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 can’t remember where I shared this recently, so if it was on the blog, I apologize for repeating myself, but I thought it was an important subject. This is a cetyl alcohol molecule. Each of these peaks or valleys represents a carbon molecule. To each carbon molecule, if it isn’t specified, it’s assumed...
We first met this idea when we encountered that interesting thickening clay on Sunday, February 24th, then we took a look at hydrocarbons on Monday, February 25th. Today, let’s take a look at polar oils! So what’s the deal with polar oils? “Polar oils contain heteroatoms that differ in electronegativity. This results in a dipole moment....
This came up yesterday in our post about that interesting thickening clay, so let’s recap, then take a look at hydrocarbons and polar oils! You know how oil and water don’t mix? That’s because water is polar, meaning it has a negative charge at one end and a positive charge on the other, and oils...
This is an interesting product I bought as TKB Thickening clay (INCI Quaternium-90 Sepiolite (and) Quaternium-90 Montmorillonite), to make a few things, mainly the Tarte Frxxxtion Exfoliating stick, another interesting Asian skin care stick I liked, and some highlighting drops the young women in my youth programs wanted to make, but also because apparently I need...
We need to talk about a preservatives for a bit for both the Tarte Frxxxtion stick duplication and in general. When we’re formulating, we need to evaluate every product to see which preservative will work best with it. In most of the formulas I make, I use Germall Plus liquid because it works with the...