own cream at home you can choose healthier and more effective ingredients – the best way to make your ideal face cream.

What’s Needed to Make Face Cream?

Face creams are the result of the combination of an aqueous phase and an oily phase – in order for this to happen you’ll need a shaker and emulsifiers, as water and oil are two compounds that don’t react well to each other and can’t be mixed together on their own.

Making a high-quality cream isn’t easy and requires the following basic products: emulsifier, co-emulsifier, dilutant, rheology modifier, thickener, neutralizing agent, anti-oxidant, and a preservative, as well as the active ingredients for specific treatments such as CBD, terpenes and humectants, in our case.

If you use the necessary containers and equipment, making creams at home can be a bit complicated. This is why we’ve decided to start using a high quality cream as our base that anyone can get; all that’s left is to add in the active principals that are needed, and it’s an easily process to follow.

What are vegetable oils?

As we were saying earlier, an important part of making a skin cream is the fat or oil used, as this makes up quite a large part of the cream itself. This is why, if you use high quality vegetable oils you’ll have much better results.

Vegetable oils are the substance in which most terpenes in the skin cream will be diluted and trapped. Additionally, vegetable oils are the perfect substitute for conventional cosmetics, as they’re natural compounds made up of different fatty acids obtained via pressure. These oils have multiple beneficial properties for the skin.

You can choose the best vegetable oil that adapts to your needs; as we said above, each one has its own properties. The most popular are:

• Olive oil
• Hemp oil
• Argan oil
• Coconut oil
• Hazelnut oil
• Marigold oil
• Sunflower oil
• Shea oil

Vegetable oils can also hydrate and nurture the skin.

Terpenes for Cosmetic Use

Terpenes are substances that need to be handled with a bit more care than vegetable oils; they’re highly concentrated and require small amounts only.

In the same way that vegetable oils hydrate and nurture the skin, terpenes provide phyto-therapeutic elements, which is to say that they provide benefits with which you can care for your skin aside from just hydration. This is what you should be keeping in mind before handling terpenes:

• They’re highly concentrated substances that must always be dissolved in other fatty substances (such as vegetable oils).
• Keep in mind the proportions being used (it’s always a very small amount in drops); the maximum amount recommended is 4% of terpenes– we’ll explain the exact proportions later on.
• In order to use terpenes correctly, you’ll need to keep in mind certain important safety measures (such as ventilating the room after the process) – although these products are botanically-sourced, they’re pure and concentrated.
• They have therapeutic properties and are used in cosmetics thanks to their active compounds.

In order to o deeper into the properties of terpenes when it comes to cosmetics, we recommend checking out our post on terpenes and cosmetics.

What Terpenes to Choose for Skin Cream

Terpenes have been used in cosmetics for many years now, and the benefits that they provide have been confirmed and acknowledged many times.

However, the use of terpene profiles (such as Cali Terpenes), which is to say combinations of different terpenes, is quite an innovative process – until recently, only one or two isolated aromatic molecules were used in cosmetic products.

Cannabis terpene profiles, however, are much more complex than that, as they contain many different terpenes, such as Linalool, Limonene or Terpinolene, which have different properties and effects. Their combination is quite potent, and it’s partly because of these compounds that so many benefits are attributed to cannabis plants.

In order to create your own therapeutic skin cream, we recommend choosing the terpene profiles depending on the dominant terpenes (or terpenes) in each strain. This will allow you to know the effect the terpenes will have on your skin.

Strains with Linalool

Linalool, in cosmetics, is known for its antibacterial properties, and can be used in creams used to treat acne (which is caused by bacteria).

These are some strains which have a high Linalool content:

• Dosidos
• Girl Scout Cookies
• Kashmir Kush

Strains with Nerolidol

The terpene Nerolidol naturally increases skin penetration when using therapeutic trans-dermic agents such as cannabinoids. This means that it helps the beneficial ingredients in your skin to easily access your skin.

Plus, it’s known for it’s various biological such as that of antioxidant, anti-fungal, anti-carcinogenic and anti-microbial.

Some strains high in Nerolidol:

• Sugaree
• Pink Plant
• Mojito

Strains with Geraniol

Geraniol is a natural antioxidant, so when it’s used in cosmetics it can also protect the skin from weather damage and pollution, keeping it young and radiant.

Strains high in Geraniol:

• 10K Jack
• Sweet tooth
• Gelato

These are just a few examples, as all terpenes have properties and many of them are highly beneficial cosmetically speaking.

Benefits of Cannabinoids on the Skin

The skin is the largest organ o the body, and it tends to reflect a person’s general health. This is why it’s important to care for your skin, which can be done with products designed to be beneficial.

• Cannascience, Information about terpenes, Terpene Guide

Cannabis derived terpenes vs non cannabis derived terpenes

• 16 January, 2020

The topical use of cannabis goes way back to ancient China, where cannabis was used to treat skin problems, ulcers, wounds and hair loss. Plat leaves were also used in medieval Arabic medicine to treat skin issues such as psoriasis.

