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.
At least once a day, I get an e-mail from someone wanting to make a natural lotion. I tend to answer this with another question – what do you mean by natural? Infuriating, I know, answering a question with another question, but apparently that’s how I roll. After almost five years of making my own...
So we’ve tweaked the formerly six ingredient shea, soy bean, and sesame oil lotion to the point where it’s a completely different recipe…and that’s the point of this series! To tweak recipes to make them your own, to offer the skin feel and properties you want! So let’s take a look at tweaking this recipe...
If you’re reading this article from the link at Dempeaux, please do not make your own sunscreen! It is a dangerous thing to try because you have no guarantee that it will protect your skin, and this can lead to badness in the future. I will write more on this topic in the next few...
When I use aloe vera in my creations, I mean the liquid not the gel. Or you could make your own liquid with the 99X concentrated aloe vera (don’t forget to preserve it once you’ve made it). But you definitely want to use the liquid. If you don’t want to use silicones, don’t. Use an oil in...
As you’ve seen over the last two days, making some small changes in the water, cool down, and oil phases can make a big difference to our products. So let’s take a look at a few other small changes we could make. Using beeswax will make your product feel a little waxier, but used in...