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An easy to make, gentle all-in-one cleanser, this DIY micellar water is perfect for sensitive skin. Find out what is micellar water and if you should use it.
What is Micellar water?
Micellar water is a water based cleanser that is normally used to gently cleanse your face without the need to rinse it off afterwards. It pretty much looks like water, but it has gentle cleansing and moisturizing qualities. Micellar water can be used as an all-in-one cleanser, and is especially great for those who are always on the go (Who has time to rinse?) or those with sensitive skin.
While it is usually said to be good for all skin types, it may be a bit mild for those with overly oily skin or those who wear a lot of oil based or waterproof makeups. That said, I used it to remove my DIY Halloween costume makeup off my son’s face between a school activity and a birthday party, and it worked perfectly. I’ve also found it to work well at removing long lasting type lipsticks.
Micellar water is made up of micelles that are suspended in the aqueous (water based) ingredients of the cleanser. It all sounds quite fancy, which is why most micellar waters are pretty pricey, but it is really quite simple and really doesn’t distinguish these cleansing waters from other types of cleansers (which also have micelles).
What are Micelles?
Micelles are basically little formations of surfactants that come together and are suspended in the water or aqueous ingredients of the cleanser. When using a low concentration of surfactants, as you do in a non-rinse product like this one, the micelles stay in a sphere formation. Surfactants have a hydrophilic (water loving) head and hydrophobic (water “fearing”) tail. So when you mix together the surfactants and water, the surfactants tails will start to hide from the water, coming together to form these little spheres of surfactants.
The idea when using micellar water is that the oils and dirt of your skin will join together with the hydrophobic tails of the surfactants, and be wiped away with them.
What are surfactants?
Surfactants lower the surface tension between liquids. They can act as detergents or emulsifiers, or have other qualities. Most detergents, shampoos, and shower gels are surfactant based.
Up until now, I have focused this blog on soap based cleansers because I wanted to give people a simple, natural way to clean their homes and bodies. In the natural communities, soaps are generally embraced by almost everybody, and it’s quite easy to make your own bar soap or even make your own liquid soap.
On the other hand, I have heard many people say that they want to avoid surfactants because they are “chemicals” or they have heard bad things about some of the more commonly used foaming anionic surfactants like SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) or SLeS (sodium laureth sulfate). The problem with some of these harsher surfactants is that they can be irritating to your skin, especially when used at high percentages. (I also make my own toothpaste to avoid SLS in toothpaste as it can cause canker sores, and my husband and I used to get them quite often.)
It is impossible to avoid all “chemicals”, of course. Even soap uses NaOH (which is what scares many people away from making it) and, well, H2O, and sometimes NaCl. But, it is also pretty much impossible to avoid all surfactants, unless you only use soap and body butters for everything. Even emulsifiers like BTMS (that I used in my homemade conditioner and roll on deodorant recipes) and really any of the more common “natural” emulsifying waxes are surfactants. (mostly cationic and non-ionic in nature). So, if you’ve ever used a lotion, a cream with water in it, a “normal” shampoo (aka. not Castile soap), a conditioner, you’ve been using surfactants of some sort or other.
I don’t want to get too far into talking about surfactants right now as that warrants a separate post, but I would like to say that surfactants are wonderful for many applications, and there are a lot of gentle, natural surfactants out there than can be used and that are great for people with sensitive skin.
Soap has a high pH, and that can be problematic for some people with sensitive skin as our skin pH is on the more acidic side. You can’t just lower the pH of liquid soaps because it will fall apart. On the other hand, surfactants can generally be lowered into a desired pH range. I personally don’t notice issues when using soap on my skin, but my hair can’t handle the high pH of soaps, which is why I’ve never shared a recipe for a “shampoo bar” as of yet. I don’t like sharing things that I don’t use and love myself!
Gentle non-ionic surfactants
I decided to begin with micellar water as an easy recipe to introduce surfactants because it is simple to make and uses a nice, gentle surfactant that should be great for all skin types. This micellar water is nourishing, and doesn’t need scrubbing or rinsing, making it great for people who are on-the-go and especially great for people with sensitive skin. (If you find it bothersome to leave traces of the product on your skin, though, you can always resort to rinsing it off, and keep using it as a super gentle alternative to cleansers with a higher concentration of surfactants.)
Non-ionic surfactants are generally quite mild cleansers and great for facial products like this one.
Nourishing additions to your DIY Micellar Water
With rinse off products, you are more likely wasting your money on adding large amounts of extracts, hydrosols, and more expensive type ingredients. Micellar water, on the other hand, isn’t normally used as a rinse off product (you could rinse it off if you wanted to, but it’s not how it’s generally used). For that reason, the ingredients you use will stay on your skin, making micellar water a great place for adding fun, nourishing ingredients.
