DIY Rose Petal Skin Cream Recipe

Homemade rose petal skin cream recipe that you can make with fresh flowers, rich oils, and beautifully scented essential oil. This is a nourishing skin cream that tones and smooths while plumping the skin.

Roses have many skin beneficial properties and extracts from their petals are shown to be anti-inflammatory and moisturizing. That means that while it’s working to soothe redness, it locks moisture in making your skin appear just as smooth and soft as the rose petals themselves. Rose extract also works as a gentle toner, balancing your skin’s pH while leaving a lingering rosy fragrance.

Using I’m going to show you how to make your rose petal skin cream using homemade rose water and a few other ingredients. It’s light pink in color, thick like a mousse, and feels incredible as you massage it in. From start to finish it will take you about thirty minutes and can be very inexpensive to make.

Make Homemade Rose Water

The first thing that you’ll need to do is make a batch of homemade rose water. It’s very easy to do and is essentially an infusion of fresh rose petals. You gently heat them with water and when they’ve lost their color you strain the pink liquid from them.

If roses are blooming for you right now, pluck some from your own garden to make the rose water. My favourite type to use are deeply scented wild roses. Alternatively you can invest in a gorgeous bottle of genuine rose water. It will have a lot more natural rose fragrance than your homemade versions and the rose extracts will be more intense.

What You’ll Need to Make Skin Cream

Most of the equipment you’ll need is likely already in your kitchen. I highly recommend you invest in the digital scale to ensure your recipe is accurate. I’ve included volume measurements though for if you’re not able to get a hold of one.

• A heat-proof glass (canning jar) or metal cup
• Two pans you can use as a double boiler
• Milk frother or Immersion blender
• Pocket digital scale
• pH strips
• A spoon
• Sterilized pots to store your body cream in

Rose Petal Skin Cream Recipe

The oils I’ve chosen for this recipe are jojoba and sweet almond. Jojoba is very close in structure to human sebum so makes an excellent base for a natural cream. Sweet almond is much lighter and will balance any potential oily feeling. This recipe makes about 200ml, or two pots of rose skin cream.

Oil phase

• 10g (3 tsp) Golden Jojoba oil
• 30g (7 tsp) Sweet almond oil
• 15g (4.5 tsp) Emulsifying Wax NF

Water phase

• 140g (0.58 US cups) Rose water

Cooling phase

• 1/8 tsp (0.5g) Vitamin E oil
• 50 drops (1/2 tsp) Rose-Geranium or Rose Absolute essential oil
• Broad Spectrum preservative. I’m using 1.5g (1/2 tsp) Geogard Ultra, also known as Microgard, mixed with 3g (3/4 tsp) of hot water. Another one to use is Leucidal
• 1/16 tsp (0.25g) Baking soda (Bicarbonate of soda in the UK) mixed with 3g of hot water

More Skincare Recipes

• Aloe Vera Skin Cream Recipe
• Calendula Skin Cream Recipe
• Old-fashioned Rose Soap Recipe

Step 1: Measure and Heat

Measure all of the oil phase ingredients into a small sauce pan and the rose water into a heat-proof jar or container. The milk frother or immersion blender should be able to fit inside the container. Heat both using the double boiler technique — float the pan inside another one filled with hot water. Heat on medium to medium-high until the oils and wax have melted. The oils in the pan and the rose water should be about 150°F / 66°C.

Through experience I’ve found that you don’t necessarily need to measure the temperature. Leaving the oil to heat in the pan for a few minutes after it’s melted suffices. The water should be heating at the same time. If you want to be accurate though, invest in an infrared thermometer. They’re not too expensive.

Step 2: Emulsify the Skin Cream

Pour the melted oil phase ingredients into the container of rose water. I love using this metal travel mug that I nabbed off my partner. You’ll notice that the water will go opaque very quickly.

Now submerge the immersion blender into the mug. You can also use a small milk frother for this but the former will speed up the process. Blend until the mixture thickens up and it will literally take only about a minute or less. It will still be a bit runny. Think slightly beaten double cream. The thickening will tell you that the emulsifier has done its job of bonding the oil and water together. Blending with a spoon also works but will take longer.

Step 3: Cooling Phase Ingredients

Let the lotion cool down to about 122˚F (45˚C ) before stirring in your essential oil, vitamin e, and preservative. It will have thickened quite a bit more by this time and you’ll be able to spoon it up.

Step 4: Balance the pH

With lotions and creams you really need to make sure that the pH is in the appropriate range of 4.5-5.5. pH measures how acidic or alkaline a solution is and if your beauty cream is out of that range then it can make your skin feel dry and tight.

Oftentimes it’s the preservative that can lower the pH in a recipe. If you use a preservative other than Geogard Ultra then testing with pH strips is going to be very important. When I tested my recipe it gave me a reading of about 3.5 so I adjusted it by adding a tiny amount of baking soda (bicarbonate of soda).

I mixed 1/16tsp (0.25g) of baking soda with 3/4 tsp water (3g) and stirred it into my lotion. Afterwards I got a much better reading. If you find that for some reason your lotion has a higher pH, you can bring it back down by mixing in a tiny amount of citric acid. Make sure to mix any powders in a tiny amount of hot water before you stir it in though.

Rose Petal Skin Cream

Once you finish making the skin cream and pot it up, it will have a shelf-life of up to 18 months. It’s longevity is dependent on the preservative you use though — refer to your product’s details. If you choose not to use a preservative, you should really aim to use the cream within a week and ensure that it’s refrigerated. Any longer than that and bacteria and microbes will start colonizing the skin cream. You really don’t want to be putting them on your skin.

This rose petal skin cream is thick and creamy and perfect for moisturizing hands and body. It may be a bit too thick to use on your face but I’ve just tried and like the feeling. If your skin is feeling tired and dry, this is the cream for you.