Cleopatra was supposed to be bathed in donkey milk. Indian princesses were indulging in perfumes, an Italian princess in orange blossoms. But beauty product were available only in very small amounts. The problem seemed to be eliminated when synthetic substances could be produces. Further changes to the recipes were added: the cosmetics should be preserved for several years, affordable and still give a rich profit.
You find this situation, if you want to produce care products- additional also health problems, that seem to be associated with “new” cosmetics, but which is difficult to prove due to the long-term effects.
During research and trials with pure natural products, it is often found that, e.g. plant essences or vegetable fats have a extensive potential. But yet, one can not blindly use “something natural”: The country of origin, the method of extraction, storage etc. play a great role, but especially their purity. Too big is the temptation to stretch an expensive product with other (readily available and cheap) fabrics – and a sisyphus work to make the producers understand, that their products are becoming worthless for my recipes:
(E.g. Genuine rose water: in most cases, you get water with a rosaceous fragrance and flavor. Real rose water contains almost not enough essence: so it goes bad very quickly – or a preservation is necessary – of which alcohol is still the least problem. Sufficiently concentrated rose water doesn’t need any conservation, it can be used for extremely delicate skin, even intestine, for the eyes and as a nasal spray. All this is/can be harmful by using other rose waters.)
In the case of fats, waxes or honey, there are also great differences. This is actually true for each of raw materials: all purely natural products can differ extremely qualitatively. Therefore it’s necessary to keep the products under control and always remain in the search for reliable suppliers, where one or the other can sometimes turn out to be a “pirate”. Natural high-quality raw materials and their suppliers are like treasures (some of them even more precious than gold), not easier to discover and well-kept secrets because of the low availability. 😉