Question: DIY Salicylic acid 20% peel recipe advice
EDS Skin Care Forums Forum Index » Skincare Tools & Do-It-Yourself Skincare

Wed Feb 24, 2016 1:53 pm

Hello everybody,

I want to make a 20% salicylic acid peel, but I am not 100% confident my recipe makes sense.

I bought salicylic acid powder (this one: amazon co uk/Mystic-Moments-Salicylic-Acid-Powder/dp/B00DN0KJ4Q/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8).
I bought 96% pure alcohol (not the denaturated/SD, the real one with the expensive taxes).
I have pH stripes in the range from 0-14 and a precision scale (up to 100 grams).

My first idea was this simple recipe:

And test the pH with the pH stripes.

It came to my mind though, that the pH might actually only make sense in water solutions and maybe not in pure ethanol solutions (since it measures the H+ concentration, of which there are non in ethanol).
I googled several hours and did not really reach a conclusion.

My best idea now would be to dissolve the SA in 70% ethanol/water:

Then measure the pH.

What is your opinion on this ?

I bought a 20% SA kit from amazon, and the ingridents it listed were: salicylic acid, denaturated alcohol, propylene glycol, glycerine.
It does not say about water in there, but works very well. Though they might not have listed the water, since SA is the first in the ingredients list. According to the pH stripe the pH of this kit is about 2, which makes sense.

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