The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! Join Susan as she obsesses about cosmetic chemistry and other things (some possibly related to monkeys). Often strange, occasionally useful, and always worth a stop as a point of interest on your journey through the Intertron.
In this month’s Q&A, VeryBerry asked, Hi, my cream keeps splitting and I am tearing my hair out…(Literally)! I have tried EVERYTHING in my knowledge (change emulsifiers, reduce oils, etc.) to stop it from splitting but nothing works. Here is the recipe. Can you please tell me what I am doing wrong? I want to...
Yesterday, we took a look at how changes in oils and preservatives might impact a lotion. What else could be an issue here? Fragrance and essential oils aren’t inert ingredients: We know vanilla can make things brown, but it can also thin out a product thanks to the vanillin. This is why we may have...
In the November 2017 Q&A on Patreon, Marta wrote, I made your Silken Vanilla Latte Body Butter (Simusol 165) a month ago without any substitutions and followed your basic lotion-making instructions. All of my lotions emulsified with BTMS-50 have been stable (as of three months – when I began all this fun). The body butter...
Don’t be scared of lotion making! Yes, failure is a possibility, but if you start with a good recipe, use enough of an appropriate emulsifier, and follow good manufacturing processes, it’s almost a guarantee you’ll create an awesome lotion that won’t separate. Remember that a good lotion requires three things to emulsify – heat, mixing,...
As I mentioned at the start of this series, the lotions we make are oil-in-water recipes, meaning that the oil is floating in globules inside the water phase. We can also make water-in-oil recipes, meaning that the water is floating in globules inside the oil phase. For these kinds of lotions, we require different emulsifiers....