Formulation Advice for Your Ingredients

Thank you for your question! You have several useful ingredients:

• Activated Resorcinol
• Shea butter
• Aristoflex AVC
• White oil (Mineral oil)
• Isopropyl Myristate
• Tween20

You are interested in making a body lotion, specifically combining Activated Resorcinol, Shea butter, and Aristoflex AVC for moisturizing benefits.

To create a stable lotion, which is an emulsion of oil and water, you typically need a primary emulsifier to bind the oil and water phases together.

Let's look at the ingredients you have and their roles:

• Activated Resorcinol: This is an excellent skin brightening active ingredient. It is soluble in oil and should be used at a concentration of no more than 1% in leave-on products.
• Shea butter: As you noted, this is a great moisturizer, providing emollience to the skin. It is an oil-phase ingredient and needs to be heated to melt for incorporation into a formula. It can be used at high concentrations.
• Aristoflex AVC: This acts as a thickener and gel-forming agent for the water phase. It can help stabilize a formula and suspend some oil (up to 15-20%), but it is generally not sufficient as the sole emulsifier for a lotion with a significant oil phase like Shea butter.
• White oil (Mineral oil) and Isopropyl Myristate: These are emollients that provide slip and moisture to the skin. They are oil-phase ingredients.
• Tween20: This is a solubilizer or co-emulsifier. While it helps disperse oils in water, it is typically not strong enough on its own to create a stable lotion emulsion, especially with solid fats like Shea butter.

Based on the ingredients you have, you have oil-phase components (Shea butter, Mineral oil, Isopropyl Myristate), a water-phase thickener (Aristoflex AVC), a solubilizer/co-emulsifier (Tween20), and an oil-soluble active (Activated Resorcinol).

Creating a stable lotion texture requires a primary emulsifier that can effectively bridge the oil and water phases. Since you do not have a primary emulsifier among your ingredients, achieving a stable, well-emulsified lotion texture using only these materials will be challenging. The mixture may separate over time.

While you can combine these ingredients, the resulting texture and stability may not be that of a typical lotion. For a stable lotion, you would generally need to add a suitable primary emulsifier.