Equipment Required
- Crystal OPC
- Cake Mixer or electric whisk
- Additives if required
- Spatula
- Container to decant the product into once whipped
- Piping bag & nozzle (if needed)
3 Steps to Process Crystal OPC
1. Preparation
- If you are using a cake mixer or industrial mixer, ensure you have enough base. During our testing, we used a standard mixer with a 3.5L capacity bowl and between 800g to 1kg of Crystal OPC. If you do not have enough base, it will stick to the sides and not mix/whip thoroughly enough to produce a fluffy whipped finished product. We recommend scraping the base from the sides of the mixer/bowl to ensure the base is fully whipped.
- Open the box and begin cutting the base from the top to the bottom. Cut the base into 4cm to 5cm chunks and add them to your mixing vessel. If you do not cut the base into small chunks, it can result in poor whipping or even break your equipment.
2. Mix
- Begin mixing the Crystal OCP-start your mixer slow and begin to increase the speed to its highest setting as the base begins to loosen. Avoid mixing the base on a continually slow setting, as this will result in a poor whipped product.
- Once you are 3 to 4 minutes into whipping the base. Reduce the speed of your mixer and gently add your additives (preventing them from overflowing from the vessel).
Recommendations: We recommend adding up to 2 to 3% exfoliants, fragrances, essential oils, and butter. Please note adding anything to the base will change the formulation and could change the consistency of your finished product or result in the base splitting.
Whipping – We recommend whipping the base between 10 and 15 minutes.
Texture – If you wish to make the base softer, you can add up to 8% water to achieve your desired texture.
Additives, Colour, Fragrance, and Essential Oils – We recommend adding between 2 to 3 & fragrances and/or essential oils. **Please note – adding anything extra to the base (sugar, fragrance, color, water, etc) will change the formulation and will need to be challenge tested to test the preservation of the product. Exceeding the recommended 2 to 3% of additives could result in the base becoming sticky/sloppy or firming up depending on what oils/butter you are using.
Adding exfoliants – We recommend adding sugar, salt, poppy seeds, or any other commonly available cosmetic exfoliant. Using a 50/50 ratio of Crystal OPC to exfoliant produces a high-performing scrub. Using anything more than 50/50 will make mixing the product difficult and could damage equipment. Create small batches with varying ratios of exfoliant to meet your desired product texture before creating a large batch.
What to avoid – We would not recommend adding glycerine as this will result in your base becoming sticky.
3. Create
Once the base has been whipped and all the additives are consistently mixed in, decant your base using a spatula or piping bag into your chosen packaging.