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.
In this post, still learning asks: Wonderful site! I’ve been looking to understand phases in a hair conditioner and just in general. I know oils goes in the oil phase and water in the water phase. Yet, I have seen other ingredients in each phase. How do you know what goes where? Thanks. If you’re making...
Quick point of interest: I’ve written a new post on this topic with more information – Q&A: Can I make up batches of product and scent it later? How do I do that? And a disclaimer on how much fragrance oil to use in a formula! (July 11, 2022) – which adds more information to this...
Here’s an e-mail question I received from JC:I don’t know anything about chemistry, so I don’t understand the % you put for each ingredient. I’m used to read cooking recipes, where they tell you 1 teaspoon of this, 1 cup of that, but I don’t know how I would measure the % of the ingredients...
My friend Melissa once asked me why shampoos didn’t seem as harsh or bubbly as they were when we were kids. It has to do with the surfactants we use and the ingredients we use to increase mildness. In the olden days, most – if not all – products used SLS, which is considered a...
I’ve always wondered why the foamy surfactant based products we’ve made in our craft groups – bubble bath, body wash, shampoo, and facial cleansers – weren’t as thick as those I made at home. I thought it was thanks to my use of volume measurements instead of weighted measurements – yeah, I know, I tell...