Easy Aloe Vera Face Serum Recipe

Most skincare products that use aloe vera as an ingredient will soothe your skin and balances oily and dry areas of the skin. This aloe vera face serum recipe will create a soothing serum beneficial for oily and dry skin types.

This aloe vera face serum recipe is an easy DIY skincare formulation. It contains only clean and natural ingredients that keep your skin happy and healthy.

Before we dive into the ingredients and recipe, we need to learn more about aloe vera serums.

What Does Aloe Vera Serum Do for the Skin?

Aloe vera serums help quickly soothe, hydrate, and protect the skin from environmental stressors. Applying an aloe vera serum to the face every day will calm inflamed and irritated skin. 

Aloe vera serums will help balance natural oils while hydrating the dry areas of the skin. Because aloe vera helps balance the skin, aloe vera serums are beneficial for oily, dry, sensitive, and combination skin types.

How Do You Use Aloe Vera Serum?

Aloe vera serums can be added to AM and PM skincare routines. It also can be applied one to two times per day. Before applying aloe vera serum, dampen the skin with water or a toner. This will help the molecules in the aloe vera serum seep deep into the skin.

After applying the aloe vera face serum, you may use a moisturizer for additional hydration to the skin.

Ingredients in Aloe Vera Face Serum Recipe

The ingredients in this aloe vera face serum recipe are divided into three different phases. Each phase includes only clean and natural ingredients that will keep your skin happy and healthy.

Phase A

In the first phase of our aloe vera face serum recipe, we have two ingredients, glycerin, and hyaluronic acid. 

These ingredients are in a separate phase because of the hyaluronic acid. To help the hyaluronic acid dissolve in your serum, you need to mix it with glycerin before adding it into phase B. 

If you add hyaluronic acid right into phase B without mixing it with glycerin first, it will remain chunky in your serum.

Glycerin 

Glycerin is a humectant. This means that it draws water to the skin keeping it very hydrated. 

If your serum has a sticky feeling to it, that is probably because of the glycerin in the recipe. Glycerin will sometimes leave your skin feeling a little sticky. To reduce the sticky feeling, you can decrease the percentage of glycerin used in the recipe.

Hyaluronic Acid

Hyaluronic acid is an ingredient used to gel the aloe vera serum and add hydrating benefits to the skin. 

When choosing the hyaluronic acid that you will use in a formulation, you will notice there are high and low molecular weights. This aloe vera face serum recipe uses a high molecular weight hyaluronic acid. 

If you are looking at the Daltons of the hyaluronic acid used in the aloe vera face serum recipe, it is 1.0-1.5 Million Daltons.

Phase B

Next, we have phase B in our aloe vera face serum recipe. The ingredients in phase B consist of aloe vera liquid, cucumber hydrosol, hydrolyzed oats, niacinamide, and chamomile extract. Most of these ingredients offer soothing benefits to the skin.

Aloe Vera Liquid

The star ingredient in this serum recipe is aloe vera liquid. Aloe vera is known to contain skin-soothing properties and antioxidants. It also helps balance the natural oils of the skin while hydrating the dry areas.

Aloe vera is full of polyphenols. These polyphenols act as antioxidants by guarding the skin against environmental stressors.

Aloe vera also contains many vitamins and minerals.

Cucumber Hydrosol

Another soothing ingredient in the aloe vera face serum recipe is cucumber hydrosol. Cucumber hydrosol not only adds a fresh cucumber scent to the serum but also has other wonderful benefits.

Cucumber hydrosol is known to help hydrate the skin and reduce signs of aging. It also helps soothe inflammation and skin issues such as acne. 

Hydrolyzed Oats

The next ingredient in phase B is hydrolyzed oats. The hydrolyzed oats from lotion crafter are gluten-free and naturally derived.

Hydrolyzed oats give the skin a soft and cushiony feel. It also helps hydrate the skin by helping it retain moisture.

Niacinamide

Niacinamide, also known as vitamin B3, offers several benefits to the skin. It helps improve the look of aging skin by reducing wrinkles and improving the appearance of hyperpigmented spots.

