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.
From a post that wasn’t ready for prime time, Anonymous asked: I find a lot of my emulsions get little bit of oil leaking out after several days or even longer. Is there anything that can be done to prevent this? I never see that happening to store bought products, and those are on shelves for...
I’ve received quite a few emails lately from people wanting to know how to preserve or make their sugar or salt scrubs that contain things like aloe vera or coconut milk. I’m not sure where you’re finding these recipes, but you really can’t have a water based sugar or salt scrub! It’s all about solubility. Sugar...
I know it’s a pain to get hold of distilled water for every single crafting session, but it’s necessary! “Distilled water is water that has many of its impurities removed through distillation. Distillation involves boiling the water and then condensing the steam into a clean container.” (Click for more from Wikipedia!) In other words, distilled water...
INCI stands for International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients, which sets out how our ingredients should be named on products or through suppliers. The INCI should be the same for products all around the world, and the intention is to make it clear what we are getting in our products. A few examples…Water – INCI Water...
In this post, Julie asks: Speaking of difficulty weighing things, I’d love for you to cover this….Feather-light ingredients. I can’t figure out how to weigh my Silk Peptide. I don’t see how it could be by weight since it is so light. At 3% in a recipe I needed 5 grams of it. When I weighed...