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.
Boron nitride is a great addition to a lipstick at 2 to 5%. It offers slip, glide, a pearly sheen, and a little whitening that won’t morph your colours too much. It is a great adhesion ingredient, and that’s always welcome in my lip colours! A note: 1 cc = 1/5 tsp or around 7...
If you joined me yesterday, you’ll remember I was on a quest to make a Tutti Fruiti lipstick, but found it was too draggy with the titanium dioxide alone. What will make my lipstick less draggy? Ronaspheres! I added it at 6%, which worked out to 1 cc for this mixture. Tutti Fruiti matte1 tbsp...
Sometimes it’s hard to find an ideal iron oxide for the base colour of that lipstick colour to die for, so we turn to our fillers for help. (This is even harder when you consider ultramarine pink is right out!) Titanium dioxide is always my first choice for making something opaque, but often it can...
On the left – today’s ruby lipstick with iron oxides. On the right – yesterday’s ruby lip shimmer without iron oxide. You can see the colour is very similar, only today’s lipstick is much darker and doesn’t have the same glitter as yesterday’s.Creating a more opaque lipstick is as easy as adding a few ingredients...
You can easily make your own lipstick using mineral make-up ingredients like iron oxides and micas (but not chromium greens or ultramarines) and your favourite lip balm recipe. If you’ve never made a lip balm before, you have to check out this page on Majestic Mountain Sage for a basic recipe! We adapt a...