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.
We had great fun in the workshop making a bunch of little videos about pH, pH indicators, adjusting, testing, and everything else to do with this topic. Here’s a little 2 minute video we made showing how phenolphthalein behaves when we add an acid and reduce the pH. We took a look at pH indicators...
I went into quite a bit of detail in this post – Acids, bases, and pH – oh my! Part four: Testing our products with pH meters – but thought I’d write up a quick reference post on how to adjust the pH of our products. If you want to reduce the pH or make...
This PEG-ester or polyethyleneglycol diester of fatty acids is a good thickener for a variety of surfactant blends, including sulfate free products. The white flakes are soluble in hot water, surfactants, and alcohol, and has an HLB 18.9, indicating it could be paired with a low HLB emulsifier to create lotions. good for sulfate free...
If you want to catch up on this series, please check out the pH & pH meters section of the blog by clicking the link. I thought I’d share a little more of the science of our pH meters with you as I found it really interesting! You don’t need to know this to test...
Cupuacu butter (INCI: Theobroma grandflorum seed butter) is a relative of cocoa butter, with a less greasy skin that leaves a less shiny appearance. Its melting point is more like refined shea butter at 32 ̊C to 36 ̊C (89˚F to 96.8˚F), so melts in contact with skin, which is lovely. It can be used anywhere you might...