Welcome to the home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys)! Here you’ll find over 5,000 posts and formulas written over the past 16 years for everything from lotions, creams, and body butters to hair care products to fancy facial products filled with actives and cosmeceuticals! Enjoy the site without distractions – no ads, pop ups, sponsored posts, affiliate links, “one weird tricks” – all supported by readers like you.
I saw an ad for this line of products earlier this week, so I had to check it out. From the L’Oreal site…(and the typos are also from the L’Oreal site – tha’s and rosemay? Seriously?)For hair that needs extra strength, now there is haircare tha’s so gentle, yet so strong. The new EverStrong Sulfate-Free...
Want to learn more about chemistry? Make: Online has created a science room with some great explanations and experiments you can do at home (although we already have some at-home experiments – we call it shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotions, and so on!) I like their tutorials on acid-base reactions (one of my favourite things...
One of the biggest disputes I see in lotion making is the debate over heating and holding our ingredients before mixing the oil and water phases together. I can give you several good reasons to join the heat and hold camp if you still think it unnecessary! Whenever I make a lotion, I weigh out...
What are micelles? They are defined as “an aggregate of surfactant molecules dispersed in a liquid colloid”. So what’s a colloid? It is a type of mixture in which one substance is evenly dispersed throughout another. There’s generally two phases – the dispersed or internal phase and the continuous phase. In the case of oil-in-water...
So how do we alter this recipe for the other skin types? Here’s our recipe from yesterday for dry skin…EMULSIFIED SUGAR SCRUB FOR DRY SKIN10% emulsifying wax or Polawax10% cetyl alcohol10% cocoa, sal, illipe or kokum butter10% shea butter30% soy bean oil26% olive oil1% Vitamin E2% fragrance or essential oil1% phenonip preservativeOily skin: This may...