Effective Ingredients

Extracts, Distillates, Hydrosols, and Tinctures are effective and wonderful ingredients to incorporate into your skincare, and haircare. They can add color, scent, and can replace water sometimes, to add extra beneficial attributes to your formulations, but you may be asking yourself “What exactly are extracts, hydrosols, distillates and tinctures and what’s the difference between them?” Well, you’re not alone, many ask the same questions!

Distillates = Something formed by distilling. Distillates, which are also known by many other names such as Hydrosols, and Floral Waters. Distillates are made by taking raw material (flowers, leaves, roots, wood) and loading it into a distillation still with approximately three to five times its weight in water. The steam passes through the material, lifts and carries the essential oil particles into the column and then into a condenser. The mix of water and Essential Oil is collected in a decanter where the separation of the two happens. The water that is collected from the bottom of the decanter is Hydrosol or Floral water. This water will contain up to .02% essential oil giving the distillate its scent and usually will smell pleasingly fragrant. The essential oil, which naturally floats on top, is collected from the top of the decanter. Distillates can be used directly on the skin for their astringent qualities or used to replace water in any cosmetic formulation. We use such Hydrosols and distillates along with Aloe Vera juice to replace water in most of our Private Label Skincare products, both for Skincare and haircare.

Extracts and Tinctures

The important, although somewhat confusing distinction here is that all tinctures are extracts, but not all extracts are tinctures. Tinctures are concentrated extracts that use alcohol as the solvent. We seldom use tinctures, as we do not really advocate the use of alcohol in our products. Imagine making a nice cup of your favorite tea, but instead of boiling water, you’re using alcohol. Using alcohol will increase the concentration of your tea, as alcohol is a much more powerful solvent than water and will probably make you tipsy if you drink it. Extracts use many other solvents besides alcohol. This would include your morning cup of coffee or tea. Some extracts are made using parabens as a solvent. The parabens impart their preservative properties which then can act as a preservative in cosmetic products. If you prefer to use extracts rather than tinctures and are opposed to having any parabens in your products, be sure to ask what solvent was used before purchasing your extract.

Here at Private Label Skincare Florida do not use parabens at all in any extract or tinctures. We prefer using natural, wild-crafted, or certified organic raw materials infused into 190 proof, certified organic cane sugar alcohol and we recommend this method. it is the one and only alcohol that we ever use, and use it rarely.

The resulting concentration is diluted with pure deionized water making these lovely tinctures suitable for replacing water in our cosmetic formulations. Organic alcohol extracts the widest spectrum of a plant’s phytochemicals and is ideal for extracting natural alpha-hydroxy acids such as citric and malic acid from lemon peel, ascorbic acid from orange peel, glycolic and lactic acid from cane sugar, malic and citric acid from bilberries, and citric, malic, tartaric and oxalic acid from cranberries.  While these are suitable for some kinds of skin and haircare and are natural, we still prefer to use Aloe Vera juice as our base, we also love rose hydrosol.  These are the safest base and we often count on them.

Here at Private Label Skincare Florida, being Certified Organic, and as natural as we can, we strive to help you understand every process necessary to bring your superior product to market, and grow your business to the best that it can be, and give your customers the best available products at a very great price.  Call us today and let us help you create the best hair and skincare line in the industry.