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.
The cuticle is the part of the hair that probably concerns us the most on a day to day basis. When our hair emerges from our scalp, it has about 6 to 10 layers of cuticle about 50 micrometres on a side and about 0.5 micrometres thick. The cuticle is attached to the cortex and...
I realized I wanted to share more with you about hair and potential damage and such in this series about my new favourite conditioner from the other day. I’ll share my post on my new favourite ingredient, keratin hydrolysate silox tomorrow as I wanted to share a few formulas I found from various manufacturers using...
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...
I’m writing this post a little later than I expected, but did you know they’ve figured out why our hair turns gray? (Following up from this post!) “Going gray is caused by a massive build up of hydrogen peroxide due to wear and tear of our hair follicles. The hydrogen peroxide ends up blocking the normal...
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...