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 temperature of our ingredients is a hot topic these days, so let’s take a look at a few questions I’ve been posed in the last few weeks… If we heat carrier oils, will they go rancid quicker? Are we destroying the goodness in them? I answered this question last year in this post, but...
In the most recent what do you want to see? post, Ben writes: Hi Susan! I thought I’d ask you a simple “I want to know” request. I was wondering about the mixability of jojoba oil. Does it mix well with water, or does it need an emulsifier? What about mixing with oils? Also, beeswax for the same...
p, as always, stimulates my brain with this comment (found in this post): How does adding 1% vitamin e or rosemary oleoresin affect the shelf life of that ingredient (which is usually an oil)? And how does refrigeration affect the shelf life of our oils? For example, if I buy rosehip seed oil (a 6 month shelf...
Papi asked this question: I have a question, if we heat oils (like grapeseed) at 70˚C won’t it get rancid? And maybe we ruin some of its properties too (like evening primrose oil) or the 70˚C is the safe temperature? This is a good question because the last thing we want is to have rancid...
A few people have asked me about astringent oils lately, and the main question is “are they drying?” Allow me to recap a post from last year with a bit more detail… An astringent is actually defined as “chemical that tends to shrink or constrict body tissues, usually locally after topical medicinal application.” By definition...