Anne-Marie Makes Sea Clay Face Masks | Bramble Berry

Hi everyone, I'm Anne-Marie from BrambleBerry.com. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm going to be showing you how to make this amazing sea clay mask. Now this is one of my favorite recipes we've ever done at BrambleBerry because there are so many different ways to customize it for your skin. Believe it or not, this is a mask that I use as a gentle cleanser on my face, or if I leave it on for 15 minutes, it is a classic mask. So this sea clay mask has a few superstars. First, the extracts we use, and second, the clays we use. Let's talk about those clays. The main ingredient for the clay is a mixture of kaolin clay, which is your classic clay that helps to detoxify, pull oils out of skin, it's been very popular for, well, centuries, and also this really interesting sea clay. Sea clay is a naturally occurring clay that's actually mined and harvested from the bottom of the sea floor, which means it's infused with all the natural goodness that the sea has to offer. In terms of its color, it's a little bit green, a little bit heavier than, say, your naturally occurring kaolin clays. I love it in this recipe, A, because it imparts color, but B, it also really gives you all the goodness of the sea. Another reason I really love this mask is the texture of it. It feels like a classic clay mask. Now the way we do that, though, is by creating an emulsion, meaning you and I are going to make a little bit of lotion today. If that feels like a lot to you, don't worry. You can always take the dry ingredients and mix them with just water, or mix them with oil, or also just mix them with a little pre-made moisturizer. In this case, we're going to be making it together, and I've also added an extract. This is one of my favorite extracts because I tend to have a little bit more of a ruddy, red-like complexion, and the ginseng extract from Bramble Berry is one of those extracts that's reported to have some anti-inflammatory, anti-redness properties. Now before we get started, let's talk a little bit about preservatives. This product is a wet product, meaning there's water in it. Anytime you have water in anything you make that is a lotion-like substance, you've got to preserve it. In this case, we're using Optifen. I love using Optifen because it's a broad-spectrum preservative that really works well at a wide range of temperatures and pHs. And then one final ingredient I just want to call out is the tea tree essential oil. Bramble Berry's tea tree essential oil is exquisite in cosmetic applications. First of all, it smells herbaceous and green and fresh, but really, it has all those things you've always heard about tea tree oil. Supposedly, it's anti-inflammatory. It also supposedly is antibacterial. Supposedly, it's good for combination skin. All of those things, and just anecdotally, speaking from personal experience, as someone that does have combination skin, hi there, t-zone, it's fantastic on my skin, and I think you're going to love it. You could always use lavender essential oil as well if tea tree isn't your thing. And this is optional. If you have super sensitive skin or you just don't like any essential oils or fragrances in your products, you can omit it as well. So first things first, I have disinfected all of my products, meaning I put them in a 5% bleach water solution. That's my spoon, my stick blender, and my glass containers. Second of all, if you are making this product for sale, and absolutely you can and should if that's something you're interested in, I want you to make sure you're following good manufacturing GMP practices, which means putting your hair back in a hairnet, and wearing gloves, and making sure you have a clean kitchen environment. When we make lotions, there's two phases. One, there's your water phase, and two, there's your oil and waxes phase. We want to make sure they're about the same temperature. So first things first, I'm going to heat up my water in the microwave till it's about 160 degrees. So while that water is heating up, it's time to measure out our oils and waxes. Now, the recipe is going to be below, so be sure and look for that. We're using some really great lightweight oils, and the reason I chose these lightweight oils is because, well, this is going to be going on my face, and I want to make sure that they are non-pore clogging oils. And so that's why I chose them. You can always substitute out if you want a slightly heavier oil. So the two oils I chose to use were apricot kernel oil and avocado oil, and both of those are fantastic for skin. They really help to make your skin feel moist, and supple, and soft. For this recipe, I'm actually using a combination of two different emulsifying waxes. Now, emulsifying wax NF means, it stands for national formulary. It's kind of a generic term, and there's lots of different emulsifying waxes out there. I find that the ones that Bramble Berry carries, kind of the gold standard, the BTMS 50 conditioning emulsifier mixed with the polo wax really keeps this recipe together wonderfully. Now, if you don't have any of those on hand, and you have a more generic emulsifying wax NF, go ahead and try it. But just know that I have had a little bit of separation in the past when I didn't use, again, the gold standard kind of name brand perfect emulsifying wax for this recipe. I like the combination of the emulsifying wax, the polo wax, and the BTMS 50 because the BTMS 50 has conditioning agents added to it. That adds to the kind of smoothness of the entire recipe, and I really like how that feels on my face. Now, I'm going to take this entire mixture and heat it up in the microwave until it's about 160 degrees. So now that our oils and waxes are heated, and our water is heated, it's time to do our clay. So this is our sea clay, and what I like to do is just measure it out before. I work in weight, like all cosmetic recipes, and that way I can make