Understanding the ingredients
I’m giving you a sample recipe that has worked well for me, but you can switch things up to use different extracts and hydrosols to suit your purposes, or just to use up whatever you have on hand. I know a lot of you like that I explain why I use certain ingredients, to help you better understand if and how you can tweak the ingredients in the recipe, so let me explain why I chose what I chose.
- Decyl Glucoside: This is the surfactant, and the active cleansing ingredient of your DIY micellar water. In my first batch, I used Coco Glucoside, a non-ionic surfactant that is considered safe and has a score of 1 on the EWG Skin Deep Database. It is a mild, foamy surfactant derived from coconuts and glucose. Decyl Glucoside appears to be the most easy to find on Amazon, and seeing as it was more readily available to more of you, I decided to make my next batch with it. It is also a glucose and coconut derived surfactant, and it also has a safe rating of 1 on the EWG scale. While Lauryl Glucoside is another very similar mild, non-ionic surfactant that you could just as easily use, but it also tends to be thicker and more opaque than the other two. It is an option, but I prefer the other two.
- Rose water: I added rose water because it’s fairly easy to find, inexpensive, and has a lovely scent and possibly anti-inflammatory properties. It works well on sensitive skin, and may help with redness, acne, eczema, etc.
- Aloe liquid: Aloe is also anti-inflammatory and healing. It may help stimulate the growth of new cells. It’s also has been known to help people successfully deal with acne, sunburns, and other skin conditions.
- Glycerin: Glycerin is a humectant, meaning that it helps draw moisture from your environment, bringing it into your skin to help hydrate it. You’ll want to keep the amount of glycerin at up to 5% of your recipe. Using more than that and it can leave your skin feeling sticky afterwards. If you are using glycerin based extracts in your micellar water, you’ll want to reduce the glycerin amount, or leave it out all together to prevent that. (If you find that even at 5%, the water is too sticky for you, you can reduce the amount to suit your taste/your skin.)
- Cucumber extract: Cucumber extract is very soothing and hydrating, and also has astringent properties that can help reduce puffy eyes. Cucumber extracts are usually glycerine based, so you could either switch it out for another glycerin based extract, or use just plain glycerin if you don’t want to use any extracts.
- Cosgard/Geogard: This is one of the few broad spectrum preservatives that is accepted for ECOCERT certified cosmetics. I like it because you only need to use at around 1% of the final concentration to preserve your product.
- Distilled water: While I guess you could boil your water first and use that, I prefer to use distilled water to protect against any unwanted microbes as well as other unknowns that can be found in tap water.
- Lactic acid: I didn’t need to add lactic acid to my micellar water, but if you were to use different ingredients, a different water, or something that may alter the pH in some way, you could add a few drops of lactic acid to bring down the pH as needed. (An ideal pH would be between 5 and 6). You can use inexpensive test strips to get an idea of the pH.
Optional additions to play with (with cons)…
- Jojoba oil: Jojoba oil is an oil soluble humectant. It helps moisturize your skin. I tried adding a few drops to the cleansing water in my first batch, and I think it helped slightly when it comes to removing oil based and other hard to remove makeups. Adding too much oil will cause a layer to form on top of the water. When I only used a few drops, it stayed pretty well suspended in the mixture, but left the water looking slightly cloudy. (Actually the pictures are from my first batch with some jojoba oil in it. The recipe below makes a very clear liquid that pretty much just looks like water.) If you wanted to add more jojoba oil, you’d have to either add some sort of solubilizer to your cleanser, or you’d have to shake it to mix it before using each time.
- Essential oils: You can potentially add essential oils for fragrance, but again, adding too much will mean that they will float on top. The surfactant we are using isn’t really a solubilizing one, so you’d have to mix the essential oils with a solubilizer before adding them into your water, if having a stable, unseparated liquid is important to you. I prefer to get a nice fragrance from the floral waters or hydrosols used.
How to make Micellar Water
DIY Micellar water
Materials
- 61 g distilled water
- 15 g rose water
- 15 g aloe juice
- 2 g cucumber extract
- 3 g glycerin
- 3 g decyl glucoside
- 1 g geogard (Also known as Cosgard) or other preservative
- lactic acid as needed to lower the pH
Instructions
- Weight out and combine together the water, rose water, aloe juice, glycerin and cucumber extract.
- While whisking, slowly add the the Decyl Glucoside, and whisk until it is fully incorporated into the other ingredients. Blending too vigorously will make a lot of foam.
