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 this ad last night and it caught my attention…”Pantene determined that fine hair has up to 50% less protein than thick hair, making it less durable and more prone to breakage. With fine hair’s lower damage resistance, stress from brushing and combing leads to the general deterioration in the condition of the hair.”...
I am noticing a real trend in advertising shampoos as “strengthening” your hair. (I’m looking at you L’Oreal and Herbal Essences). What exactly does this mean? How does a shampoo strengthen? Well, it doesn’t. (I kinda of covered this topic in my post on L’Oreal’s EverStrong shampoo…) Using the right kinds of surfactants in the right...
I think Spectro-Jel might be a Canadian only product, but it’s been a very effective cleanser for my skin for years (until I started making my own – but I still take it on camping trips because it’s a great no-water-necessary cleanser!) It’s a lot like the Cetaphil cleanser we looked at the other day...
I love figuring out what’s in a product and duplicating it! I’ll give you an idea of how I figure out how much is in a product when I set out to replicate it. It’s based on what I know are the usage rates of the ingredients and where they end up on the ingredient...
This is such an interesting product – you’ll see what I mean when you look at the list of ingredients… Ingredients: Water, Cetyl Alcohol, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Stearyl Alcohol, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Butylparaben. We have very low levels of surfactants, and one that is considered the most irritating of what we have available to us....