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.
I know people are scared away by the idea of using sulfates of any sort in their products, but there are so many kinds of sulfates that eliminating them all together would deprive you of some awesome surfactants! When you see a surfactant with the word “sulfate” on the end, all it means the molecule...
Want to learn more about chemistry? Make: Online has created a science room with some great explanations and experiments you can do at home (although we already have some at-home experiments – we call it shampoo, conditioner, body wash, lotions, and so on!) I like their tutorials on acid-base reactions (one of my favourite things...
Carboxylates are produced by the alkaline hydrolysis or saponification of animal or vegetable fats and result from the neutralization of fatty acids. They are extremely soluble in water up to C18 (or 18 carbons), and are insoluble over C20. If you use an unsaturated oil or butter to produce these surfactants, you might see some...
Take a look at the right hand side of this blog and scroll down to where it says “links to lists”! There you’ll find pages I’ve created for general topics like oils & butters, extracts, and skin chemistry & skin types so you can find them all in one handy dandy place without having to...
I know there’s a lot of misunderstanding about surfactants – especially about SLS – so here’s a way of figuring out what type of surfactant you have! Sodium lauryl sulfate Okay, the sodium part is the cationic or positively charged ion in this surfactant. The lauryl part indicates which fatty acid was used to make...