You may wonder, “How can I make a serum for oily skin at home?”

I am here to tell you that you can because I have formulated a recipe for a serum specifically designed for oily skin. This serum will leave your skin feeling refreshed and not oily. It contains only natural ingredients.

It also helps combat acne because of the tea tree essential oil in the recipe.

Before we jump to the recipe, we need to answer a few questions to have a better understanding of oily skin and serum.

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Click here for 10 Tips for Making Natural Skincare Products

Should I Use Serum if I Have Oily Skin?

Yes, because the ingredients in the serum you use can help regulate the sebum in your skin. When looking for a serum, you need to focus on the ingredients that help relieve your face from oil and hydrate the skin.

Hydrating oily skin is important because it helps to regulate your oil production. If you use products that dry out the face, it will irritate the skin. When the skin is irritated, it increases oil production.

Are Serums Good for Acne?

Yes, some serums are specifically created to fight acne. Our face serum for oily skin contains acne and bacteria-fighting ingredients. Some of these star ingredients are tea tree essential oil and witch hazel hydrosol.

You also want your serum to have soothing ingredients to help with fighting acne. In the serum for oily skin, an ingredient that helps with soothing the skin is chamomile extract.

A dropper dispensing natural serum for oily skin.

How to Use Face Serum for Oily Skin?

You have created your masterpiece, and now you are ready to add your serum for oily skin to your skincare routine.

How do you use a face serum for oily skin? Start by using a toner or by getting your face wet. Add the natural serum for oily skin on your damp face. Having damp skin will help the ingredient in the serum quickly penetrate the skin.

Following the application of your natural serum for oily skin, you can use a face moisturizer. Find a moisturizer that is formulated for oily skin and will not clog your pores.

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Ingredients in Natural Serum for Oily Skin

Each ingredient in this recipe on serum for oily skin is natural and plays a key role in helping your skin. Some ingredients help to soothe the skin while others fight acne.

Phase A

Phase A is our slurry. Wait, what is a slurry? The slurry is designed to be our thickening solution in our serum.

The two ingredients in the slurry are:

Glycerin – Helps hydrate the skin.
Xanthan Gum Soft – Thickens the serum.

Why do we have a separate phase for just two ingredients? If you add xanthan gun soft directly to your Phase B, it will not dissolve correctly. This could leave chunks in your serum.

We don’t want that!

Adding xanthan gum soft to glycerin will help it dissolve properly.

If you would like a thicker serum solution, you can increase the percentage of xanthan gum soft in your slurry.

Phase B

Phase B contains some of our star ingredients in the natural serum for oily skin. If you would like to heat your ingredients in a double boiler, in this phase, you may.

Aloe Vera

Aloe vera is a soothing and hydrating ingredient. It helps balance the oils in our skin while hydrating the dry areas.

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

Aloe is a n ingredient in natural serum for oily skin.

Chamomile Extract

Another soothing ingredient in our natural serum for oily skin is chamomile extract.

Formulator Sample Shop mentions, “Chamomile contains 30 different active compounds that have anti-inflammatory properties.”

Click Here to learn more about chamomile in skincare.

Hydrolyzed Oat Protein

Helping to hydrate the skin, hydrolyzed oat protein keeps your skin soft and moisturized.

Most describe the feeling of the skin after using hydrolyzed oat protein as being velvety smooth.

Blueberry Extract

Blueberry extract is known for containing antioxidants and vitamins A and C. The antioxidants in blueberry extract help fight the free radicals in the environment around us.

Witch Hazel Hydrosol

A star ingredient in the natural serum for oily skin is witch hazel hydrosol. Witch hazel hydrosol is a large percentage in the formulation of the serum for oily skin.

One of the reasons why witch hazel hydrosol helps oily skin is because it acts as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and astringent.

The anti-inflammatory and astringent benefits of witch hazel hydrosol fight acne and clear the face of bacteria. It helps to fight acne by reducing the bacteria on the skin.

It also helps to reduce the redness of the skin.

Witch hazel hydrosol in natural serum for oily skin.

