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.
In this month’s Q&A post, Gabriella asked, Hi Susan, I was wondering which is more moisturising for dry skin: an anhydrous body butter or a lotion/thick body butter with water content? Also, does the water percentage in a lotion/body butter define how moisturising they are? Is a lotion with higher or lower water % more moisturising?...
In this post, More information on calculations, Chris B from the Dish asks: I was just wondering what oils/butters you recommend adding to a lotion to make the lotion last longer on the skin? I have tried many of your formulas (love a few of them) but after about two hours, the moisturizing effect is gone...
Let’s take a look at what we’ve learned about dry skin and about formulating products for dry skin! There are links o’ plenty and I really recommend that you click on them to find out more about each topic. This is intended as a quick summary of the last month, and if you want to...
If I were to make a sugar scrub for dry skin, which ingredients would I want to include? Occlusives, emollients, and humectants! But an emulsifier scrub is an anhydrous product, so it’s hard to include things like glycerin or sodium lactate as they will come out of the product and make a mess. So what can...
I know I keep saying the same thing, but when you make a product for dry skin you want to make sure you’ve chosen appropriate occlusive ingredients – allantoin, dimethicone, or cocoa butter – along with good emollients that contain linoleic acid, gamma-linoleic acid, or conjugated linoleic acid and good humectants. You want these things...