The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.
This article has been making the rounds recently and I wanted to analyze it because it is so absolutely magnificently wrong in so many ways, I thought it could be an interesting exercise in analyzing an article and having loads of chemistry fun while doing it! Article: HOW DOES GLYCERINE REACT WITH WATER? Related posts...
Before we meet a new humectant, AQUAXYL™, let’s take a look at how humectants work! Before we start… Take a look at my humungous humectants section of this site, found under the “ingredients” tab in the menu bar. What does it mean that humectants have “water binding” ability? Humectants are hygroscopic, meaning they draw water...
Welcome to what I think of as the big post on hydrolyzed proteins and amino acids, the post in which I try to address all the things you might want to know about these ingredients! We use a lot of hydrolyzed proteins around here. and I figured it was time to put together all the...
I can’t stress this enough – stearic acid is a non-ionic fatty acid that thickens anhydrous products and emulsions. It is not an anionic (negatively charged) emulsifier. Sight, I thought we’d demythified this one years and years ago, but here it is, out in the wild, messing things up again. Out there in the world...
On this site and in my e-books, I’ve been sharing diagrams of molecules to show you how their shape or composition affects the viscosity, surface tension, melting point, and other properties. I’ve realized I haven’t shared how to interpret these if you haven’t taken a chemistry class or if it’s been ages, so let’s do...