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.
Many of our cosmeceuticals boast the inclusion of peptides, but what the heck are these things? Peptides “are short polymers of amino acids linked by peptide bonds” (from Wikipedia, picture to the left). Polypeptides are “single linear chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds”, and are generally no more than 50 amino acids...
Marketplace (CBC TV, click here to see the episode) ran an episode on Friday night all about poor labelling and those companies that try to make us think they are green, natural, or organic. I thought this would be an interesting show because I am getting so sick and tired of seeing the word “natural”...
For those of you unfamiliar with The Age of Persuasion (CBC radio, link to podcasts here), I encourage you to click on the link and download at least the first two episodes of season 5 that aired recently. The first on green marketing is absolutely fascinating and a real eye opener for anyone seeking out...
Pepha-Tight (INCI: Algae extract from Nannochloropsis oculata and pullulan) makes claims that it can protect human fibroblasts from oxidative stress, increase the formation of collagen in our skin, and promotes a long term tightening effect. Nannochloropsis oculata is a phytoplankton that contains high levels of B12. It is fermented to produce more of the good...
I need to break for an aside here on the chemistry of polysaccharides as this is coming up more and more as I research our cosmeceuticals. What are polysaccharides? They are “polymeric carbohydrate structures formed of repeating units joined together by glycosidic bonds” (from Wikipedia). We can find quite basic ones like two monosaccharides like...