- Add the preservative of choice, and whisk into the other ingredients.
- When any developed foam has settled, pour your micellar water into the dispensing bottle of your choice. Bottles with flip top caps are a convenient option for dispensing and using it.
How to use micellar water
Moisten a cotton pad or cotton cloth with the micellar water and gently wipe it across your skin. Repeat with a clear area of the cotton cloth or a new cotton pad until you see no remains of dirt or makeup coming off onto the cotton.
While it isn’t necessary to rinse your skin after using the micellar water, if it feels tight on your skin, or you don’t like the feeling it leaves, you can rinse it off after using.
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Perry
I am one of the those unlucky souls with a lot of allergies, including to palm and coconut (and other good things like soy, bananas, avocados, shea butter…) and I am sensitive enough that I react to processed derivatives, including decyl glycoside and glycerin. Do you think other nonionic surfactants like saponins would work in this recipe?
I already have an idea of how to replace the glycerin ingredients using other humectants (flax is in the running because I have it, though glycine betaine (beet) is very likely to be the better choice).
I’ve tried and liked using a licorice-based cleaner on my face but licorice can be bleaching and while I tend towards low blood pressure (and don’t need to worry), my partner has high blood pressure and I am concerned she wouldn’t be able to use licorice long term. (the extract I have still contains glycyrrhizin because I bought it to treat cold sores and that chemical is what treats cold sores.)
I am primarily looking at soapwort because I can grow it, but I know there are other saponins that could possibly be combined with it.
Also, do you think mint or the tiniest bit of Wintergreen could replace the cucumber extract? My bad luck includes reactions to cucurbites except pumpkin. (obviously a very tiny amount of Wintergreen because I prefery face to not be numb.)
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Perry,
I’m sorry to hear that!
The cucumber extract is totally optional. I just add if for freshness and scent. You can totally replace that with water. And, yes, you can add a bit of an essential oil to add scent instead. (I wouldn’t go over 1% of the recipe by weight.)
I still haven’t worked with soapwort, but, yes, you could give that a try. I’ve also bought yucca extract to use as a natural surfactant, but have to admit that I haven’t played with it yet. Even a solution made with something like soapnuts might work. That’s harder to preserve, though. The nice thing about yucca extract is that you can buy it as a liquid that is already preserved. So, you can much more comfortably work with it as if it were any of the other surfactants.
Of course, making so many changes is really making a whole new recipe, and I have no idea how it would turn out, but it’s definitely worth a shot if you want a facial cleanser that isn’t soap. (The other alternative I can think of- but with a much higher pH, of course.)
Carol
Would I be able to use this as an eyelash wash?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Carol,
Yes! I use this to take off my eye makeup. š
Carolina
Would that include being ok for eyelash extensioons?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Yes,but I’d probably ditch the glycerin if you’re using it for that. (That may include the cucumber extract if it’s glycerin based.)
I think the main things to avoid, from what I read, are oils, alcohol, and glycerin. The other ingredients are similar to the specialty eyelash washes. (At least, the two I looked at.)
Inez
I made this recipe as written and used it to wash my hair then rinsed with water afterwards. This recipe worked great! Thank you so much!!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Inez,
That’s great to hear!
Yes, it should be very mild for hair and could definitely be used as a sub for shampoo. š
You’re very welcome!
Jenna
If you were going to make a Micellar Shampoo, would you change any ingredients or would you use as is?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Jenna,
The micellar water is made with a very small amount of surfactants because it’s meant to be able to be used without needing to rinse afterward.
You could definitely try using the same ingredients, but I’d increase the amount of surfactant and decrease the amount of water.
The other difference is that this is quite liquid. People normally want something thicker to more easily apply a shampoo without using a lot of liquid. There are two ways around that. You could thicken it with some xanthan gum. (It’s easier if you mix it with some glycerin first before incorporating.) Or, you could dispense it from a foam dispenser. That would make it easier to dispense smaller amounts.
Megan
Hi! Iām so excited I ran across this recipeā¦ Thereās a lot of DIYers that have recipes out there that donāt really understand what micellar water actually is. This recipe has almost exact ingredients that are listed on the micellar water I buy at my local health food store! Good job! One questionā¦ When do you test the pH? At the very end? Before adding oils, preservatives? Thanks in advance!!! Canāt wait to make it!
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Megan,
Happy to hear it!
I actually test at the end, after adding the preservative- as that can affect the pH. I usually adjust down with lactic acid, and usually only need a few drops, if any, for most recipes. So, adding it shouldn’t affect any of the concentrations.
