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.
I’m planning to share a recipe with you that contains this ingredient kera straightening and curls (INCI: Hydrolyzed Keratin & Trametes Versicolor Extract), so it seemed like a good idea to take a look at it! We’re all familiar with keratin – it’s the protein we find in our hair, skin, and nails. The hydrolyzation of it...
I’ve had quite a few of you write to ask why I don’t adjust the pH of my conditioner recipes, and the answer is simple – we don’t need to adjust the pH because it’s in the range we want. Conditioners should be acidic with a pH below 6. All the ingredients we add to...
In the post on hygral fatigue and coconut oil, I stated that oils can’t penetrate our hair shaft. I was wrong! Some oils can penetrate our hair shaft – it’s all about the size and type of molecules in the oil. When I was thinking about oils penetrating the hair shaft, for some reason I thought...
Someone mentioned the concept of hygral fatigue in a comment the other day, and I thought I’d share what I’ve learned! It’s a term used to describe the constant swelling and contracting of the hair shaft by water caused washing too frequently (or possibly absorbing water from the atmosphere). Point of interest: I’ve amended this...
I think conditioner might be the most popular topic on this site, so let’s take a few moments to learn more about it! Hair conditioner: A hair conditioner is a positively charged or cationic product. Your hair is negatively charged, and for something to be a hair conditioner, it must be positively charged to adsorb...