Phase C

The ingredients in Phase C are heat sensitive. The two ingredients in this phase are the preservative and essential oil used in natural serum for oily skin.

Leucidal Complete

Our natural preservative is leucidal complete. This preservative is broad-spectrum and fights off bacteria, yeast, and mold in our natural skincare products.

I like using Leucidal Complete vs. Leucidal SF Complete because of the pH levels. It has a lower pH level of 5.0-9.0. On the other hand, Leucidal SF Complete is best in pH levels of 7.0-10.0.

Tea Tree Essential Oil

Another key ingredient for oily skin is tea tree essential oil. This oil is used in our formulation because it contains anti-inflammatory and antibacterial properties.

Click here to learn more about the top ingredients in skincare for oily skin.

Ingredient Substitutions in Natural Serum for Oily Skin

Any substitutions to the recipe could make the formulation come out with a different texture, consistency, and offer different benefits.

Xanthan Gum Soft Substitution

As our thickening agent, xanthan gum soft can be substituted for other xanthan gums. Xanthan gum soft can leave the serum with a hazy look. If you would like to reduce the hazy look, you can use xanthan gum clear as a substitution.

If you desire to add more hydration to the serum for oily skin, you can use hyaluronic acid as a substitute for xanthan gum soft. Hyaluronic acid will gel your serum and increase the hydrating effect.

You can also play with the percentages in the formulation based on how gelled you would like your serum. If you increase the percentage of xanthan gum soft in your formulation, it will be less liquid. If you decrease the xantham gum soft in your formulation, your serum will be more liquid.

Chamomile and Blueberry Extracts Substitution

You can substitute most extracts for chamomile and blueberry extract in your formulation.

Keep in mind the percentage usage rate and pH level of the extract when choosing one other than chamomile and blueberry.

Some extracts that benefit oily skin are:

Hydrolyzed Oat Protein Substitution

As a substitute for hydrolyzed oat protein, you can use other different hydrolyzed proteins. Some proteins add more hydration to the skin.

Some hydrolyzed proteins you can use as substitutions are:

Leucidal Complete Substitution

There are a few different natural preservatives that you can use to substitute for leucidal complete. These natural preservatives run in the leucidal family. Two preservatives are Leucidal SF Complete and Leucidal SF Max.

I would substitute Leucidal SF Max before Leucidal SF Complete due to the pH levels in which they are active. Leucidal SF Max can be in a pH range of 4.0-11.0. On the other hand, Leucidal SF Complete is best in pH levels of 7.0-10.0

Tea Tree Essential Oil Substitution

If you do not like the smell of tea tree essential oil, you can substitute it with other essential oils.

Essential oils that help oily skin are:

Understanding the pH in Natural Serum for Oily Skin

Understanding pH in skincare is very important.

You want your skincare products to be at the same pH as your skin. The pH of your skin ranges from 4.5 to 5.5.

The pH of our natural serum for oily skin should be about 5.0-5.1. This is because witch hazel hydrosol is best in a lower pH, and our preservative needs to be in a pH range of 5.0-9.0.

To adjust the pH, you can use citric acid to make it more acidic and baking soda to make it alkaline. Remember that just a little baking soda or citric acid can go a long way. Just a pinch can adjust the pH range dramatically depending on the amount of natural serum for oily skin you have created.

Three pH meters that you can use are:

Three pH Meters to Check Out:

pH.1-14 Test Paper

pH test strips are best for skincare formulators who do not what to spend a lot of money.

MEKBOK Digital PH Meter Tester

This pH meter will give you the pH level of liquid skincare. I would say it is not as accurate as the Extech PH 110, but it will give you a general idea of what pH level your skincare is at.

Extech PH110 Waterproof ExStik pH Meter

This pH meter is similar to the one I use. I really like this pH meter because it will give me the pH reading of liquids and solids.

Understanding the pH in natural serum for oily skin.

Tools You Will Need

You can find some of the tools you will need to make a natural serum for oily skin around your home.

Click here to learn how to convert the recipe from percentages into grams.

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