DIY Cosmetic Formulation Tools & Equipment

 

As a beginner cosmetic formulation student, I have started buying tools and equipment for my homebased cosmetic laboratory. My mini laboratory is still an ongoing project as there are items in this list that I don’t possess yet. However, if you are serious about being a cosmetic formulator, then here are the essential tools and equipment that you can start adding to your artisan cosmetic lab.

1. Laboratory Glass Beakers

Image Credit: Labotech Trading

High quality beakers made from borosilicate glass are essential in any cosmetic laboratory. Being heat resistant, they are the perfect vessel to use when heating raw materials with high melting point. It’s great to have glass beakers of various volume to suit different batch sizes. In my case I have beakers in 50ml, 100ml, 250ml and 500ml.

Where to buy: Labotech Trading

2. Digital Weighing Scale

Image Credit: Raw Essentials PH

In cosmetic formulation, we measure raw materials by weight instead of volume. That’s why it’s a must to invest in an accurate digital weighing scale. Two important things to consider when buying digital scale are precision and capacity. In terms of precision, you can either buy a scale with a precision of 0.1g or 0.01g. I actually recommend the 0.01g scale especially if you’re working with smaller batch size and you need to weigh raw ingredients in tiny amount. On the other hand, the capacity of your scale depends highly on your batch size. In my case, I only use 500g capacity scale since I only work on smaller batch size.

Where to buy: Raw Essentials PH

3. Stirring Tools

Image Credit: Raw Essentials PH | Labotech Trading

Stirring utensils are the most often used item in my DIY toolbox. Especially when you’re making lotion and cream, you’re going to do a lot of stirring. I like switching between a glass stirring rod and a stainless spatula depending on my mood.

Where to buy:

Glass stirring rod – Raw Essentials PH

Stainless spatula - Labotech Trading

4. Digital Thermometer

Image Credit: Raw Essentials PH

When you’re making an emulsion (e.g. lotion) using a hot process emulsifier, you would normally need to heat both water and oil phase at a certain temperature (e.g. 75C). For this purpose, you will need to use a thermometer with broad temperature range and not just ordinary thermometer that measures body temperature. You may either use a laboratory thermometer or a digital food thermometer.

Where to buy: Raw Essentials PH

5. Disposable Pipettes

Image Credit: Labotech Trading

I normally use disposable pipettes for essential oils and other liquid raw materials. I know that disposable pipettes are not environment-friendly but they’re the perfect tool to avoid cross-contamination among your raw materials. However, one trick you can also do is to designate a pipette for each liquid raw materials you are using. This way, you can both avoid raw materials cross-contamination and disposing pipettes every time.

Where to buy: Labotech Trading

6. pH Strips & pH Meter

Image Credit: Labotech Trading

Whenever you formulate a product that contains water (e.g. toners, lotions, shampoo, etc.), you are required to measure its pH so that you can adjust the pH accordingly to make the cosmetic product safe for the skin or hair. Also, if you’re using natural preservatives (which are more pH sensitive), then you also need to adjust the pH so that it is within the range of the preservatives used, which in turn makes the cosmetic product more stable.

As a beginner formulator, it is sufficient to just use pH strips. As you gain more experience, you can invest on a good quality pH meter to get more accurate pH readings. Take note though that pH meters are more expensive and require calibration.

Where to buy:

Digital pH Meter – Labotech Trading

pH Strips - Labotech Trading

7. Immersion Blender

Image Credit: Sonifer

Immersion blender is an indispensable equipment when making an emulsion (e.g. lotion, cream, etc.) which requires high shear mixing. It speeds up the process of making a stable emulsion as compared to manual hand mixing.

Where to buy: Sonifer

8. Magnetic Stirrer

Image Credit: FashionLiving.Ph

Magnetic stirrer is a laboratory device that makes use of a rotating magnetic field to move a stir bar that is immersed in a liquid. The movement produced by the stir bar enables liquid sample to be mixed thoroughly at a faster pace. This is the reason why magnetic stirrer is very useful when hydrating or dispersing cellulose gums (e.g. carboxymethyl cellulose) and polymers (e.g. carbomer) which require longer stirring time.

Where to buy: FashionLiving.Ph

9. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Image Credit: Indoplas | Raw Essentials PH

Even if you’re formulating cosmetic products at home, it is still very important to follow Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP). Part of GMP is to make use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) not only to protect your products from contamination during manufacturing but also to protect yourself from possible chemical accidents (e.g. accidentally spilling undiluted essential oils to your skin). As a minimum PPE requirement, I normally wear disposable gloves and safety googles. When working with fine powder raw materials, I also wear face mask to avoid inhaling the fine particles.

Where to buy:

Disposable gloves – Indoplas

Safety goggles - Raw Essentials PH

Face masks – Indoplas

10. Coffee Grinder / Herb Grinder

Image Credit: Sonifer

If you’re into mineral makeup formulation, then you know how hard it is to manually hand mix pigment powders homogenously so that there wouldn’t be any white streak. In this case, it is better to use a coffee grinder or herb grinder (for smaller batch) when mixing your pigment powders. Make sure that you have a dedicated coffee grinder or herb grinder for your DIY cosmetic projects.

Where to buy:

Coffee Grinder – Sonifer

Herb Grinder – Dehonest.PH

Do you use other DIY cosmetic formulation tools and equipment not on this list? Share them on the comment section below J

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Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links and purchase the products, I’ll receive some commission.