Adding aloe vera can take your facial cleanser from great to freakin' awesome, so let's take a look at why we might include this ingredient to a facial cleanser!

For this series, I encouraged you to get aloe vera liquid. I generally add 10% of this wonderfui liquid to act as a film former, emollient, and anti-inflammatory. It increases mildness and can thicken your product thanks to all those electrolytes, so you may need to reduce your use of Crothix or other thickeners when you add this ingredient.

I need to be clear that we aren't using the gel here as it's thickened with a carbomer, and that can break down in a surfactant mix. You can use the gel if you want, but it is easier to incorporate the liquid.

You can aloe vera it at higher levels than 10%, but I find this is the optimal level for skin feel and thickening the product.
If you bought the aloe vera extract organic 200x from Voyageur Soap & Candle*, or if you have any of this powder that you re-hydrate, here's a tip from me on how I use it! I measure 1 gram of the powdered aloe vera and add it to 198 grams of distilled water and 1 gram liquid Germall Plus, mix well, then use in my products as if I was using aloe vera liquid. So when my recipe below calls for 10% aloe vera, I use the re-hydrated aloe vera powder liquid at 10% of the recipe.

The preservative is not optional. It never is in a water containing product, but especially with a botanical product like aloe vera! Feel free to choose from an arr...