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.
There are as many opinions about which oils are good for your hair as there are oils, so for the most part, it’s really up to you to decide which oils you like best for your hair. Some oils are used regularly by commercial conditioners – jojoba, avocado, sweet almond – and those are good...
Oils and butters are a great way to get extra moisturizing for your hair and scalp into a conditioner. There are tons of different oil and butter choices you can make – some of it will depend upon the goals of the conditioner, some of it will depend on what you’ve got in your workshop....
Laura posed this question: I would also be very interested to know what happens to the hair when we treat it with an oil mask for a few hours or even overnight and then wash the oil away with a shampoo. If the oil does not penetrate the hair cuticle, is there any benefit from this...
Let’s play with our extracts and oils to come up with a really decadent light facial moisturizer for someone with dry, aging, weather damaged skin. (For the post on basic facial moisturizers, click here…) Let’s start with our oils and butters. I don’t like to use butters in a facial moisturizer because it can bother...
Coumarins – found as coumaric acid – are very powerful anti-oxidants that smell like either vanilla or freshly mown hay (it’s what smells nice after clover is cut). Because of this lovely smell, it’s often used in perfumes and fragrance oils. Coumarins are good anti-inflammatories, and they reduce both oedema and redness on our skin....