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.
Oil soluble extracts of things we’d normally use as water soluble ingredients can add a little oomph to our oil based facial scrubs. A lot of these you’ll find are extracts in fractionated coconut oil (capric/caprylic triglycerides) or a fairly neutral oil, like sweet almond oil. Let’s take a look at a few of them...
I love my summer cooling spray. It keeps me sane over the warmer months, and makes me smell like a minty Life Saver! Let’s take a look at the basic recipe, then see if we can make it more awesome! SUPER EXTRA ALOE-Y APRES SUN SPRAYWATER PHASE90.5% aloe vera liquid2% sodium lactate COOL DOWN PHASE3%...
I know I’m always going on about only switching one ingredient when you make a product, but when I’m in the workshop, I get a little ingredient happy and tend to change a whole lot of things at once! This is kinda what happened here with this somewhat unappealing looking facial cleanser. But seriously, try...
I’ve recently discovered – and love – the oil soluble green tea extract at Brambleberry. I’ve tried it in quite a few things, and I think it makes for a lovely addition to my products. Because it’s oil soluble, we can add it to things when we can’t add water soluble extracts or powders, like...
In this post, Aicha asks: I love matcha green tea powder! Can this be used in lotion bar recipes? The short answer…no. The long answer…yes, but not the powder. Green tea powder is a fantastic addition to our products (click here for the PDF on the topic!). It’s full of catechins, anti-oxidants, caffeine, proanthocyanidins, and more,...