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.
My friend Ken, an herbal nutritionist, asked me about the differences between oil based and emulsified scrubs and why he would choose one over the other. The functions of the two scrubs are quite similar – they are both intended to exfoliate the skin with salt, sugar, or other scratchy things and leave behind a...
Voyageur has recently started carrying emu oil (INCI Emu Oil), so I thought I’d try it out. So what’s the big deal with this oil? It’s reported to be a good anti-inflammatory, skin cell regenerator, anti-bacterial, and non-comedogenic oil. Are these claims all true? Interestingly enough, there haven’t been a ton of studies on this oil...
I’m just curious why people seem to like grapeseed oil so much. (I’m writing this post as I’ve been receiving a lot of e-mails from people wanting to make seeking all natural products and it seems like most of them want to use grapeseed oil!) It has high levels of linoleic acid, but so do...
I know the cetearyl alcohol will keep my oils whippy, light, and not separating, so I think I’ll try a version with esters to make it feel less occlusive and less thick. I’m using my favourite ester, cetearyl ethylhexanoate, to make the product feel very light and non-greasy, and the IPM (or IPP) to increase the...
So let’s try experiment number three with cetearyl alcohol. For this experiment I used 10% cetearyl alcohol and 90% shea oil from Soapcraft (the less creamy looking one). I weighed both ingredients in a Pyrex jug and heated it until the ingredients melted. I popped the container into the freezer for about 30 minutes. When...