The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey! 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.
The recent cold snap we’ve been enjoying in southwestern B.C. had me thinking a lot about the effects of cold on our products, especially given that most of the ingredients in my workshop have either frozen or become so cold they won’t pour out of the bottles. I got to thinking about why oils cloud…...
As you know by now, I don’t sell my products. It’s not that I lack faith in what I make – I know my products are well formulated, well preserved, and contain ingredients that offer great skin feel – but I simply don’t have time, I suck at sales, I hate being on a deadline,…...
So we’ve taken a look at a few versions of a 3-in-1 product. So you aren’t out there buying a ton of ingredients, check out the surfactant posts or the chart to see which ones will work best for your needs. Here’s the basic skeleton of the recipe I’ve been using for the last few…...
Let’s re-build this 3-in-1 product from scratch to see how we can obtain the same goals with completely different ingredients! Let’s take a look at our surfactants first, because this is the place I start every surfactant based product. I always want to include cocamidopropyl betaine at 10% or higher, and I think I’ll use…...
We had great fun last night making Christmas cards at the library. I worried we’d have a low turn-out due to the ice and snow, but we had 23 youth in the meeting room making all kinds of lovely cards! We also had fun in Yarrow on Tuesday making cards, and on Monday at the…...
Happy 1000th post! To celebrate, I’ve put together a PDF of my ten favourite recipes, those recipes I simply can’t live without, as a thank you to my lovely readers. I started this blog in late February 2009 with the goal of sharing some of the information I had gathered and a few of my…...
Yesterday we established our goals and ingredients for making a 3-in-1 body wash with a 2-in-1 shampoo/conditioner, so let’s take a look at different ingredient combinations! I’ve chosen SCI as the basis for this product. If you have dry hair, consider using SCI with stearic acid. If you have oily hair, consider using SCI without…...
Patrick asked in this post: Dumb question, tho, would there be a way to change up the shampoo/conditioner and/or the body wash, to make it an all in one wash that can be used on both hair and body parts? It’s not a dumb question! It’s a great one! And the answer is yes (with a…...
To celebrate the coming holiday season, I have decreed December shall be the month of tutorials, recipes, and gift ideas. So I pose this question to you – what interests you? What do you want to make? Do you have a new oil or exotic ingredient you’d like to use or do you want to…...
Thank you so much for the suggestions to help my beloved Blondie dog! Not a cough at all last night, and I managed to get a full night’s sleep (as did she)! As such, my mind is working well and I’m feeling like I have finally shaken this horrible flu with its aches and pains!…...