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.
Cleansing our skin is vital, and using surfactants can irritate the heck out of any skin type, but dry skin is particularly susceptible to stripping of oils when using detergent based cleansers. You can even get away without using surfactants if you have very dry skin (my mom hasn’t used anything except water on her...
I do love SCI (sodium cocoyl isethionate). It’s creamy, it’s foamy, and it makes my skin and hair feel lovely when I’ve used it in a syndet bar or shampoo. It’s a great addition to any surfactant mix…but it’s hard to melt and it wants to be solid again. When we add it to to...
My best friend is a lucky girl – no, not because I’m her best friend, but because she has normal skin. Not too dry, not too oily, no major break-outs, and nothing to worry about but the aging process we all go through. I love formulating for her skin – I can use all kinds...
So how do we alter this recipe for the other skin types? Here’s our recipe from yesterday for dry skin…EMULSIFIED SUGAR SCRUB FOR DRY SKIN10% emulsifying wax or Polawax10% cetyl alcohol10% cocoa, sal, illipe or kokum butter10% shea butter30% soy bean oil26% olive oil1% Vitamin E2% fragrance or essential oil1% phenonip preservativeOily skin: This may...
Dry skin has some difficulty removing the top layer of cells through desquamation, leaving a white or grey look to the skin from those cells that refuse to move! We can help them along by creating a lovely occlusive, moisturizing, and exfoliating sugar scrub we can use in the shower or tub. Because we’re using...