The home of SwiftCraftyMonkey Formulating Inc.! 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.
In this post, Heidi asks…My question is this.They tell us we don’t need preservatives in soaps. Do you believe this is true? And if it is, why do we need a preservative in a solid shampoo bar (syndet)?And how about something without water like a body lotion bar? Great question! Let’s take a look at...
Don’t confuse guar gum with cationic guar gum – regular guar gum is non-ionic and does not offer any substantivity to your hair, and it’s a fine white powder, not a yellowy powder. It will, however, behave as a good thickener for our products. It’s water soluble and non-ionic, which means you can add it...
Here’s a little chemistry to start your day! Let’s take a look at colloids, hydrocolloids, and shear thinning. What is a colloid? A colloid is “a substance microscopically dispersed evenly through another substance.” It can be a gas, solid or liquid. It consists of two phases – the dispersed or internal phase and the continuous...
I finally got around to buying some cationic guar or guar hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride (sometimes listed as GuarSilk) a few weeks ago from Creations from Eden (also available at the Herbarie) and I thought I’d try it out in a few surfactant based products to see how it compares to my other cationic polymers (like polyquat...