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.
An infographic on low to no shear mixers! These are ones we use to mix things for a longer period of time, like when we’re making oily gels or after an emulsion has formed and we want to hydrate the rheology modifier or add the cool down phase. As you can see in the graphic,...
Someone sent me a question asking if the heat of our ingredients – let’s say a 70°C (158°F) heated oil phase of a lotion after removing it from the heat source – could alter the weight reading on a digital scale. They said they read the heat from the containers can “create air currents which...
I thought I’d share this infographic with you to illustrate our high shear mixers! Definitely take a look at this post of you want to know why we often mix emulsions with high shear, then switch to low/no shear. And take a look at the links for other discussions we’ve had about this topic below!...
Let’s take a minute to talk about mixing as it’s such an important part of our process, but one that a lot of people don’t follow, leading to frustrating fails and lower/higher viscosity emulsions. These links are from my huge equipment section of the site, always found under the “resources” tab in the menu bar,...
In the monthly Q&A, Tami asked this question, Hi Susan, I checked out your blog posts on equipment and you mentioned you could make body butter with your Ultra Turrax T25 dispenser (IKA T 25 Digital ULTRA TURRAX® homogenizer). Also the max viscosity for this mixer is 5000 mPa.s. Isn’t body butter more viscous than...