Another benefit that niacinamide offers the skin is that it helps to regulate oil and increase hydration. This makes it an ingredient that is friendly toward oily and dry skin types.

Niacinamide is picky when it comes to pH levels. Your final solution with niacinamide should come to a pH level of 6.

Chamomile Extract

The final ingredient in phase B is chamomile extract. Chamomile extract is gentle on sensitive skin and helps to soothe irritated skin.

Another benefit chamomile extract offers the skin is it contains anti-inflammatory properties. These anti-inflammatory properties help protect the skin from free radical damage and stressors in the environment that could cause premature aging of the skin.

Phase C

Finally, in the recipe for aloe vera face serum, we have phase C. In phase C we have our preservative, Leucidal Liquid Complete. Leucidal liquid complete is a broad-spectrum natural preservative. 

When working with a preservative, you need to know what pH range it works best in. Leucidal liquid completely works best in a pH range of 5.0 to 9.0. This means that the pH of our aloe vera face serum will need to be within that range to be protected from mold, yeast, and bacteria.

Ingredient Substitutions for Aloe Vera Face Serum Recipe

If you would like to make this recipe your own, you may try some substitutions in the recipe. Any substitutions done to the recipe will make the serum contain different benefits, and it may possess a different feel to it as well.

Hyaluronic Acid Substitution

The main purpose of hyaluronic acid in the aloe vera face serum recipe is as a gelling agent. If you do not include a gelling agent, the serum will be very liquidy and hard to apply to the face.

One substitution that you can use for hyaluronic acid is xanthan gum soft. If you use xanthan gum in your recipe, you will need to adjust the pH to be between 6.0-and 8.0 for the xanthan gum soft to work properly.

Cucumber Hydrosol Substitution

There are many different hydrosols that you can substitute for cucumber hydrosol. You can mix the different hydrosols as well. I would recommend testing the hydrosols together first to know that you like the scent they create when they are mixed.

Some hydrosol that would work as substitutions for cucumber is rose and chamomile. Both rose and chamomile hydrosols act as anti-inflammatories helping soothe the skin.

Hydrolyzed Oats Substitution

There are a handful of different hydrolyzed ingredients you can substitute for hydrolyzed oats. Wheat and rice are two popular hydrolyzed ingredients that people use in skincare products.

Chamomile Extract Substitution

Depending on the benefits that you want your aloe vera face serum to contain will determine the substitution you choose for chamomile extract. Chamomile extract is in our aloe vera face serum recipe because of the soothing properties it contains. 

You can use most water-soluble extracts as a substitute for chamomile extract in this recipe.

Leucidal Complete Substitution

Due to the ingredients in our aloe vera face serum recipe, you can not go without a preservative. There are other preservatives you can use from the leucidal family, such as leucidal SF complete and leucidal SF max. 

When choosing a different preservative, it is important to look at the different pH levels that they work in. The pH ranges that these three preservatives work well in are:

• Leucidal SF Complete: 7.0 – 10.0
• Leucidal Complete: 5.0-9.0
• Leucidal SF Max: 4.0-11.0

All three preservatives are broad-spectrum and will protect your products from mold, yeast, and bacteria.

Adjusting the pH of Aloe Vera Face Serum Recipe

Measuring the pH level of your aloe vera face serum is a necessary step to make sure your skincare products are safe for the skin. 

When you make a formulation, you need to look at the pH levels in which each ingredient works well. Do not use ingredients that do not work at the same pH levels.

There are three different pH meters that you can use to measure your serum.

If you need to adjust the pH of your serum, you can use citric acid or baking soda. You will use citric acid to make the product more acidic, and baking soda will make it more alkaline. When using citric acid and baking soda to adjust the pH, do very little at a time because a small sprinkle can adjust the pH drastically.

Tools You Will Need for Aloe Vera Face Serum Recipe

 There are a few basic tools you will need to make this aloe vera face serum recipe. Some of these tools can be found around your home.