In more modern times, during the 20th century and before prohibition was a thing, cannabis tinctures were frequently sold in many pharmacies. Nowadays, fortunately, you can find CBD-products, or hemp seeds for sale thanks to the growing de-stigmatization of cannabis and its non-psychoactive cannabinoids around the world.

From Phyto-Cannabinoids to Cosmetics

Over 100 cannabinoids have been identified in cannabis, and a large number of other bioactive compounds such as terpenes (Which can be found in most plants, flowers and fruits), which also have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties (Hanuš and Cols; Russo, 2011).

Over the last few years, CBD has become quite popular thanks to its properties and skin benefits; it’s one of the most studied cannabinoids that has shown some incredibly promising results when it comes to treating skin issues such as atopic dermatitis or acne.

Let’s have a quick look at the therapeutic qualities of CBD (Cannabidiol) used on the skin:

• Anti-inflammatory: calms and reduces itchiness, reduces swelling.
• Anti-oxidant: slows down the cell aging process.
• Pain relief: can act against localized pain and irritation.

Choosing a Naturally Sourced Base Cream

To make the process easier and more practical, we recommend getting a base cream that contains mostly natural ingredients. It should be a cream with few ingredients to which you can add your vegetable oils, terpenes and other active ingredients that match up with your homemade cosmetic project. This way you don’t have to deal with preservation issues or measuring pH levels and other variables that can cause issues with the final results.

First, let’s see what elements go into a homemade cream designed to hydrate and nurture the skin. Let’s have a look at what vegetable oils and terpenes are, as well as their properties and how to mix them.

We’ll also go over how to add cannabinoids to the mix to improve the benefits of this homemade cream.

Vegan Base Cream – The Best Choice

As we were saying previously, a vegan base cream is probably the best choice for starting off your homemade cream. These natural face creams are high end, have a light texture and are easily absorbed. They’re ideal for all types of skin, all you have to do is add the active ingredients in order to provide the effects you’re after.

You can add up to 2% vegetable oils and up to 4% of hydro-soluble active substances to your face cream base.

Natural face creams are neutral, creamy in texture, soft and absorb quickly. They’re an O/W emulsion (oil in water), which means they contain more water than oil.

Natural Face Cream Characteristics

• Ingredients: Water, cIsopropylpalmitate, Cetearyl alcohol, Glycerylstearate SE, Hydrogenatedpolyisobutene, Glycerin, Glycerylstearate, PEG-100, Phenoxethanol, Synthetic beeswax, BHT, Chlorphenesin, Citric acid.
• Emulsion type: o/w
• pH 5 – 7
• Density: 4
• Color: white
• Storage: store in an area without direct sunlight between 5 and 25°C. Avoid storing near heat sources.
• No animal testing.
• No animal ingredients.
• GMO free.

You can obtain these types of creams on many pages and in many stores, although in this case we’ve chosen Gran Velada.

Preparing the Cream – Step by Step

In order to prepare this mix, you’ll need an opaque glass recipient and you’ll need to know how many millilitres it can hold in order to easily calculate terpene and other ingredient doses.

Necessary materials

• Two different cream bases (250g)
• Container for bain marie method.
• Strong glass container (preserve jar)
• Simple scales (1 decimal is enough)
• Thermometer (not entirely necessary for this example)
• Active ingredients: 1g 99% pure CBD, and Cali Terpenes.

Steps to Follow

1. Weigh out 48g of your vegan cream base.

2. Weigh out 1g of CBD so that the concentration rounds up to 2%.

3. Heat the cream slowly using the bain marie method until it’s almost liquid (until about 52°C). In this example there are two different bases, we chose the one on the right.

4. Remove from the heat and add your active ingredient (CBD). Mix with a spoon until the CBD dissolves completely.

5. When the temperature of the cream is under 40°C and before it begins to solidify, add in 5 drops of Cali Terpenes. In this case we chose Chocolate Mint OG due to its high terpene content such as d-Limonene, b-Caryophyllene Linalool and Myrcene.

In this step, you should also add other oils or thermo-sensitive products (in our example we add in 0.5ml of Bisabolol). This isn’t strictly necessary, although we wanted to add this specific terpene for its de-congestive and anti-inflammatory properties. This terpene is common in cannabis and is also one of the active compounds found in camomile.

6. Cover your cream and cool it off in cold water or the fridge.

7. Once it has its texture back, package it on your chosen container. Our cream is the one on the left.

How to Use Homemade CBD and Terpene Cream

This soft to the touch cream is super easy to use; apply it via soft massaging motions until it’s completely absorbed.

The skin where the cream’s applied may temporarily go slightly red due to increased blood flow when massaged.

So, what did you think of the post? Leave a comment below and let us know what you think or if you have any questions.

Until next time!

Cali Terpenes