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.
Raymond Nichols A random picture for a random post. My beautiful future husband being adored by two cuties! A happy Tuesday to everyone! I am counting down the days to my wedding – 19 days to go – and I’m extremely excited! (May 16th!) I have figured out how to put things in PDF form so they...
So let’s play with some Hydrovance. I’m including it in a few recipes to take the place of other humectants, specifically the summer cooling spray and apres sun spray because sodium lactate might make us sun sensitive. (Although I still include sodium lactate because I love the fact it’s in my skin naturally!) LAVENDER &...
This is my new favourite bracelet – please excuse the terrible picture as photography is not one of my strengths! Of course, it’s chemistry based. The large charm is hydrogen cyanide; the smaller crystals are oxygen with double bonds. Yeah, I get my inspiration from all kinds of places! I’m posting the handouts from class...
Hydrovance by National Starch (INCI: hydroxyethyl urea) is a moisturizing agent that can be added to your lotions and water based products at 1 to 20%. It’s hygroscopic, meaning it draws water from the atmosphere (to your skin), so we treat it as a humectant. (In studies conducted by the company, Hydrovance absorbed 82% of...
Isn’t it beautiful? This is the polyquat 7 molecule. The N+ group is what makes this a cationic – the nitrogen makes all the difference! Polyquat 7 (or Condition-eze 7, as the ISP product is known) is a cationic quaternary polymer that can be used in hair care and body care products to impart conditioning...