Louisa
Hi! Could you swap coco glucoside for decyl glucoside?
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Yes, that should be fine. It may be slightly different, but should be very similar.
Karen
I am having difficulty finding Geogard. Do you have any suggestions for a substitute?
Thank you
Tracy Ariza
Hi Karen, I now have a whole post up about natural preservatives. It should help give you ideas!
Lina
I have hypersensitive skin. After using it my skin felt tight near the eye area. Could it be the preservative? Alternatively could I skip the preservative and refrigerate it
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Lina,
The tightness may be from the surfactant drying on your skin. I doubt it is the preservative. (Which one did you use?)
I’d recommend rinsing after using it if you have sensitive skin. Some people are fine using it as a leave-on product, but that may not be the best idea for everybody. š
If you skip the preservative and refrigerate, you’d really have to be re-making this every week or so to ensure that you don’t end up with bacterial/mold growth in the product.
Mold growth is generally visible, but bacterial growth is often invisible.
Bacteria in a product can cause infections, which is especially true for people with sensitive skin. š
Ariell
Hello,sorry i might sound off topic but..i was wondering about mixing micellar water with raw honey,i was looking for an article that might talk about that,but i don’t find any,i dont know if you can say something about it..thanks in advance
Tracy Ariza
Hi Ariell,
The only problem I see with that is that honey can make the product more prone to microbial growth. It seems contrary to what you’d think because on its own honey is self-preserving and can keep for many, many years without going bad. When it gets mixed with water and other ingredients, though, that changes.
I’m not really sure what would happen. You could maybe try in a very small amount. Too much would probably make it sticky anyway. In small amounts, botanicals like plant infusions, aloe, and honey can usually keep with a preservative, but if you start to use too much, it’s much more difficult, especially with the more natural preservatives that may not be as strong. Because we are formulating at home, we aren’t likely to spend money on bacterial testing, so that’s why it’s a good idea to err on the side of caution.
Debopriya
Hi tracy !!Thank u for share this recipes bt i want to know how many days it will least??
Tracy Ariza, DDS
Hi Debopriya,
Do you mean how many doses it has? Or how long the preservative will allow it to keep?
I don’t really know the answer to the first option because I tend to make a larger batch now and both my husband and I use it, so it’s hard to calculate how long it lasts us.
As for the preservative- I like to only make enough to use within 2-3 months. While the preservative would probably be effective longer than that, I like to err on the side of caution.
Laura G.
Hey Tracy!
While I may admit that buying micellar water at the store is more convenient and inexpensive, thereās something so appealing about creating your own out of raw ingredients. Iām so pumped to make this and try it out.
Tracy Ariza
Hi Laura,
Yes, there are affordable alternatives now. I think when I first started making it, it was marketed as something very high end, probably because it sounds a bit exotic. They were all very expensive.
Still, even with the inexpensive options out there, once you have the materials you can still save money on it. The recipe is mostly water so the other raw materials will last for quite a while (and be useful for all sorts of other projects.) ?
I know what you mean, though. I often make things that are much more practical to buy, just to see if I can do it myself. (Like How to make chocolate and papadums, perhaps. hahahaha)
Have fun with it!
Yohanna
Hello Tracy! This post was incredible. Ive found a recipe that has almost the same components than yours but skips the surfactant, I tested it as a make up remover and it did the job, but as I have SCI from my solid shampoos IĀ“m wondering if it would be good to try it or not? Ive seen Decyl glucoside being sold as a liquid and the SCI is a powder, so im not sure about it.
Thanks in advance, and keep the good work!
Tracy Ariza
Hi Yohanna,
Thank you so much!
You could definitely try it out. You’d want to try try to dissolve the SCI in the water first. I’m not sure if it will need heat to get it to dissolve into it or not. I’ve worked with SCI before, but it was for making the homemade shampoo bar. In that case, I did need to melt it, but I wasn’t using water or water based ingredients.
Once dissolved (and cooled, if applicable), you could add the other ingredients.
I’d love to hear how it turns out if you try it! š
Stella
Hi Tracy,
Thanks for sharing the recipe, i wonder whether i can replace aloe juice to aloe vera gel instead ?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Stella,
Yes, you could try that. I’m not sure how much it would thicken it up, though. (Which may or may not bother you.)
It’s all about experimentation, I guess.
Bri
Hello,
I was wondering about putting this water into a foam dispenser. Do you think it will create foam as well as take off my mascara?
Tracy Ariza
Hi Bri,
Yes! I’ve actually done it and it works wonderfully!
When I get around to updating this post (I’m going through all posts little by little), I’ll be sure to add that tip! ?