Start Your Sustainable Beauty Pantry For Self-Sufficiency-By Brooklyn Rooftop Botanicals! NYC’S FIRST BEAUTY FARM!

When thinking about what to include in your initial starter beauty pantry, it’s important to ask yourself what you want to get out of it. New York City’s first and only rooftop beauty farm Brooklyn Rooftop Botanicals, founded by Liana Blomquist, is here to help you start and grow your beauty pantry fit for self-sufficiency! They grow and process botanicals on Brooklyn rooftops to create extracts and beauty products, aiming to help change the way raw materials are sourced to combat climate change and help people think more consciously about their beauty consumption habits.

Liana Blomquist is the founder of Brooklyn Rooftop Botanicals, the first rooftop beauty farm in Brooklyn.

Some people may only want to start out with creams and products that do not require bubbling (also known as cleansing or surfactant) agents. It’s completely up to you! But, when it comes to your beauty products, your pantry should have lots of emollients, humectants, and emulsifiers. If you want to make products from multiple categories like creams, body washes, and serums then it’s best that you have some ingredients from each category, which we’ll get into down below:

Where To Start: Cream Formulas
Okay now that we have the above in mind, let’s talk about where to start. We’re going to be giving advice based on three different needs which include cream formulas, cleansing formulas, and formulas with actives & botanicals. Let’s start with someone who wants to formulate basic creams and other moisturizing formulas first!

Emulsifiers

The first important ingredient to have on hand in your beauty pantry is emulsifiers. Emulsifiers are important if you’re looking to make anything that is not anhydrous (contains water) and are what bind and keep your oils and waters together. They are critical for creams but also other formulations you wouldn’t necessarily think of (like face washes). Some of our favorite and versatile picks are BTMS-50, Emulsifying wax NF, and Varisoft EQ. It’s always a safe bet to go with BTMS-50 because it works well in hair and skin formulations, but if you’re on a budget than emulsifying wax NF works just fine. We also recommend grabbing a co-emulsifier like stearic acid so your creams don’t destabilize and add texture to your product. Most emulsifiers work best if paired with a co-emulsifier so keep that in mind. To learn more click here.

Preservatives

The most important ingredient category of all is preservatives! You must have one of these in your beauty pantry or you’re wasting your time and money. Without preservatives, your product won’t last and will be unsafe to use, nobody wants that! We recommend liquid germall plus because it’s easy to work with (won’t separate your creams) and because it’s a broad spectrum preservative, so you don’t need to pair it with other preservatives. To learn more about preservatives, click here!

Next Level: Bubbly (Cleansing) Formulas

This is where things get slightly more complicated vs. cream or moisturizing formulas, but don’t let that deter you from going the next step and making bubbly (cleansing) formulas to help clean your skin, hair, and body to perfection.

Surfactants

Now we need to add a new category to our pantry called surfactants. These are what give us the bubbles we want and the cleansing abilities of our products. Some of our favorite surfactants are cocamidopropyl betaine, SCI, and coco glucoside. There are rules when it comes to combining these and other ingredients together based on their chemistry. For example, you can’t combine anionic and cationic surfactants together, they just won’t bind and your formula will fail. There are a couple of exceptions, however, such as honeyquat, which is actually designed to be compatible with anionic surfactants. However, in general, do not mix these two kinds of surfactants together. To make it easy, if you want to try making a face or body wash that gives a deep, thorough clean, we recommend using amphoteric and anionic surfactants. If you’re trying to make a face or body wash that’s more mild and gentle, we recommend combining nonionic and amphoteric surfactants. To read more about surfactants, check out our blog post here.

Botanical Extracts, Actives & Others:
This section is for fun additives to personalize your creations. Extracts are amazing ingredients that have additional benefits and make your products and skin feel more special. Another fun and effective ingredient is hyaluronic acid. It is classified as a humectant due to its water trapping ability, but it’s super easy to work with and is amazing for your skin and hair. You can get it from lotioncrafters, or making cosmetics.

If you have more problematic skin, consider adding niacinamide to your pantry. Also known as vitamin B5, this ingredient packs a skin and hair-loving punch and if you have space in your beauty pantry for it, you should definitely give it a try. Another good ingredient for problematic skin is clay. Which clay you choose is up to you but for “normal” skin we recommend dead sea clay. If you have oiler skin try bentonite, if you’re on the drier side, try rose clay. Another thing to consider is the pH of your products because for ingredients like coco glucoside you will most likely need to adjust the pH with citric acid.