sure there's no clumps, and I can also make sure the kale and the sea clay are mixed really well together. So in this case, you'll notice a really big difference in color. We have that green, we have that white. Now I'm just going to mix these two together, and once I start mixing them together, any clumps that are there will definitely present themselves. Now don't forget, I'm going to be stick blending this in as well, so that's going to help work out the clumps. Now that this is all mixed up, I am going to go ahead and put it to the side, and then start working making my emulsified base. Now notice I haven't put my optifine in, I haven't put my extracts in, and I haven't put my tea tree essential oil in. Those go in last when we're at our most cool. So I have my stick blender now, and I have my water and my oils and waxes, and now I'm just going to pour in, and you don't have to pour slowly. The emulsification starts right away. Go ahead and turn that stick blender on, and we're going to start emulsifying, meaning mixing our waters and waxes and oils together. Now that this is, well, starting to get emulsified, it's time to start adding our clays, and I add the clays really slowly because I need them to mix in evenly and not clump on me. So I just do a spoonful or two at a time, and then stick blend. It's a little bit of a process, but I promise you, it's so worth it. It's starting to get to be a really nice, thick consistency, but definitely not quite mask-like yet, and this will thicken as it cools down as well. Now, if you start to notice this is getting a little thick, and you're like, ooh, how am I going to get all this in? Don't worry. You can pop it right back in the microwave because we haven't put the preservative in, we haven't put the extract in, and we haven't put the essential oil in. So in terms of things that can actually take the heat, this can actually take the heat. So I'm just going to pop this back in the microwave for 30 seconds. Now this is out of the microwave. It's way looser, way better consistency. I'm going to be able to get the very last of this clay in there and get ready to put in my additional ingredients. Almost ready to add in my optifine, my tea tree, and my ginseng extract, but first I want to make sure I get all the clay and get everything really mixed in well. I'm just taking my spatula and scraping down the sides, and now I'll give it one final stick blend before I start doing my more delicate ingredients. First things first, I'm going to check my temperatures. Preservatives are one of those things that work in a narrow band of temperatures, and you always want to make sure that you're within the range that you can work with the preservative. In this case, I like to work with optifine at about 120 to 130. I'm at 123 right now, so we're good. I'm going to be doing just the right amount of the optifine, which is just about 0.2 ounces, and then next I'm going to add my ginseng extract, and the ginseng, I've got a full half ounce in here. Really want all those amazing anti-redness and anti-inflammatory properties, and then finally my tea tree, and the tea tree, I'm just using two milliliters in the entire thing. First of all, the scent is pretty strong, but second of all, you really don't need to use all that much to get its anti-inflammatory properties. I'm going to take all of this, gently hand stir it just a little bit. What happens if you turn on the stick blender early with all of that kind of pool of liquid on the top is the liquid goes everywhere. I'm just going to hand stir it in just a little bit before I turn that stick blender on. Notice it's breaking my emulsion nicely, totally to be expected. We're just going to stick blend that right back up. I'm going to take my spatula, and just like we did before, I'm going to get all the stuff down off the sides because we need this recipe to be complete, meaning we need all of those antioxidants in there, we need all the preservative in there, we need everything in there for this recipe to work. Now it's time to pour. So these are the Bramble Berry Bail jars, and I love them because they seal beautifully for transit, and this consistency is really nice right now. Now, right now since we've added the preservative, we would not be able to reheat this in the microwave, so keep that in mind and be prepared to work quickly once you've added your preservative, your extract, and your essential oil. There is enough in this recipe to make four pretty full bail jars, and of course this is so precious you don't want to miss any of it, so just use a spatula to scrape it down. And the final thing to do is to let these cool with the lids open so condensation does not form on the top of the lids, and then put labels on them. You can find the cute little labels that we have at BrambleBerry.com and they're available for download there. So I let these cool at least probably overnight, and then how you use this product, so this product as you can see is very thick, and it is fantastic as a mask, that's what we made it as. I will often just put it on as a normal kind of skin cleanser though, so I like to use a Clarisonic facial brush at home, and so I'll just toss this on my face and then Clarisonic away, and it removes dirt and impurities and cleans my face just as well as any regular cleanser does, or you can use it and leave it on your skin for a strong 15 minutes. You'll notice it starts to crack and dry just like a normal clay mask does. If you liked this recipe, Bramble Berry has a variety of other facial masks that you can try that are equally fantastic. I'd love to see what you make with all of our ideas, so make sure when you're posting on social media you use the hashtag BrambleOn. We love to see what you're doing, the community loves to see what you're doing, and quite frankly you inspire me every single day with the really cool stuff you make with Bramble Berry products. Until next time you guys, bye.